Exclusive: Amiga Flame Interview with Fleecy Moss Of Amiga Inc

Amiga Flame continues on from last weeks Interview with Stuart Walker of Digital Images and follows up this week with an Amiga Flame Exclusive interview with Fleecy Moss of Amiga Inc concerning in particular the Amiga Games Market and concerns raised by the Amiga Community. 1. Amiga Inc's marketing strategy for the Next Generation of Amiga's has included the Games Market. How does Amiga Inc envisage this playing a key role in the success of the Next Generation of Amiga's? Will Amiga Inc be featuring the games side of the Amiga in any sort of advertising? The Next Generation of Amiga will see us producing a fully scalable operating system that sits on top of a reference hardware design. Amiga Inc itself does not at this point intend to produce any machines (apart from the OS5Dev machines). Instead, we will work with hardware companies to produce machines that fit into their markets, whether they be low end enhanced DVD players, games consoles, home computers, display systems, desktops, workstations or servers. Of course, we see our biggest market as being the developing digital convergence market. Simply put, this is the move towards integration of the so far separate consumer electronic devices into a single system. A good analogy is the way that many proprietary networks in the 1980s gave way to the open standard of the Internet. One of the key words in digital convergence is entertainment, and you don't get more entertaining than games. Stand alone, multiplayer, home network and internet linked, we intend to push the Amiga platform as THE BEST platform for developers and users alike. What the above should tell you however is that there may be big OEMs who will do all of their own branding and product advertising, and there will be the conventional clone makers producing home and desktop markets. We intend to make sure that "powered by Amiga" becomes the MUST HAVE product banner. So our marketing campaign will be tuned to the needs and wants of the partners who manufacture and sell Amiga products. I favour an Intel type associative model where we push to general benefits and then individual companies work off that to create their own, more focused campaigns. Make no mistake - when OS5prod and its HW is ready, there will be another BIG BANG to talk about 8-) 2. Who is in fact designing, and intending to manufacture, distribute the Next Generation of Amiga's which were announced by Jeff Jeff Schindler, Managing Director of Amiga Inc at the World Of Amiga show? OS5Prod is targeted at many markets, from console, set top box all the way up to servers and workstations. AInc does not intend to get into the HW business, apart from creating reference designs. The OS5Prod HW will be manufactured by third parties and OEMs who will build and sell their products in the same way that the PC clone business works at the present. I cannot give any names at present - they will name themselves when they see fit. However, I can say that we have interest from many companies, both existing Amiga companies and companies not normally associated with the Amiga. 3. What type of features do you think Amiga Games Developers will be able to take advantage of in the Next Generation of Amiga's? OpenGL HW acceleration Default 24 bit colour system AC3 sound USB controller support Transparent networking (home, LAN and Internet) Multiple Processors Thin API access to special features of the superchip Of course these are nothing without great development and content creation tools. We hope to see many of the art, sound and modeling packages currently available on the Amiga ported and enhanced , as well as seeing some non Amiga companies come across. One of the most important considerations for any developer, and especially so for the remaining developers is the issue of piracy. Piracy has ripped a huge gash through the Amiga market and even now continues to strangle those developers committed enough to stay with the platform. Given that we are creating a new OS, we see a great opportunity to make the new platform as pirate proof as is possible and we are working hard with the ICOA to make sure that we have a full and comprehensive anti-piracy scheme in place, hardware, software, legal and educational. People should understand that piracy is a criminal offence, not romantic or cool but just plain wrong. It has helped to bring our platform to the brink once. We will not let it happen again.

4. We have heard recently that the Next Generation of Amiga's will have some type of Games Interface, can you confirm this to be true and tell us more about this addition. The feature is actually an instance of using the personality interface, which allows developers and users to customise the whole look and feel of their products. The gaming interface is one example of this which a potential HW manufacturer was investigating. Through the personality interface, the HW manuacturer was looking at providing a console/home computer. At start up, the OS makes a check to see how it has been configured. If it has one or more joysticks and is connected to a TV then it comes up with an easy to navigate gaming front end. If it detects a keyboard, mouse and monitor, it would come up in a more traditional desktop. Of course, some games use keyboards and mice and monitors, so it was a very specific implementation, but a great example of the chameleonic nature of the new Amiga. 5. Does Amiga Inc have extensive contact with Amiga Publishers and Developers to ensure that they are kept up to date on the latest hardware developments? Is Amiga Inc in contact with Games Publishers outside of the Amiga Market, have they approached with interest or have Amiga Inc been making first contact? I am making many informal contacts with whoever I can, to break the ice, find out what they want, what they would like to see etc. The list you provided me with is very welcome as, until we get the website database up, it is hard for me to know just exactly who is left. Once the developer support scheme has been agreed, then these informal contacts will become much more formal. I am trying to provide as much information as I can to the developers without breaking any NDAs. Once these are all squared away then things will proceed in a much more professional manner. We'll still have fun though ;-) One of the great things Bill McEwan brings to the Amiga (apart from his equal love of hot food) is that he has been a key player in the software industry over the past 10 years and knows the senior ppl at many of the game, entertainment and utility companies, not just at a business level but at a personal level. From what he has told me many of these companies are just gagging at the bit 8-) 6. What is the future of PowerPC for the Amiga, do you see it as just another interim like the November Boxes or will the PowerPC accelerators work in the Next Generation of Amiga's, as many Amiga Users have spend large amounts of money on upgrading to PowerPC? The PPC co-processor cards work only with the classic Amiga machines. We have no plans for them to work in the new machines, where they would probably slow them down. We have selected our own processor, which the community refers to as the MMC/ Superchip/ V-Chip (presumably for Vapour ;-)). OS5Prod will be designed to run on this. However, the OS will be written in an open, modular way so it can be ported. Amiga Inc will only do it if there is an economic advantage. Third parties are free to offer to port it and Amiga Inc will consider their requests. 7. There is a perceived perception among many Amiga Gamers that Amiga Inc is doing very little, can you reassure us by bringing us up to speed on the time table Amiga Inc is taking? Amiga Inc is doing a lot but it is behind the scenes stuff. Technical evaluation and design, meetings with partners, basically getting all our ducks in a row. We do not intend just to bring the Amiga back AS IS but to create something that will go out there and own the computing world of the new millenium. This isn't something one company can do anymore - it requires partners, co-operation, open standards and vision. Yes, it is frustrating, and the sooner we can share the future with you all, the better. Fleecy Moss I am confident that Fleecy Moss's answers have enlightened us all to appreciate that Amiga Inc is doing its utmost to do what it can to bring the Amiga back and in the coming months their strategy will unfold and become clearer. I wish to thank Fleecy Moss of Amiga Inc for answering the questions only days after his wife gave birth to a baby daughter, it just reveals his determination to keep the Amiga Community informed Fleecy Moss also expressed to Amiga Flame that it is essential that at this time Amiga Software companies get in contact with them whether they make Games of Serious software, they want to open up talks to get those companies onto OS5Dev early to make software for the Next Generation of Amiga's. I cannot stress enough how important this is. E-mail Amiga Flame to obtain the e-mail address of Fleecy Moss at:- philipamigaflame.demon.co.uk Visit their web site at :- Amiga Inc

E-mail - philip amigaflame.demon.co.uk

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