>>9
This is close to what happened on the other side of the Atlantic--C64s, Atari STs and Amigas were much more popular than Nintendo's early consoles. And it was good, for some reason the barrier to entry of booting WorkBench, GEM, etc. eliminated most fanboys.
Speculative, but this might be why the UK has a reasonably good games development industry. It's not easy, but at least you _can_ program an Amiga if you have the inclination.