That and the SAM Coupé were kind of ridiculous, looking back, being so massively outdated at the time. In the UK, both were obviously worse for games than even the Atari ST, which was already starting to get shown up in that respect by the Amiga. (And the writing was on the wall for Amiga games too, thanks to increasingly impressive bitplane-unfriendly ALU-heavy PC games, and the SNES. And Windows 3.1 - which was actually turning out to be useful, no matter how janky - was attacking every other platform on the productivity side.)
The Amstrad and Sinclair markets kept going in the UK until 1991 or so, likewise the C64, as the machines were everywhere and so there was still a market for the games.
8-bit Acorn games dried up in 1990 (after probably last being a proper going concern in 1988 at best), but they kept producing the hardware until the early 90s because of demand for it from schools. (I have a BBC Master as part of my collection of crappy old UK 8-bit computers from the period. Manufacture date: week 47, 1989!)
The SAM Coupé was a great little machine -- I deeply regret selling mine -- but it took way too long to get to market.
I think in context with Communist Bloc improved Spectrum clones, it makes more sense. It was of course easier for companies and people over there (well, over here, for me now)_because they didn't need to worry about copyright law and could just copy the ROM.
I think there is an argument for high-end 8-bitters, and it's why the Spectrum Next exists. Because they are much easier to understand, and build, and modify, and copy, and program.
The industry rushed to 16-bit, because of the new features, but it took programmability out of owners' and users' hands.
Modern OSes are vastly, impossibly complex and people accustomed to them do not understand the virtue, indeed vital importance, of simplicity and comprehensibility.
This is why, for me, Python fails as a teaching tool for beginners. It embeds all the complexity of files handling, editors, OOPS, C output formats and so on. BASIC eliminated that. Its conceptual model was not of files and things but a much simpler and more accessible one:
You type some stuff.
No number in front? Computer does it now. Number in front? Keep it for later.
That is inspired brilliance, but the Unix weenies want pro tools for all, even for kids.
This is a common statement. It's not true. As pointed out down the comments, it was pretty much only the last 8-bit in the US market.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33925871
The rest of the world carried on making 8-bits for another decade or more.
New 8-bit machines and ranges of machines launched after in or after 1985:
• Sinclair Spectrum +2
• Sinclair Spectrum +3
• Acorn BBC Master range
• MGT SAM Coupé
• Amstrad CPC Plus range
• Amstrad PCW series
• MSX 2
• MSX 2+
• MSX Turbo-R
That's not counting 21st century reboots, of which there are hundreds.
Notably, after the collapse of Communism in Europe, the West found out about legions of enhanced ZX Spectrum clones and the like from the Warsaw Pact countries. Amazing machines with built-in floppy drives, hard disk controllers, stereo sound, improved graphics, lots more RAM (megabytes of it) and so on.
http://rk.nvg.ntnu.no/sinclair/computers/clones/russian.htm
<- pay attention to the dates column.
Some are still being made.
https://www.hackster.io/news/css-electronics-zx-nucleon-is-a...
Note this is real hardware, not FPGA emulation or anything, although some of those are amazing too.
https://github.com/UzixLS/zx-sizif-512
I know that the USA thinks that the C128 was the last new 8-bit machine, but in fact it was only about the half way point of the evolution of 8-bit home computers, and some of the more interesting machines were yet to come. Entire families of native CP/M computers that sold in the millions of units in multiple countries. Capable home games computers with amazing graphics. Powerful educational/laboratory machines that gave rise to the ARM chip.
But they weren't American, and so everyone in the USA doesn't even know that most of them existed.