[flohofwoe]

In an alternative timeline this would have been likely.

The same engineers who worked on the Atari 8-bit home computer architecture went on to create the Amiga, which is also visible in the design decisions (e.g. the 8-bit Atari already had a display-list co-processor similar to the Amiga's Copper).

AFAIK Atari also tried to buy the Amiga company, but Commodore beat them, so Atari had to find an alternative 16-bit design that could ideally be launched ahead of the Amiga. And ironically this 16-bit design (the Atari ST) was designed by (some of) the same people who worked previously on the C64.

[cmrdporcupine]

I believe the consensus is now that the Tramiels and Shivji were already hard at work on what became the ST ("Rock bottom price" project) before Tramiel discovered the Amiga IP and went after Commodore over it. I don't think the ST was an attempt to catch up with the Amiga so much as the lawsuit with Commodore was an attempt to slow Commodore down. I'm sure they would maybe have tried to bolt Amiga tech later into the ST project if they could have, though. (Makes you wonder if the choice to exclude a Blitter from the original ST has something to do with that...)

As it was the ST beat the Amiga to market by almost a year, and had an initial sales lead until Commodore introduced the A500 and dropped the price a bunch. I know the A1000 wasn't even in the running for me when I bought my ST, it was ridiculously overpriced.

[rjsw]

Atari also had a pretty good developer programme for the ST, I don't remember any discounts being available for an Amiga.