Games you wish appeared on the Jaguar....

[Gorf]

Pete5125, i disagree with you, Checkered Flag wasnt even close to being as good or better than Virtua Racing, be it the arcade or Genesis version. I guess you havent played them in a while, Checkered Flag has too many issues, it just doesnt come close to that Sega racer.

I agree about Cybermorph, it seems like it needed just a little more time on the oven to be a truly great game. Should have been closer to Battlemorph but without the benefits of the cd media.

I would have been very happy with more updated classics, even if at the end they wouldnt have saved the Jaguar.

I dont know if Atari had the resources to pull the kind of deals Sony made with the Capcoms, Konamis, etc., but maybe Atari should have tried for a deal with a smaller, but very popular company like SNK. King of Fighters, Pulstar and Metal Slug anyone?, 2d nirvana!. Maybe even with some color pallete and slowdown improvements, thanks to the Jags superior 2d muscle when compared with the Neo Geo.

 

 

TOOLS! Jaguar lost developers due to its TOOLS! WHy? Because the Tramiels are a bunch of TOOLS

and do everything bass ackwards! If the JAguar had the assembler I have now and the C compiler

being work on at go, it would have been a big step to keeping developers around. No big name developer

is going to code from scratch when they have portable C coce. Carmack had to re-write the tools because

of this. Even he could not deal with what brainstorm put together.

 

If the tools were there, so would the developers be. Big name and all. Profits fall trying to write games

already popular from scratch when you already have C code that can be ported quickly. You can't port

C code to the new J-RISC because the compiler was a bugfest. They never made Brainstorm fix it.

IT never worked right and it certainly was'nt a specific port and took no aim at the specific features of

the J-RISC's. The only WORKING C compiler in the Jag kit was for the 68k, hence the wheel barrow full

of horrid ports and games. This is like removing sparkplugs from an engine and hoping it will preform the

same.

Edited May 29, 2008 by Gorf

[82-T/A]

The trouble is we did have a bunch of Amiga/ST coders and this is what we we rewarded with.

 

Yet another reason they should've gone with Panther release in '91 as originally planned instead of

rushing forward with Jaguar, which was still in the building/planning stages. Yeah, it was progressing

ahead of schedule...but they should've taken that opportunity to build it better, with better components,

and wait for the price of said components and manufacturing to drop, then release it later at a lower price.

 

And why do I say the ST coders thing is another reason for Panther in '91, as planned?

 

Panther apparently had a bit in common with the ST. And the ST, at the time, was still a pretty damn

impressive gaming PC.

 

At the very least they would've gotten ST ports when ST ports would've mattered, and best versions of the

16-bit console titles when that would've meant something. Yeah, Jag got some of the better ports of SNES

and Genesis games...but it was a 64-bit system according to Atari. Ports of 16-bit titles, no matter how much

better didn't have a great impact on Jag sales. In fact, I think it had a negative effect on Jag's image, and

therefore the sales.

 

 

I think it would be all too awesome to have had the Panther platform be released. I mean, imagine a system from Atari meant to compete with the Super Nintendo and the Sega Genesis? I KNOW they had a lot of awesome games from developers over seas that they could have easily ported over from the ST. And... I'm sure there would have been some other great games from in-house as well as local US publishers.

 

The only thing I wonder though is that... Atari was clearly on it's way out one way or another. There were too many blunders (unfortunately), the market had changed too drastically, and there just wasn't as much support for Atari (from developers and non-fans) to really build a quality following. That being said, I think that the Atari Panther probably would have ended up being the last system, and the Jaguar would probably never have been. In a perfect world, I'd love to see Atari come out with a new system, but I think the time for dedicated systems is nearing an end. I think most people will still want a dedicated system, but what possibly could Atari offer in today's day and age that an xBox or a PlayStation III wouldn't have? I mean, developers would much prefer programming (for one) on a system that's easily portable to a computer (99%), and second, a system that already has a following. When it comes down to business, you do what you need to do to make money, not make games for Atari when it's questionable.

[Gorf]

The Panther would have fallen flat on its face. It was'nt enough to compete with the big boys.

IT would have been a cheap Neo Geo at best. Panther also would have had NO software.

You would have never seen the Jaguar and Panther would have killed Atari in 1993, never

mind three years later.

[sd32]

The Panther would have fallen flat on its face. It was'nt enough to compete with the big boys.

IT would have been a cheap Neo Geo at best. Panther also would have had NO software.

You would have never seen the Jaguar and Panther would have killed Atari in 1993, never

mind three years later.

 

And at least with the Jag, we are still getting games released years after its demise , i doubt that would have happened with the Panther.

A little of topic, but i have a question for Gorf, or other coders who care to answer me. How good would Neo Geo games from around 1995 translate to the Jaguar taking in consideration the Jags limited RAM. I know that the Jag kicks its ass with its superior 2d specs, but my concern is memory wise. I am thinking about a game like The King of Fighters 95. Even the Saturn and PS1 struggled with their ports of this games because of RAM issues and they had about twice the amount of memory of the Jaggy. Just wondering, would appreciate the free education .

[DracIsBack]

The developers did more to destroy

the Jaguar's rep then even the Tramiels did. The trouble is we did have a bunch of

Amiga/ST coders and this is what we we rewarded with. Coders too lazy and not at

all willing to code the JAg the way the system was designed for.

 

Point taken, though that may not be limited to "lazy coders". No doubt, their employers were also skeptical of the Jaguar's success. Even a "commitment to support" does not necessarily translate into a lot of investment behind that support. Dev teams may have been small and may not have been given a lot of time to crank out product. Some of the choices may have been made by constraints of time and money placed upon the developers by the software houses that employed them.

 

4Play did a great job on Battlesphere. It was also a self-funded labour of love that they weren't looking to turn a profit on. In the Jaguar's heydey, I imagine most developers didn't have the luxery of 4Play's environment.

 

I've worked in software for a while. Like every profession, there are strong developers and weak developers. Some are pure artisans who create absolutely incredible things. You see the work and its like watching a great painter, IMO. Others always go with the way that's easiest for them to personally implement ... even if its at the expense of the user. Some are forward thinking and open up fifty other possibilities as the result of their work. Others spend more time trying to tell other teams how they should do their job than doing their own. Like every other position ... there's good and bad.

 

Regardless of the developer though, an employer that says, "we need to get this done in X about of time, so make it happen or else" can really change the implementation. I've known a few incredible developers that were essentially forced to put out crap because of choices they had to make in order to meet an unrealistic schedule.

 

The developments you're working on sound exciting. Keep 'em coming.

[DracIsBack]

they should've gone with Panther release in '91 as originally planned instead of

rushing forward with Jaguar ....

 

Hence, the Tramiels are to blame for having not one friggin' shred of market sense.

 

They should've never shortchanged Tom and Jerry with that stock 68k from the get go. They should've

at least gone 68020, if not a MIPS 3000 like in the later CoJag units.

 

Like children they were. Always ready to jump the gun.

 

Holy "Armchair CEO", Bat-Man!

 

Hindsight is always 20-20 and armchair CEOs have the benefit of looking backwards in time and reflecting upon mistakes made by others that CEOs in the moment, do not have.

[82-T/A]

Hindsight is always 20-20 and armchair CEOs have the benefit of looking backwards in time and reflecting upon mistakes made by others that CEOs in the moment, do not have.

 

 

They definitely had an up-hill battle to start with, but Trameil should have seen that Atari's computer line was dwindling and that he was going no where. I mean, he just came from Commodore that saw basically an obliteration of the entire Commodore line (including, for the most part, Amiga). Atari for a very SHORT while started to make IBM / PC Compatible computers. I recall seeing an 8088 clone made by Atari. That's where they should have focused all of their computer attention. Not necessarily build a custom and semi-proprietary machine like the Tandy (what with their specific Video and Sound capabilities). One of the things I've learned in business is that, you can be forward thinking and a revolutionary... but you must appeal to the masses if you want to make money. A lot of companies have had to learn this the hard way... Porsche, Ferrari, etc...

[spiffyone]

Look, at the time the Panther would of came out as a 32 bit system looking like a supped up 16 bit system that the SNES was creating games that lookes close to it.

 

So?

 

Better to have that in '91 than a 64 bit system in '93 that looked to many consumers like a "supped up 16-bit system" with games that looked close to SNES games due to lazy devs, bad tools, and hardware bugs that weren't ironed out (all of which were due to rushing the console onto market).

 

Panther in '91 would've been the right system at the right time. Jaguar was not the right system at the right time. It was a potentially good console released at possibly the worst time, when the market was not ready at all.

 

In '91 the "16-bit" console market was just starting to come into it's own, really. Genesis was not yet ruling the roost in the US or Europe. NES in US and Master System in Europe were still outselling Genesis/MegaDrive. In Japan, it was PC Engine, NEC's 16-bit console, that was outselling MegaDrive, but in the US and especially Europe NEC's console was a virtual still born. SNES was just released in Japan in late '90.

 

While I don't think Panther would've had a chance at all in Japan, in Europe due to the ST connection it might've been competitive with Sega's 16-bitter, and in the US it would've been very competitive as the 16-bit market had yet to take a foothold and really wouldn't until '92, tbqh.

 

Even if Panther lost to Genesis and SNES (a likelihood, tbqh) it would've most probably had a sizable nich, more sizable than the one Jaguar got later on, and thus would've put a truly finished (and probably better built) Jaguar in a far better position to grow on the size of that niche.

 

The Jag was the best option at the time,

 

No, it wasn't. Panther was. In '91, Panther was a better option than Jaguar in '93 due to the circumstances of the market in '91 being more accepting of competing products than the market in '93 for next gen hardware.

 

Again, Genesis had yet to outsell NES in the US or Master System in Europe in '91. PC Engine/TG-16 was beating NES in Japan, but was a virtual non-factor in the rest of the world. SNES had just been released in Japan. Even after it was released in the US, it still took almost a year for SNES to begin outselling NES. Gamers were just transitioning to the 16-bit gen at that point.

 

In '93, when Jag was released, however, gamers were firmly entrenched in the 16-bit generation. It was not until 1996 that the 16-bit generation was beginning to be overtaken by the next gen. That's when Playstation came into it's own, and when N64 had what was then considered to be the best launch sales ever for a game console (and Saturn started doing really well in Japan). Atari released Jaguar about a year or so too soon. And because they didn't have the built in fanbase from the 16-bit "wars", they couldn't build on anything to begin with. If Panther had been released in '91 as planned it would've at least given them a chance to build a userbase to which to market Jaguar in '94 or '95, when the hardware could be completely "finished".

 

remeber the Lynx was out in late 1989, yet being the only color 16bit system Atari had a hard time w/ the war against GameBoy. Think the lynx actualy looked 16bit and had rotation and good/descent arcade translations. Atari's biggest hurdle was getting retail outlets to sell their units.

 

The problem with Lynx was also a problem with Atari not coming to grips with the changing game market more than anything else. The Tramiel's bought the damned hardware two years before they finally decided to release it. By then Game Boy ruled the roost. Technology, at the time, was not the going factor in the handheld market. It was price, game library, and battery life, all things that Game Boy had over Lynx by the time the latter was released.

 

So Lynx was released too late. Conversely, Jaguar was released too early. The market was not yet ready for a next gen console. The 16-bit consoles were by that time firmly entrenched. Panther, in '91, could've been part of that entrenchment. Would it have won? No. Probably would've been a fight to even come in 2nd. But even coming in 3rd that gen would've given it a far larger install base than Jaguar had at the end of it's run. '91 would've been the year to launch a console for Atari. That console was Panther. Jaguar was more technically advanced, sure. But due to the fact it was rushed in '93, when the market wasn't ready for it, it really never stood a chance.

 

Their is no way that Atari would of had a chance under their bad management to win w/ a 32Bit system in early 91 when Sonic was #1, Mario was #2, and Bonk was looking like he may have a chance.

 

Again, in '91, Genesis, SNES and TG-16 were coming in behind NES and Master System in terms of world-wide sales. It wasn't until later that year (mid-92, to be exact) that sales of the 16-bitters were overtaking the consoles of the previous gen. Panther could've been part of that.

 

The Jag actualy could of succeeded as is if they would of just paid the developers so they could get finished games....look at Checkerd Flag other than horrid control and no 2 player mode for the time it was as good or better than the game it was copying VR RAcer.

 

The hell it was.

 

Take off the rose tinted glasses. Checkered Flag had a tremendous amount of lag, which is death in a racer. Virtua Racer, even on Genesis with the SVP chip, had a better frame rate. Again, Jaguar was more technologically advanced, but it was shortchanged with a rushed launch which shortchanged it in terms of CPU (Atari wanted a cheaper CPU, so used the 68k, original plans called for a 68020, a true 32-bit CPU) and dev tools (as Gorf always goes on about). Panther wouldn't have suffered any of that in '91. It was done. Dev tools were virtually the same as ST, iirc. Would've been easy for ST ports, which in '91 would've meant something. Would've been good for enhanced ports of Genesis titles as well, which, again, in '91 would've meant something. In '93 that meant squat diddly.

 

Cybermorph was good it just needed a little more tweeking to be great.....

 

And Cybermorph was originally a

Panther

game, apparently.

 

If Atari would of not wasted money launching an add-on(JAG-CD) to a system that was not a hit....spent that money getting Arcade Perfect MK, MK2, MK3, Street Fighter 2, Batman Arcade, Area 51, etc.

 

The CD unit add-on was the proper idea. CD was "it" at the time. Cartridges were on the wane.

 

But let me put it to you this way:

 

When Atari was planning the CD add-on they realized that the combined price of both the stock Jag and the CD add-on would be too high for many consumers. Hence they delayed it until late '95. Atari had wanted to release it before Playstation and Saturn's release in the US. In '94. Didn't happen. Too pricey. So they pushed it back. At the same time they were trying to develop an all in one version (Jag and Jag CD in one unit) that would've been released at $299 - 349. But they didn't get the chance.

 

Now, if Atari had waited to release Jaguar in, say, late '94, or better yet '95 as I stated, they might've actually been able to release it as a CD console from the get go at the $299-349 price range. Add to that they might've been able to actually make the console with a true 32-bit processor in place of the 16/32 68k they wound up using in '93, because in '95 a 68020 was less expensive than it was in '93. Add to that they would've shipped the console with better dev tools and ironed out the kinks in the hardware. Add to that the fact that in '95, the next gen was really just starting to get underway as opposed to '93, when consumers weren't yet ready and showed it in sales figures.

 

Add all that together and you'd see that Jaguar in '95, NOT '93 would've been the way to go. But that would mean that Atari would have needed product in the mean time. And that product was Panther in '91 as originally planned.

 

As for the games you listed...for Jag to have arcade perfect versions of Area 51 and other CoJag games it would've needed a 68020 or MIPS 3000 based processor, not the 68k it was saddled with due to the Tramiels feeling it was the financially better option. And they were right. In '92-93, it was a financially better option. But it shortchanged the console and what the RISCs could do, and in '94-95 the true 32-bit processors, whether the 020, MIPS 3000, or another Tom/Jerry-esque RISC would've been financially better as well (and more powerful to boot).

 

If Atari could of had an Arcade Perfect Mortal Kombat 3 as a Pack in w/ the system and a Arcade Stick sold it for $150 or less then the system at that point is saved.

 

See, the problem is that you're looking at short term gains. MK3 was something of a system seller, yes. But it was not a game that sustained console sales throughout a generation. It alone would not have helped console sales throughout the life time of said console. And fighters, though very popular at the time, were still niche titles. MK3 was a core gamer's type game. It was not a game that would've sold the console to casuals. And, tbqh, MK's popularity was waning when MK3 was released.

 

That game at that time was so popular that it was one of the big reasons that PS1 outsold Saturn during the 1st year...

 

And yet, again, I point out that BOTH of those consoles were outsold by Genesis and SNES that year. The 16-bit gen didn't wane until 1996. Jaguar was released 3 years prior to that.

 

The Wii at this point I don't think anyone realy cares about any other game then the Sports Pak it is the perfect game to show off the system....and at least 1/2 the people that buy the system only to have Bowling.

 

The tie in ratio, minus Wii Sports, btw, is over 4:1, which is just under the PS3 which is bought by more "core" type gamers. What this means is that even with a more casual userbase, Wii has about as good a tie in ratio as a more hard core console (casual gamers by less games on average than "core" gamers, btw). So Wii owners are doing quite a bit more than just sticking to Wii Sports. They're buying more and more games, and the 3rd parties are beginning to take notice.

[spiffyone]

Holy "Armchair CEO", Bat-Man!

 

Hindsight is always 20-20 and armchair CEOs have the benefit of looking backwards in time and reflecting upon mistakes made by others that CEOs in the moment, do not have.

 

lol

 

Very true.

 

But even experts at the time (1993) had doubts of Atari's decision making vis-a-vis Jaguar.

 

And I don't think the Tramiels didn't have the time to reflect on their decision. They just chose to ignore the market at the time.

 

The thing is I'm not just reflecting on the market at the time, I'm analyzing it based on the history of generations previous as well.

 

Each new gen has an average life span of about 5-6 years. The only one that didn't, arguably, is the true 3rd gen (Atari 5200, ColecoVision, Vectrex - the one that people lablel, erroneously, IMHO, the "latter 2nd gen") and that was due to the Crash. But each new gen averages 5-6 years. They usually don't pick up until about a year or two in, and don't hit stride until around year 3. Atari VCS didn't start acheiving really great sales until a year or two in, didn't really hit mainstream mass until year 3. NES the same (and Master System in Europe and PAL regions the same). So it wouldn't have taken a genius to figure out that in early to mid '91, a little over a year into the "16-bit" gen, the market might've been far more favorable to a new product than in '93 when the market would be firmly entrenched in that generation of gaming.

 

Jag was released too early. It was, ironically, the exact opposite of Lynx and Atari 7800 before that (both of which were released too late).

 

The Tramiels made a slew of absolutely atrocious decisions. It's inarguable. Jag in '93 was just the last one they really made at Atari.

[spiffyone]

The Panther would have fallen flat on its face.

 

Maybe. But it would've been competitive. Probably ould've had a full life cycle, evenif it had come in last. It would've all depended on how far behind it was and how sizable the niche itwould've built. I'm not saying Panther would've won. I'm just saying it would've been competitive, which is something Jaguar never was. At all.

 

Panther in '91 could've crossed the finish line at least

 

Jaguar, in '93, fell flat on it's face and landed smack dab on a metal spike. It bled out before it could cross the finish line.

 

It was'nt enough to compete with the big boys.

 

Sega wasn't a big boy at that point, Gorf. In Europe, maybe. In the US and especially Japan? Nope. Not in terms of the home console market anyway. Wouldn't be until after Sonic was released that they'd come into their own, and even then they were helped with the loosening of 3rd party support at the time.

 

NEC? Only in Japan. PC Engine/TG-16 was virtually done for in the US, and wasn't really supported at all in Europe.

 

Nintendo? Yeah, world-wide (save for Europe...EU gamers didn't really dig Nintendo), but at the time of SNES you'll recall that they lost their illegal iron grip on 3rd party developers. That, combined with market forces at the time, would've made Atari's Panthersomething of a player in the market.

 

Let me put it to you this way: PC Engine, based mainly on sales in Japan alone ended up selling around 10 million units (only around 2.5 million sold in the US, and as stated PC Engine was barely supported in Europe at all). Even if Panther had come in behind Nintendo and Sega in the US and Europe, it probably would've done better world-wide than PC Engine/TG-16 did. So perhaps over 10 million units sold world-wide. Yeah, pretty low compared to Genesis at 30 or so million and SNES with almost 50 million...but a helluva lot more than Jag ever sold.

 

IT would have been a cheap Neo Geo at best.

 

Which would've been enough for it in '91. Lot's of Neo Geo software out there.... And it (Panther) did things stock that Genesis needed the CD unit for, and SNES needed extra processors to pull off. And developers were keen to get out from under Nintendo's thumb (that's why Genesis did better than SMS did world-wide, btw).

 

Panther also would have had NO software.

 

Except most probably a slew of ST ports due to the apparent close relationship between the two. And except Trevor McFur. And Cybermorph. Both of which we pretty much know were originally in development for Panther. While they might not have been as advanced on Panther as they were on Jag...they (particularly Trevor McFur) would've been far more impressive in '91 on a 16/32 console than in '93 on a 64-bit console. Yes, Cybermorph was more impressive than Star Fox on SNES...but it wasn't as impressive as it could've been had Jaguar not been strapped with that 68k and bad tools, as you've agreed with. And that meant Jag should've been held back a while longer. That meant Panther was the better option business wise.

 

So...yeah...would've been quite a bit of software, actually. And you have to figure in the loosening of 3rd party developers in terms of console support at the time. In '91, they were looking for non-Nintendo options. By '93, the market dynamics as concerns the install base of the 16-bitters meant they had no choice. Their choice was either Sega or Nintendo, with NEC still receiving one or two games in Japan only (as TG-16 was virtually dead in the Western markets at the time). In '91, the choice was more wide open.

 

You would have never seen the Jaguar and Panther would have killed Atari in 1993, never

mind three years later.

 

I beg to differ. Market forces were more favorable to a console in '91 than they were in '93. Panther probably would've ended up with a much larger install base than Jaguar acheived.

 

Again, I'm not looking at it from a technology point of view, like you Gorf. I'm looking at it from mainly a marketing/business POV. In terms of tech, yes, Jaguar was much better than Panther, let alone Genesis, SNES, and TG-16. But it was released too soon when the market simply was not ready to move on. Thus it could never acheive enough of a sizable install base to hold off the coming consoles, which were, in fact, released at better points in time when the market was far more favorable to new consoles. In '91, the market was more favorable. Panther was ready at that point. They should've released it, as originally planned. Jag was rushed to release at the wrong time in terms of market dynamics at the time, and this unfortunately also limited it in terms of tech (68k instead of real 32-bit processor, bad dev tools, etc.).

[spiffyone]

I've taken over this topic, apparently.

[Gorf]

I've taken over this topic, apparently.

 

 

Sorry Boss.....the Panther would have looke like a desperate move on Atari's part and not a leap forward.

[spiffyone]

Again, Gorf...you're looking at it from a technology POV.

 

Look at it from a business POV.

 

Stop thinking "leap forward" technologically. Leaping forward too early causes one to fall off the cliff in business. Gotta pick your spots.

 

Atari picked a bad spot to leap forward. '93 was a bad time to release new hardware, especially advanced hardware like Jaguar. And due to them rushing release as they did, it was actually seen as more of a desperate move than you think. They rushed the hardware to get a huge jump on the next gen. Market wasn't ready. And due to the rush, neither was the hardware, really.

 

You have to agree (and you have in the past) that Jaguar probably should've been held back at least a year to iron out the kinks and take out that 68k and replace it with another RISC or at least an 020.

 

Where we differ is that I think Atari needed product on the shelf to build up a new fanbase in the mean time. That product, IMHO, was Panther in '91. Remember that the market in '91 as well was a lot of schoolboy hype. One of the reasons TG-16 didn't do well, other than NEC's own piss poor decisions in terms of marketing and games, was the peer pressure factor. School kids chided anyone who owned a TG-16 because they learned it had an 8-bit CPU and labeled it an 8-bit system (even though, as you know, this is inaccurate, as TG-16 had two 16-bit graphics related co-processors). Genesis won out early due to the "true 16-bit" label. When SNES launched, all the marketing hyped the power it held in comparison to Genesis.

 

Now, it's true that Jaguar was more powerful, much more so than any of those. It was, after all, a next gen console. But it was a next gen console released before anyone was ready. As such gamers looked at it, and shrugged, and went back to their 16-bit consoles. Devs looked at it, shrugged, and if they gave it time of day it usually meant porting over titles from the 16-bit consoles.

 

Conversely, Panther was also more powerful than Genesis and SNES. No, not nearly a powerful as Jaguar, but in '91 it would've been the right time to release a console like Panther. With some agressive marketing behind it (like Jag had, but, again, Jag had it at the wrong time) Panther could've at least won some of those schoolboy "debates". Peer pressure counts for something. And unlike Neo Geo, Gorf, Panther would've been afordable. Apparently Atari was looking at a price point of under $250, same as Jag's, but, again, at a better time. Gamers would've taken a second look at the product, something they never really did for Jaguar. Developers would've looked at it, and even if deciding to port titles over the titles would've looked and run better than their SNES and Genesis counterparts, which, again would've been judged favorable to Panther in '91 rather than how it was judged in '93 with Jaguar (highly unfavorable). Why? Jag was a next gen console. With a slew of last gen games. Not a good look. Panther would've been a current gen console with the best versions of current gen games. That would've won a lot of the power debate right there, which would've meant good marketing.

 

Can we at least agree that Jaguar was released too soon, and with a 68k that shouldn't have been there, and due to the rush release had bad tools?

[spiffyone]

And again I point out not only that TG-16/PC Engine sold 10 million world wide with virtually NO official support or sales in Europe at all, but that around 2.5 million were in the US, where the console did really poorly.

 

How many did Jag wind up selling again?

 

Oh, yeah. Far less than 2.5 million. Far, far, far, far, far less than 10 million.

 

It was feasible to enter the market in '91 with an advanced 16/32 console like Panther. It wasn't feasible to enter the market in '93 with either a "true" 32-bitter or a 64-bit console like Jaguar. Too early. Again, it's all about the market at the time.

[Gorf]

Again, Gorf...you're looking at it from a technology POV.

Look at it from a business POV.

 

I am looking at it from both. The machine was not that revolutionary to compete with those others. No one would have cared for

ports of more of the same. It did not work for the Jag, and it would not have worked for the Panther. The Jaguar was also finished

quicker than the Panther was. The panther would not have faired well at all. The Jaguar should have killed but it did not. They would

have been just as unprepared for Panther and worse. It would have had nothing over the other systems other than a nicer synth

and a few more colors. It would not have had any killer apps as Sega and Nintendo owned all those. It would not have had Tempest

2000 or any such title. The best you would have seen is arcade perfect translations which is fine for the Atari fan, but not the Mario

and Sonic fan.

 

Panther marketwise would have been preaching to the chior.

 

Atari picked a bad spot to leap forward. '93 was a bad time to release new hardware, especially advanced hardware like Jaguar. And due to them rushing release as they did, it was actually seen as more of a desperate move than you think. They rushed the hardware to get a huge jump on the next gen. Market wasn't ready. And due to the rush, neither was the hardware, really.

You have to agree (and you have in the past) that Jaguar probably should've been held back at least a year to iron out the kinks and take out that 68k and replace it with another RISC or at least an 020.

 

Atari picked the perfect time, they just blew it. Holding back the Jaguar still does not justify releasing Panther, a console that would

have gone nowhere. It was a 2D machine with more colors than anyone and an Ensonique Synth ship. The Graphics was nothing more

than a sprite engine. The Jaguar done right would have destroyed everyone. If the tools were there it would have rocked.

 

I 'm looking at history, not foward. The Jaguar failing was connecting(in my mind anyway) to the piss poor design of the

Falcon030. This machine had a killer potential to compete in the PC market. They screwed this up too. The 030 is great but with

only half the bits connectd, its a 68k with a few more instructions. This should have been a fully bussed 030. It should have

had true color graphics not that 15 bit lie mode. Most everything else was right on with the machine but the out of the box, an

already underpowered 030 was not going to lure in the main stream market. I understand compatibility was an issue, but at

that point the ST line had run its course and the Falcon should have been the next TT. More folks might have taken it more

seriously. This same mentality went into the design of the Jaguar. The coJag should have been the basis for Jaguar.

 

Where we differ is that I think Atari needed product on the shelf to build up a new fanbase in the mean time. That product, IMHO, was Panther in '91.

 

Technological thinking is essential in this argument because the Panther was nothing more than a powerful 80's arcade machine.

The Sega, Neo Geo and SNES were doing that already. The only plus of the Panther would have been the OPL. The 68k driving it

would not have helped more higher color any faster and I tell you the truth and for techincal reasons it would not have competed.

The Lynx should make this obvious to you. Superior in every way to any other hand held out there. Atari still fell flat on thier faces.

They needed a super leap and that was the Jaguar, not the Panther. Sega and Nintendo would have had new machines on the

market in months, blowing away the Panther and with TONS of 3rd party loyalty. Something Atari lost decades ago.

 

The Jaguar was the right move. The Tom and Jerry was well beyond anything of its time. The one big mistake was the 68k.

Even with shit tools, an 030 would have made a world of difference to the developers. It was the right move executed in

every idiotic way Atari could.

 

 

Remember that the market in '91 as well was a lot of schoolboy hype. One of the reasons TG-16 didn't do well, other than NEC's own piss poor decisions in terms of marketing and games, was the peer pressure factor. School kids chided anyone who owned a TG-16 because they learned it had an 8-bit CPU and labeled it an 8-bit system (even though, as you know, this is inaccurate, as TG-16 had two 16-bit graphics related co-processors). Genesis won out early due to the "true 16-bit" label. When SNES launched, all the marketing hyped the power it held in comparison to Genesis.

 

They would have pissed all over the Panther for the same exact reason they pissed all over the Jaguar. The 32 bits was the graphics

chips the CPU was still a 68k...16 bits. It would have been accused of bit hype as well. Again, power in a console is good as long as

the support is there. The Jaguar interested 300+ developers. Because these folks love Atari? Hardly...It was because the Jaguar offered

a serious leap and potential marketwise. Panther would have not even come close.

 

 

Now, it's true that Jaguar was more powerful, much more so than any of those. It was, after all, a next gen console. But it was a next gen console released before anyone was ready. As such gamers looked at it, and shrugged, and went back to their 16-bit consoles. Devs looked at it, shrugged, and if they gave it time of day it usually meant porting over titles from the 16-bit consoles.

 

Gamers would've taken a second look at the product, something they never really did for Jaguar. Developers would've looked at it,

and even if deciding to port titles over the titles would've looked and run better than their SNES and Genesis counterparts, which,

again would've been judged favorable to Panther in '91 rather than how it was judged in '93 with Jaguar (highly unfavorable). Why?

Jag was a next gen console. With a slew of last gen games. Not a good look. Panther would've been a current gen console with the

best versions of current gen games. That would've won a lot of the power debate right there, which would've meant good marketing.

 

The current gen did not need another machine and most developers would NOT have jumped aboard. The Panther was essentially an ST

with an Object processor. That is all. The market for the current gen was already saturated. No developer would have looked at Atari unless

the hardware was well beyond even PC gaming....Jaguar was...Panther? Not a chance.

 

 

Can we at least agree that Jaguar was released too soon, and with a 68k that shouldn't have been there, and due to the rush release had bad tools?

 

 

Too soon and with a 68k. It needed another RISC core instead, 2 more megs and a C compiler. Do you want to know why

the risc cant run out of main by normal means? The power trace to the MMU under the right conditions could not carry enough

current to run the MMU while trying to access instructions from main. Fix this ONE bug and even with the shit tools the development

would have been much better. Jaguar did not need a year...it needed to be a Cojag.

Edited June 5, 2008 by Gorf

[Gorf]

And again I point out not only that TG-16/PC Engine sold 10 million world wide with virtually NO official support or sales in Europe at all, but that around 2.5 million were in the US, where the console did really poorly.

 

How many did Jag wind up selling again?

 

Oh, yeah. Far less than 2.5 million. Far, far, far, far, far less than 10 million.

 

It was feasible to enter the market in '91 with an advanced 16/32 console like Panther. It wasn't feasible to enter the market in '93 with either a "true" 32-bitter or a 64-bit console like Jaguar. Too early. Again, it's all about the market at the time.

 

 

The Jaguar was the right hardware at the right time with a company completely unprepared

to handle it. The Panther would have been a monumental waste of effort all around.

[JagChris]

Pete5125, i disagree with you, Checkered Flag wasnt even close to being as good or better than Virtua Racing, be it the arcade or Genesis version. I guess you havent played them in a while, Checkered Flag has too many issues, it just doesnt come close to that Sega racer.

I agree about Cybermorph, it seems like it needed just a little more time on the oven to be a truly great game. Should have been closer to Battlemorph but without the benefits of the cd media.

I would have been very happy with more updated classics, even if at the end they wouldnt have saved the Jaguar.

I dont know if Atari had the resources to pull the kind of deals Sony made with the Capcoms, Konamis, etc., but maybe Atari should have tried for a deal with a smaller, but very popular company like SNK. King of Fighters, Pulstar and Metal Slug anyone?, 2d nirvana!. Maybe even with some color pallete and slowdown improvements, thanks to the Jags superior 2d muscle when compared with the Neo Geo.

 

 

TOOLS! Jaguar lost developers due to its TOOLS! WHy? Because the Tramiels are a bunch of TOOLS

and do everything bass ackwards! If the JAguar had the assembler I have now and the C compiler

being work on at go, it would have been a big step to keeping developers around. No big name developer

is going to code from scratch when they have portable C coce. Carmack had to re-write the tools because

of this. Even he could not deal with what brainstorm put together.

 

All these years I was under the impression Carmack built the DoomC compiler from scratch for the Jaguar. Now I realize all he had to do was retarget the existing one unless I'm missing something.

[Gorf]

Pete5125, i disagree with you, Checkered Flag wasnt even close to being as good or better than Virtua Racing, be it the arcade or Genesis version. I guess you havent played them in a while, Checkered Flag has too many issues, it just doesnt come close to that Sega racer.

I agree about Cybermorph, it seems like it needed just a little more time on the oven to be a truly great game. Should have been closer to Battlemorph but without the benefits of the cd media.

I would have been very happy with more updated classics, even if at the end they wouldnt have saved the Jaguar.

I dont know if Atari had the resources to pull the kind of deals Sony made with the Capcoms, Konamis, etc., but maybe Atari should have tried for a deal with a smaller, but very popular company like SNK. King of Fighters, Pulstar and Metal Slug anyone?, 2d nirvana!. Maybe even with some color pallete and slowdown improvements, thanks to the Jags superior 2d muscle when compared with the Neo Geo.

 

 

TOOLS! Jaguar lost developers due to its TOOLS! WHy? Because the Tramiels are a bunch of TOOLS

and do everything bass ackwards! If the JAguar had the assembler I have now and the C compiler

being work on at go, it would have been a big step to keeping developers around. No big name developer

is going to code from scratch when they have portable C coce. Carmack had to re-write the tools because

of this. Even he could not deal with what brainstorm put together.

 

All these years I was under the impression Carmack built the DoomC compiler from scratch for the Jaguar. Now I realize all he had to do was retarget the existing one unless I'm missing something.

 

I believe he retargetted the PC build for the riscs in such a way that the compiler would handle all the local

code flipping. He did not do it from scratch.

[+LS650]

One glaring omission in the Jaguar is an "Asteroids 2000".

 

I think "I Robot" would have been a great addition to the system - that game rocks.

[+remowilliams]

The Jaguar was the right hardware at the right time with a company completely unprepared

to handle it.

Atari, taking an awesome product and totally running it into the ground? Unheard of! How dare you!!

 

[JagChris]

Pete5125, i disagree with you, Checkered Flag wasnt even close to being as good or better than Virtua Racing, be it the arcade or Genesis version. I guess you havent played them in a while, Checkered Flag has too many issues, it just doesnt come close to that Sega racer.

I agree about Cybermorph, it seems like it needed just a little more time on the oven to be a truly great game. Should have been closer to Battlemorph but without the benefits of the cd media.

I would have been very happy with more updated classics, even if at the end they wouldnt have saved the Jaguar.

I dont know if Atari had the resources to pull the kind of deals Sony made with the Capcoms, Konamis, etc., but maybe Atari should have tried for a deal with a smaller, but very popular company like SNK. King of Fighters, Pulstar and Metal Slug anyone?, 2d nirvana!. Maybe even with some color pallete and slowdown improvements, thanks to the Jags superior 2d muscle when compared with the Neo Geo.

 

 

TOOLS! Jaguar lost developers due to its TOOLS! WHy? Because the Tramiels are a bunch of TOOLS

and do everything bass ackwards! If the JAguar had the assembler I have now and the C compiler

being work on at go, it would have been a big step to keeping developers around. No big name developer

is going to code from scratch when they have portable C coce. Carmack had to re-write the tools because

of this. Even he could not deal with what brainstorm put together.

 

All these years I was under the impression Carmack built the DoomC compiler from scratch for the Jaguar. Now I realize all he had to do was retarget the existing one unless I'm missing something.

 

I believe he retargetted the PC build for the riscs in such a way that the compiler would handle all the local

code flipping. He did not do it from scratch.

 

That would also imply he had to do very little actual code modification. Relatively speaking. Just retarget the compiler and recompile. I'm sure he had to trim up some stuff.

[sd32]

The Jag actualy could of succeeded as is if they would of just paid the developers so they could get finished games....look at Checkerd Flag other than horrid control and no 2 player mode for the time it was as good or better than the game it was copying VR RAcer.

 

The hell it was.

 

Take off the rose tinted glasses. Checkered Flag had a tremendous amount of lag, which is death in a racer. Virtua Racer, even on Genesis with the SVP chip, had a better frame rate. Again, Jaguar was more technologically advanced, but it was shortchanged with a rushed launch which shortchanged it in terms of CPU (Atari wanted a cheaper CPU, so used the 68k, original plans called for a 68020, a true 32-bit CPU) and dev tools (as Gorf always goes on about). Panther wouldn't have suffered any of that in '91. It was done. Dev tools were virtually the same as ST, iirc. Would've been easy for ST ports, which in '91 would've meant something. Would've been good for enhanced ports of Genesis titles as well, which, again, in '91 would've meant something. In '93 that meant squat diddly.

 

Speaking of Checkered Flag and other Jag driving games such as Club Drive. Why did developers go for flat shaded polygons, wasnt the Jaguar better at doing Gourad shaded polygons in cry mode? Or so i have read (dont even know what it exactly means), please correct me if im wrong.

[JagChris]

it's a good thing you people dont pay attention.

[Gorf]

The Jaguar was the right hardware at the right time with a company completely unprepared

to handle it.

Atari, taking an awesome product and totally running it into the ground? Unheard of! How dare you!!

 

 

 

This company has been given more chances, talent, ideas and hardware over the years that they

should still be king or at very least a contender. Instead they are a struggling software company

and not even a shadow of what they once were.

[+Sauron]

 

This company has been given more chances, talent, ideas and hardware over the years that they

should still be king or at very least a contender. Instead they are a struggling software company

and not even a shadow of what they once were.

 

It's not even the same company. The Atari that brought us all of the great products in the past died over a decade ago.