Bill Loguidice Posted June 10, 2015 Share Posted June 10, 2015 Remember the manufactured/artificial delay UBI Soft put on the Wii-U version of Rayman Legends? They purposely screwed us and that system over, just so their other releases could play catch up. Another promise of theirs that wasn't worth a darn and one of the largest reasons I decided to sell my Wii-U. Was too fragile a time for 3rd parties to be screwing around like that and contributed to the feeling that the system wasn't going to be well supported. ha! Does remind one of the Jaguar back then. Broken promise on top of broken promises. Little consumer confidence by much of anyone besides us true Atari gluttons. That's what I think a lot of people fail to appreciate. The Rayman Legends delay on the Wii U is exactly the same as the Rayman delay on the Jaguar. Ubisoft made a pure business decision to wait to release each of those games on more platforms at the same time to maximize their investment and advertising budgets since the initial single target platforms clearly weren't going to give them a return on their investments. There simply weren't enough Jaguars sold to that point (and eventually, ever) to justify it, and, in the Wii U's case, a combination of sluggish console sales and a track record of disappointing sales of third party titles, and specifically Ubisoft titles. It's just business. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lost Dragon Posted June 10, 2015 Author Share Posted June 10, 2015 Exactly Bill a sensible delay based purely on good buisness sense (ie a platforms User Base is far too small to justify the expenses required for a single platform release at that time), does not mean a Conspiracy of any kind is involved. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JagChris Posted June 10, 2015 Share Posted June 10, 2015 Wait now you guys are saying there was a delay on the Rayman version of Jaguar? Was there or wasn't there one? Jaguar Rayman production was on a different line than the PSX/Saturn versions. They were on CD and the Jags was on cart. They wouldn't have saved anything waiting. They could have gotten a better feel for the market etc. I don't buy the 2D thing wasn't popular enough to make a difference. Rayman combined with T2K and a few others would have sold Jaguars even with a year of exclusiveness. Rayman was so successful it spawned a ton of sequels to this day. I do believe it's beaten Bubsy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lost Dragon Posted June 10, 2015 Author Share Posted June 10, 2015 @Jag Chris: Going purely off what i've read, it breaks down to this: It looks like Ubisoft had originally hoped to get Rayman out on Jaguar in time for the essential Xmas market (this based on the preview in Edge)....there then followed a delay which Ubisoft 'officially' put down to in essence learning the Jaguar hardware etc etc. From a marketing point of view, it made sense to promote game as a cross-platform one, plus from a production point of view given lead times on making cartridges, plus batch run volumes, delaying Jaguar version to allow user base to expand a bit more also makes commercial sense. What does'nt make any commercial sense to myself is why anyone would think Sony, who had little interest in 2D games when it came to promoting power of PS1, would pay to hold back a 2D game on a platform they never considered even the slightest degree of a credible threat to their own platform. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Willard Posted June 10, 2015 Share Posted June 10, 2015 Wait now you guys are saying there was a delay on the Rayman version of Jaguar? Was there or wasn't there one? Jaguar Rayman production was on a different line than the PSX/Saturn versions. They were on CD and the Jags was on cart. They wouldn't have saved anything waiting. They could have gotten a better feel for the market etc. I don't buy the 2D thing wasn't popular enough to make a difference. Rayman combined with T2K and a few others would have sold Jaguars even with a year of exclusiveness. Rayman was so successful it spawned a ton of sequels to this day. I do believe it's beaten Bubsy. Gex did not save the 3DO. Anyway. Atari didn't even seek exclusivity licenses or anything on games like Rayman or Phear. Atari just wasn't that smart about the way they handled the Jaguar. For the Jaguar to do better they would've had to have been a totally different company. Whether one or two more really good games were released on the Jaguar it couldn't save them from their own incompetence. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JagChris Posted June 10, 2015 Share Posted June 10, 2015 Gex did not save the 3DO. Anyway. Atari didn't even seek exclusivity licenses or anything on games like Rayman or Phear. Atari just wasn't that smart about the way they handled the Jaguar. For the Jaguar to do better they would've had to have been a totally different company. Whether one or two more really good games were released on the Jaguar it couldn't save them from their own incompetence. OK ONCE AGAIN I'm saying it would have made a difference. Not save them. MADE A DIFFERENCE. A year of exclusivity would have helped. I hate repeating myself. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Loguidice Posted June 10, 2015 Share Posted June 10, 2015 OK ONCE AGAIN I'm saying it would have made a difference. Not save them. MADE A DIFFERENCE. A year of exclusivity would have helped. I hate repeating myself. And once again we can debate just what difference it would have made. 100,000 more console units is almost certainly not realistic. 10,000 more console units might be reasonable. Either way, 100,000; 10,000; or something in-between, it changes nothing in terms of the platform's ultimate fate and arguably wouldn't have made a difference in terms of additional games getting released. Atari still had the same resource issues, still had the same financial struggles, still had the same competitive disadvantages, etc. It's reasonable to think that there's nothing that would have changed the Jaguar's fate (most likely just buy it a bit more time on market) other than a stellar first year, which wasn't even close to the reality. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andromeda Stardust Posted June 10, 2015 Share Posted June 10, 2015 (edited) Turbografx had at least a dozen "killer apps." It did not save it from coming in a distant 3rd. At least it's fondly remembered as a classic. By the time the 90s came along, Atari's reputation as a game company was in the toilet. So a few die-hards were playing games like Tempest 2000, etc while everyone else were experiencing rich RPGs on SNES or action brawlers, and PS1, Saturn, and N64 both threw the Jag under the bus in terms of graphics capabilities. Jag is kind of a step up from say Star Fox or Virtua Racing, but quickly got lapped by the other 5th gen consoles. Edited June 10, 2015 by stardust4ever Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KappaGuy99 Posted June 10, 2015 Share Posted June 10, 2015 (edited) Ubisoft made a pure business decision to wait to release each of those games on more platforms at the same time to maximize their investment and advertising budgets since the initial single target platforms clearly weren't going to give them a return on their investments. *This* is probably closest to the truth. Which makes me wonder if the conspiracy theorists truly have the correct target in their crosshairs... Why didn't the Tramiel family pony up the cash to Ubisoft for either an exclusivity window, or permanent exclusivity? This makes a lot of sense to me, if Sony was so anti 2D as to nearly turn down Worms. In the absence of an agreement (and money) from Atari, Ubisoft would do exactly what they did. If the Jaguar was truly the final "bet" or "hope" for the corporation, and its sole focus, it makes no sense to me for them to have not launched with, or at least later acquired, a game with a marketable "mascot" for the platform. Going to market the way they did was like betting on a lame horse. Edited June 10, 2015 by KappaGuy99 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lost Dragon Posted June 10, 2015 Author Share Posted June 10, 2015 (edited) Rolling footage of AVP sold the Jaguar to myself on day 1, i'd never seen anything like it on console. Lot of my friends bought 2nd hand Jaguars just to play Doom. Some of them also picked up Rayman, fell in love with the game mainly due to the visuals, but would it of sold the Jaguar to them?...i very much doubt it, it was just a very nice looking platformer, which reminded them of games they loved on SNES/MD etc. Had Rayman never appeared on Jaguar, it's libary would of taken even more ridicule. Had it arrived sooner, press would of simply said it's been months since Ubisoft did anything decent on Jaguar and considering they've nothing else in the pipeline, it's clear they've dropped the format in favour of.... So the sack cloth and ashes brigade of the press would simply of annouced the formats imminent death that little bit earlier i feel. Zombi U was a Wii U Ubisoft exclusive, did it do anything for Wii U's fortunes, medium or long term?. Edited June 10, 2015 by Lost Dragon 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+madman Posted June 11, 2015 Share Posted June 11, 2015 Turbografx had at least a dozen "killer apps." It did not save it from coming in a distant 3rd. At least it's fondly remembered as a classic. By the time the 90s came along, Atari's reputation as a game company was in the toilet. So a few die-hards were playing games like Tempest 2000, etc while everyone else were experiencing rich RPGs on SNES or action brawlers, and PS1, Saturn, and N64 both threw the Jag under the bus in terms of graphics capabilities. Jag is kind of a step up from say Star Fox or Virtua Racing, but quickly got lapped by the other 5th gen consoles. And let's not forget the PC-Engine was quite successful in Japan. Even casual gamers of the day remember the TG-16, I would venture to say most don't know about the Jag. I would argue against the Jag being a step up from Virtua Racing, but that's just IMO. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+save2600 Posted June 11, 2015 Share Posted June 11, 2015 Yes, there was a delay in the Jaguar version of Rayman. Some amnesia going on here. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Loguidice Posted June 11, 2015 Share Posted June 11, 2015 Regardless of what happened with the timing of the release of Rayman, Ubisoft clearly made the best business decision, ultimately selling 4 million copies on the PlayStation alone. You can put together every single Atari Jaguar console, CD add-on, and game released, and I don't think you'd reach 4 million units sold combined. Again, we weren't talking a Jaguar platform that was underperforming just a little and needed a kick from a single new game, we're talking a Jaguar platform that was struggling to sell past historically low levels for its era. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Loguidice Posted June 11, 2015 Share Posted June 11, 2015 I would argue against the Jag being a step up from Virtua Racing, but that's just IMO. I agree with you as well. The fact that it couldn't meet Virtua Racing quality was probably down to resources and developer quality though rather than hardware. I think in the right hands and with the right resources at their disposal, the Jaguar could have produced a more than respectable Virtua Racing. It's when games like Tomb Raider are brought up that it suddenly becomes fantasy land. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atlantis Posted June 11, 2015 Share Posted June 11, 2015 And let's not forget the PC-Engine was quite successful in Japan. Even casual gamers of the day remember the TG-16, I would venture to say most don't know about the Jag. I would argue against the Jag being a step up from Virtua Racing, but that's just IMO. (I know my vote don't count but) it might depend on what corner of the world you belong to. In Stockholm, Sweden, we had Jaguar on the shelves back then, but the PC-engine wasn't released here. I first saw PC-engine in a retro store in London in the year 2000, when I bought Neo AES carts there. In Sweden Jaguar was released and had a small section in video game stores in 1994, at several gaming stores (even though few bought it) next to the other system sections. So, don't count Jag out, PC-engine was also very obscure, maybe more obscure than Jag. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lost Dragon Posted June 11, 2015 Author Share Posted June 11, 2015 Rebellion were not the team to attempt a Virtua Racing game on Jaguar, but i've always wondered just who else Atari might have turned to, at that early point in the Jaguar's lifecycle, to have a crack at it. All very well crowing about who's signed up to develop on Jaguar, as Atari did, but if said development is merely along lines of porting existing SNES/MD code to Jaguar 68000 and seeing how many units Atari sold before committing to further projects..that's not going to get you very far. Plus even if you found your 'dream team', it'd boil down to usual question of developer asking for X in terms of resources, Atari saying no, we are only giving you Y, so smaller cart size, reduced budgets and we need it out by...finished or not.... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Loguidice Posted June 11, 2015 Share Posted June 11, 2015 In Sweden Jaguar was released and had a small section in video game stores in 1994, at several gaming stores (even though few bought it) next to the other system sections. So, don't count Jag out, PC-engine was also very obscure, maybe more obscure than Jag. It's not a fair comparison for the Jaguar. Even just taking the Turbo-Grafx/16 part (i.e., US only) and ignoring the far more popular PC Engine foundation (Japan), the TG-16 sold over 2 million more units than the Jaguar and had quite a few more games released, many of which did a fantastic job of tapping the system's power. Its CD add-on also sold far better than the Jaguar's unit, and again had more games available for it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Willard Posted June 11, 2015 Share Posted June 11, 2015 Rebellion were not the team to attempt a Virtua Racing game on Jaguar, but i've always wondered just who else Atari might have turned to, at that early point in the Jaguar's lifecycle, to have a crack at it. I would've liked to have seen Atari hire an established developer like Argonaut to do a flagship game for the system (whether it be a racing game or a fighting game like FX fighter). Atari were more or less rolling the dice on low-cost developers. A well regarded team with experience like Argonaut would've had the ability to plan an ambitious 2-year project that was larger in scale and that took advantage of the system. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lost Dragon Posted June 11, 2015 Author Share Posted June 11, 2015 I fully agree with idea that Argonaut were the exact type developer Atari should of gone after.Jez did wonders with ST hardware with Starglider 1+2, Argonaut were doing some impressive stuff with the Konix Multi-System, so seem ideally placed to work on Jaguar hardware, etc etc. But again it simply boils down to what Darryl Still (Atari UK PR) did tell me in an email (and people can post that 'he never said that' on other forums till the cows come home, i posted the email as it came in) that whilst Atari UK wanted Jez on-board with the Jaguar, he was 'difficult' to pin down. This in turn, leads us back not only to Jez's comments in the Edge interview, but more recent comments by likes of Martin Piper (ex-Argonaut) who i interviewed, in that Jez knew the Jaguar simply was'nt THE platform to back as it was failing at retail. Hence any inital work on even porting existing PC CD stuff, quickly abandoned, let alone original titles for, ever started. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lost Dragon Posted June 11, 2015 Author Share Posted June 11, 2015 Back on topic, another 'official' statement from Ubisoft: ' The good news is Rayman is coming soon to a Jaguar near you - - before it comes to any other system. Expect to be playing one of the most graphically eye-popping, amazingly fun and challenging platform games ever made by June. Rayman is also being developed for other next-generation systems including the PSX and the Saturn, for a summer 1995 release in Japan and release in the rest of the world as soon as those systems become available outside of the land of the rising sun. There is a PSX demo version out in Japan right now, perhaps this is where some of the confusion came from. Hope this clears things up some. Frank Slater Ubi Soft France' 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Stephen Posted June 11, 2015 Share Posted June 11, 2015 Back on topic, another 'official' statement from Ubisoft: ' The good news is Rayman is coming soon to a Jaguar near you - - before it comes to any other system. Expect to be playing one of the most graphically eye-popping, amazingly fun and challenging platform games ever made by June. Rayman is also being developed for other next-generation systems including the PSX and the Saturn, for a summer 1995 release in Japan and release in the rest of the world as soon as those systems become available outside of the land of the rising sun. There is a PSX demo version out in Japan right now, perhaps this is where some of the confusion came from. Hope this clears things up some. Frank Slater Ubi Soft France' Why do you keep bringing facts to arguments and conjecture? 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JagChris Posted June 11, 2015 Share Posted June 11, 2015 Oh yeah that clears everything up. Absolutely proves there was no coerced delay. Well case settle then. Next thread! In the end it's done and over with. Let's all agree to disagree and move onto something more interesting. This is spilt milk. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lost Dragon Posted June 11, 2015 Author Share Posted June 11, 2015 @Stephen:after much thought, wistful looks into the distance, an unlit pipe left dangling from the corner of my mouth, a clock ticked in the background etc etc (bit of scene setting-need this for any proper drama...), i debated just why i brought facts to threads like this, and 2 thoughts simply leapt like an uncaged beast into my head: 1)Everytime i quote from an interview i myself did ,or i link to one online or in a magazine from back along, there are very 'mixed' reactions... (my personal fav is that i in fact made up said quote, which usually ends with either multiple sources confirming what was claimed, or source themselves posting to confirm), so there'll be a 'reaction' of some type for sure... 2)It's a Jaguar thread, so abandon all hope... I went with Option 2, so my reply simply has to be: Spam Fritters... It's a nonsense reply, perfect for inclusion in any given Jaguar thread. :-) 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+save2600 Posted June 11, 2015 Share Posted June 11, 2015 Fritters?! I miss the corn fritters we used to get at Brown's Chicken BITD. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andromeda Stardust Posted June 12, 2015 Share Posted June 12, 2015 (edited) @Stephen:after much thought, wistful looks into the distance, an unlit pipe left dangling from the corner of my mouth, a clock ticked in the background etc etc (bit of scene setting-need this for any proper drama...), i debated just why i brought facts to threads like this, and 2 thoughts simply leapt like an uncaged beast into my head: Quite the novelist, you are! I'm gonna leave this out on the table: https://youtube.com/watch?v=KZErvASwdlU (hint: replace "Power Glove" with "Jag") Edited June 12, 2015 by stardust4ever Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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