Is the Jaguar as bad as everyone thinks?

[TwiliteZoner]

 

 

It is and it's not. Not sure if you owned a Jaguar when they were new but I did. I also owned a 7800 when they were 'new'.

 

In comparison, the 7800 got the shaft. You never saw commercials. You seldom saw print ads. New games on that system were also released on the XE and 2600 (often marked confusingly for 2600 and 7800). Games in price lists that never appeared in life. Europad controllers that never appeared in life. Games getting announced CES after CES after CES but not getting released. Not many reviews in magazines. A magazine folded after three measily issues with tips. No real third party push or effort by Atari to get one. Small cartridges. Black and white labels. Short games. Small cartrdiges. No extra hardware. That system felt like it was truly put out there to be milked to fund other businesses for Atari.

 

 

The Jaguar was different. It was the central product for Atari when it came out and it showed. It had more third party titles than any Atari system than the 2600. It had a 1-800 number you could call. it had a tip line. It had a book. It had accessories. It had ads on tv. It had print ads pretty much every month in pubs. Atari was literally spending millions (and losing millions) trying to make it a success.

 

But reality was that by then - they were like 120 people and competing against companies with hundreds of millions of dollars to spend marketing and huge developer relations programs. They didn't have a chance.

 

I am also speaking from the standpoint of an ST owner. We all know the story. Great products that fell short due to cost cutting and next to no advertising. They also chased off some talented programmers as well in the initial purge of Atari.

 

Factor this into the what if machine but I would have loved to have seen what Warner Atari in their heyday would have done with the Jaguar or 7800 or hell even the ST ahem Amiga...

[+madman]

2100 games approx. on NES/Famicom.

 

Famicom/NES same thing who cares....

Maybe if you count each game that appears on both formats twice you might get into 2000. But there's no way there are 2100 unique games across both the NES and the Famicom. What's your source?

[KidGameR186496]

Maybe if you count each game that appears on both formats twice you might get into 2000. But there's no way there are 2100 unique games across both the NES and the Famicom. What's your source?

Well,IF he counts homebrew and unlicensed games then it's somewhat close to that number.

[Ransom]

Of course, the correct answer to the OP's question is that Jaguar is bad...

 

...to the bone!

[+Gemintronic]

I bought the Jag because I wanted something different and more powerful (at the time). It succeeded in that.

 

I only stopped buying because retail stores gave up on it.

[high voltage]

Maybe if you count each game that appears on both formats twice you might get into 2000. But there's no way there are 2100 unique games across both the NES and the Famicom. What's your source?

I once read in some Nintendo magazine that the Nintendo museum in Japan has 2000+ NES games in their collection, maybe 2021 games or 2100, who cares really. Go and visit the museum if you're that bothered about it.

Edited November 30, 2016 by high voltage

[+CyranoJ]

I have one on lay by at a local store but the conclusion online seems to be the Jaguar is abysmal. I've only played Alien VS Predator, Bubsy, Flip Out and Zoop on it and honestly Bubsy is the only one I didn't like. I know Kasumi Ninja, Fight For Life and Ultra Vortek won't be 10/10 next Street Fighter etc but are they truly 3/10 fighters etc? Then again these days a lot of retro game fans seems to be just Nintendo fanboys who don't step outside their safety box of Nintendo systems except maybe a Sega Genesis so most bash the Jaguar despite never playing one

 

Do your research. Try some ROMs in an emulator. Make up your own mind.

 

Ultimately, these questions are pointless and subjective.

[+madman]

I once read in some Nintendo magazine that the Nintendo museum in Japan has 2000+ NES games in their collection, maybe 2021 games or 2100, who cares really. Go and visit the museum if you're that bothered about it.

I'm not bothered, just asking for your source to prove your number. Which you didn't do. Carry on.

[+LS650]

Here's a somewhat reliable source - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nintendo_Entertainment_System_games

Licensed games

There are a total of 713 known licensed game titles.

North America = 679

Unlicensed games

There are 182 unlicensed games in the NES library released without approval from Nintendo.

This includes both unlicenced games produced through the console's life span and home brews after console ended its life span^[10]

 

So even if you lump in homebrews, unreleased games, maybe some PAL or other region games that got missed etc, there are probably less than 1000 individual games.

 

I don't think most folks consider both PAL and NTSC to be two different releases unless there's a substantial difference in graphics and gameplay.

Edited November 30, 2016 by ls650

[+LS650]

 

Do your research. Try some ROMs in an emulator. Make up your own mind.

 

Ultimately, these questions are pointless and subjective.

 

One good (?) thing about the Jaguar - the value only seems to keep going up and up, so if you buy one and don't like it, you are sure to get back your money if you turn around and sell it.

[JagChris]

The activity in the Jag's homebrew scene for such a failed console is unprecedented, doubly so given the small size of the fan base. Is that a consequence of being the last Atari console, or due to the nature of its (ironically) relatively well-documented and easy to write for 68k 'CPU', the nature of Jag fans always wanting more to play, or all of the above? I don't have an answer, but after ignoring the Jaguar for a few years (2010-2013, which is when I should've got back into it before the price rises and JSII closing) I was amazed at the liveliness of the homebrew scene...the 'passion' of the fans hadn't subsided, nor was I surprised, lol.

The comparative lack of action in the 3DO scene, despite selling 10x more than the Jaguar, is quite a contrast.

 

The N64 homebrew scene has interesting stuff going on. That Brutal Doom is looking tight.

[JagChris]

Whoops I think that mod is for the PC.

 

Meh I think that's kinda boring. And misleading.

[JagChris]

 

And they'd be right.

Miniature Golf (1979) (Atari) (4K).pngAdventure (1980) (Atari).pngBrain Games (1978) (Atari).pngFlag Capture (1978) (Atari).pngHunt & Score - Memory Match (1978) (Atari).pngStar Ship (1977) (Atari).pngSurround (1977) (Atari).png

 

I enjoy getting my ass kicked at chess by my 2600, er FB2.

[+Gemintronic]

 

I enjoy getting my ass kicked at chess by my 2600, er FB2.

 

Why settle for getting beat on the 2600? Update/fix the 2600 emulation wrapper for the Jag and do it 64 bit style!

http://www.atarimuseum.com/videogames/consoles/jaguar/jagmenu/jagfiles.htm

[+madman]

Here's a somewhat reliable source - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nintendo_Entertainment_System_games

 

So even if you lump in homebrews, unreleased games, maybe some PAL or other region games that got missed etc, there are probably less than 1000 individual games.

 

I don't think most folks consider both PAL and NTSC to be two different releases unless there's a substantial difference in graphics and gameplay.

There this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Family_Computer_games

 

So even if you added all the Famicom games and counted the NES games that are dupes it's still shy of 2,000. I suppose if you took all those plus added the Famicom Disk games, exclusives and dupes, then you'd be around 2,000. Who knows.

[oracle_jedi]

"Is the Jaguar as bad as everyone thinks?"

Well if the Jaguar was a home computer, it would have the capabilities of the VIC20, the install base of the Aquarius, the pricing of the Lisa, and the fanboy hubris of the Mac.

[+LS650]

Why are you insulting the VIC-20?

[LianneJaguar64]

I really love the look of the Jaguar...and that controller is pretty conformable in my beefy man hands...

I also have big man hands (it's worse for me though :/ ) and I agree, this controller is great.

 

The system looks great too, and, in my opinion, has a lot of games worth getting that are 'off the beaten track', such as I War, Hover Strike, etc. It's one of my favourite systems right now.

[BillLoguidice]

This is the part where I chime in that I think the Jaguar controller is an ergonomic disaster for my regular-sized hands, but the Pro controller is superb. Too bad the Pro controller is so expensive to acquire these days.

[Clint Thompson]

This is the part where I chime in that I think the Jaguar controller is an ergonomic disaster for my regular-sized hands, but the Pro controller is superb. Too bad the Pro controller is so expensive to acquire these days.

Seriously. I was looking through the Toad Computers catalog the other day and seeing the $29 price tag new on the pros is kind of gut wrenching.

[Stage_1_Boss]

 

"Is the Jaguar as bad as everyone thinks?"

Well if the Jaguar was a home computer, it would have the capabilities of the VIC20, the install base of the Aquarius, the pricing of the Lisa, and the fanboy hubris of the Mac.

 

Hey now.. VIC-20 had Choplifter and Number Nabber Shape Grabber.. those were my jams when I was like.. 2.. or 5? I don't know, it's hard to remember stuff when you get old.

[soviet]

Tramiel for sure have the same mindset like selling computers "you sold them cheap and software will come by itself" but the console market is very different, you have to be a driver behind the games and put lots of cash on game development dev tools try to get devs on the wagon. Also not like computers people cannot dev they own software by itself and do the good old "one man software company" like old times. The jaguar if it was released as a computer maybe could have more impact i think in the ST line.

[BillLoguidice]

The jaguar if it was released as a computer maybe could have more impact i think in the ST line.

 

I disagree. By that time, it was all PC DOS/Windows compatibles (and a very small percentage Mac, of course). There was no real consumer interest/sustainable market for alternative, incompatible (aka, proprietary) platforms.

 

Atari had a reasonable, if small shot with the Jaguar in the console space (certainly greater than they would have had with a Jaguar computer, Falcon aside), but not in the way the company was financially backed or in how everything was ultimately executed. It's amazing the Jaguar lasted as long on the market as it did considering all the things against it behind the scenes.

[+madman]

I agree, the 80's were one era with plenty of different home computers, but by the time the Jag rolled around the PC was pretty much the standard at least here in the States. I'm not sure how impactful the Amiga still was in Europe as we moved into the mid 90's. I do remember a lot of the console scene BBSes were run on Amigas and had Amiga download sections too.

[spacecadet]

I finally watched Nostalgia Nerd's video on the Jag... there was a lot of stuff in there that I didn't know before. (Maybe it's common knowledge here, but I was never that into the Jag even though I owned one.) Stuff like John Carmack saying it was basically one register and a little extra cache away from being competitive with the PS1 and Saturn, which probably would have been a game changer. (No pun intended.) Or the fact that Atari almost willfully ignored developers' pleas for even basic documentation on how the system worked, leading even most devs who did make games for the system to only use the low-spec 68000 chip, ignoring Tom & Jerry.

 

A lot of the more recent homebrew games he showed in the video also looked pretty good for an early 90's system, basically similar to early N64 games. Really makes you wonder what might have happened if Atari had just done what Carmack said and also provided better documentation for the system.

 

I do still feel like there's something off-putting about the Jag's output or rendering or something... every system has kind of a distinctive look that gets associated with it, and the Jag has a really dark, kind of dingy look even in the better looking, more recent games for it. Even the more colorful platform ports from 2D systems still have a weird, high-contrast look that gives them a foreboding feeling. I don't know how much this kind of thing affects consumers and their buying patterns, but it'd be interesting to research. I do feel like it's usually the systems with the brighter, lower contrast visual output that do better in the marketplace, although that could just be coincidence. Or it might not be.