Dr Manhattan Posted July 20, 2018 Share Posted July 20, 2018 The battle of the ages is upon us! Which console will go down in history as the most maligned system to wear the Atari brand? Up until now the Atari Jaguar was easily the most hated and ridiculed console in the Atari family. It's reception by the press in the 90s was icy to say the least. It was mocked for not being a truly 64 bit system. It's toilet bowl lid CD attachment was a source of great humor. Even Sam Tramiel, Atari chairman at the time, got into the act by making some ridiculous statements against Sony and other competitors, further adding fuel to the Atari Jaguar fire. However, as time passed many people realized that the Jaguar was actually a decent system with a few stellar titles. The console has even garnered some outstanding homebrew titles. Could this new battle between the Atari Jaguar and the Atari VCS be the Jaguar's chance at redemption? Will the VCS claim the title of the most maligned and hated system to bear the Atari brand? Here's the tale of the tape. Feel free to add your own stuff: Jaguar: -Tempest 2000 -Alien VS Predator -Iron Soldier 1&2 -Rayman -Power Drive Rally -Homebrew: Rebooteroids, Total Carnage, Jeff Minter Classics Hall of Shame: Kasumi Ninja Atari VCS: -Tempest 4000 -Atari Vault -Neat 2600 Retro Controller -Potentially Superior Standard Controller -Streaming Video Services -Steam? Hall of Shame: Pretty much everyone working for this company. This is the WAR TO SETTLE THE SCORE! The RUMBLE IN THE JUNGLE! The THRILLA JUST OUTSIDE OF MANILLA! WHO WILL WIN?! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Osgeld Posted July 20, 2018 Share Posted July 20, 2018 The press was actually pretty excited about the jag and it was getting good hype ... Until they saw what was coming after it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr Manhattan Posted July 20, 2018 Share Posted July 20, 2018 The press was actually pretty excited about the jag and it was getting good hype ... Until they saw what was coming after it I remember it being viciously mocked. Constantly raising questions of it's true power. It was a subject of humor amongst both the press and the gamers at the time. Even their advertising was embarrassing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RugglesTx Posted July 20, 2018 Share Posted July 20, 2018 The Jaguar was a dismal failure back then but I think its redemmed itself pastvthd 5200 as the most craptacular Atari console of all time. Maybe the VCS will make the 5200 look good! For the record I want a 5200, not hating on it at all but overall I think its less loved than the Jaguar. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr Manhattan Posted July 20, 2018 Share Posted July 20, 2018 The Jaguar was a dismal failure back then but I think its redemmed itself pastvthd 5200 as the most craptacular Atari console of all time. Maybe the VCS will make the 5200 look good! For the record I want a 5200, not hating on it at all but overall I think its less loved than the Jaguar. I actually had to consider the 5200 before making my last post. The only reason I disqualified it was because it did have a stellar library for the time, a 2600 adapter, and a great track ball controller. It's just too bad the controller had those notorious reliability issues. Still, I don't believe the 5200 ever had the level of bad press faced by the Jaguar. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PlaysWithWolves Posted July 20, 2018 Share Posted July 20, 2018 Yay. Again with comparing consoles that exist with one that doesn't. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RugglesTx Posted July 20, 2018 Share Posted July 20, 2018 I actually had to consider the 5200 before making my last post. The only reason I disqualified it was because it did have a stellar library for the time, a 2600 adapter, and a great track ball controller. It's just too bad the controller had those notorious reliability issues. Still, I don't believe the 5200 ever had the level of bad press faced by the Jaguar. Your right, the Jaguar press was worse. Im not a fan of aggressive in your face attitude in advertising. It worked for Sega back in the war with Nintendo, but Atari failed at it. Ill get a 5200 because of the games, and that trackball does look sweet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+frankodragon Posted July 20, 2018 Share Posted July 20, 2018 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr Manhattan Posted July 20, 2018 Share Posted July 20, 2018 Does anyone remember this infamous drama from Atari's Sam Tramiel? Before the US launch of the PlayStation in 1995, head of Atari, Sam Tramiel, threatened to report Sony to the International Trade Commission if it launched the console for less than $300. Seeking to defend his own Jaguar console, he said “You can’t have the Japanese consumer paying a fattened dollar price, then subsidize the product and dump it in the United States for $249 and kill the U.S. manufacturers. It’s against the law.” Sony launched for $299 anyway. I can't speak to the veracity of Sam's claims. All I know is that he set Sony up for one of the most infamous moments in gaming history. There was much speculation about the price of Sony's new PlayStation console. The stage was set at E3 1995. Sony was holding their first press conference. A representative from the company, Steve Race, took to the stage and calmly said "$299." And the crowd went wild. It was the price that was heard around the world. In many ways Tramiel's statement helped set up this devastating punch line. Poor old Sam walked right into it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pink Posted July 20, 2018 Share Posted July 20, 2018 (edited) Does anyone remember this infamous drama from Atari's Sam Tramiel? I can't speak to the veracity of Sam's claims. All I know is that he set Sony up for one of the most infamous moments in gaming history. There was much speculation about the price of Sony's new PlayStation console. The stage was set at E3 1995. Sony was holding their first press conference. A representative from the company, Steve Race, took to the stage and calmly said "$299." And the crowd went wild. It was the price that was heard around the world. In many ways Tramiel's statement helped set up this devastating punch line. Poor old Sam walked right into it. That was after Sega had showed off the Saturn and announced it was going to be available that very day in stores for $399, well ahead of it's previously announced release date. The Sony rep walked up, just said $299, and walked off. It's considered the first time that someone officially "Won E3" It wasn't Tramiel setting the punchline up, it was Sega. They walked themselves right into it. Sega's move backfired. As a result of it launching early without letting anyone know ahead of time, games weren't ready for it, and as a result there were very little games available for it. And KB Toys wasn't included in the retailers getting it early, so they decided to boycott Sega and not sell any Saturn stuff in stores, and went out of their way to promote the Playstation. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/may/14/sega-saturn-how-one-decision-destroyed-playstations-greatest-rival Edited July 20, 2018 by Pink 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr Manhattan Posted July 20, 2018 Share Posted July 20, 2018 That was after Sega had showed off the Saturn and announced it was going to be available that very day in stores for $399, well ahead of it's previously announced release date. The Sony rep walked up, just said $299, and walked off. It's considered the first time that someone officially "Won E3" Sega's move backfired. As a result of it launching early without letting anyone know ahead of time, games weren't ready for it, and as a result there were very little games available for it. And KB Toys wasn't included in the retailers getting it early, so they decided to boycott Sega and not sell any Saturn stuff in stores, and went out of their way to promote the Playstation. I remember all of this drama. I also remember the infamous "stealth launch" of the Sega Saturn. I walked into a Babbage's one day and there it was. Honestly I was kinda pissed. I had just purchased a 32x some months earlier. I was also working for a company owned by Sony right before the launch of the PlayStation. It was a small production company located on the Santa Monica Airport. It was my first big college gig. I only took the job because we were being promised a free PlayStation. I barely lasted 2 weeks. It was one of the the worst jobs I ever had. With that said, the hype for the PlayStation in the company was insane. People thought it was the second coming. While some people gave the next Nintendo system some consideration, the Saturn and the Jaguar were both seen as DOA. Honestly though, I wanted all these consoles even though as a broke college kid I definitely did not have the money. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pink Posted July 20, 2018 Share Posted July 20, 2018 (edited) I remember all of this drama. I also remember the infamous "stealth launch" of the Sega Saturn. I walked into a Babbage's one day and there it was. Honestly I was kinda pissed. I had just purchased a 32x some months earlier. I was also working for a company owned by Sony right before the launch of the PlayStation. It was a small production company located on the Santa Monica Airport. It was my first big college gig. I only took the job because we were being promised a free PlayStation. I barely lasted 2 weeks. It was one of the the worst jobs I ever had. With that said, the hype for the PlayStation in the company was insane. People thought it was the second coming. While some people gave the next Nintendo system some consideration, the Saturn and the Jaguar were both seen as DOA. Honestly though, I wanted all these consoles even though as a broke college kid I definitely did not have the money. Nice! I gotta love the Saturn ads were Sega is trash talking the Playstation. That "Play Thing" outsold the Saturn by an 11:1 ratio hahahahahaha I'm too young to remember the PS1 launch, but I remember the PS2 launch fairly well and all the hype surrounding it, and also vaguely the Dreamcast. Remember seeing the Dreamcasts in Sears right around release and wanting one badly as a 7 year old. Sony entered right at the perfect time. Both Nintendo and Sega had shot themselves in the foot. Nintendo's decision to go with expensive cartridges hurt them. As a result Squaresoft couldn't release Final Fantasy VII on the N64 as it was way too large to fit on the cartridge and the Saturn wasn't capable of running it either so it become a Playstation exclusive and helped the PlayStation immensely early in it's life when it got released in 1997. One other thing I admired what Sony did, is they wanted the PlayStation to be as easy as possible for developers to develop games for, unlike the Saturn and the Jaguar which were extremely difficult, and they got the dev kits into developers hands extremely early and allowed them plenty of time to play around with them and get used to it. Sony played their cards right, and also had the luxury of both the major players at the time (Nintendo & Sega) shooting themselves in the foot. Edited July 20, 2018 by Pink 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RugglesTx Posted July 20, 2018 Share Posted July 20, 2018 Nice! I gotta love the Saturn ads were Sega is trash talking the Playstation. That "Play Thing" outsold the Saturn by an 11:1 ratio hahahahahaha https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUnF_LFrC1w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xU3ZjJ-XWxo I'm too young to remember the PS1 launch, but I remember the PS2 launch fairly well and all the hype surrounding it, and also vaguely the Dreamcast. Remember seeing the Dreamcasts in Sears right around release and wanting one badly as a 7 year old. Sony entered right at the perfect time. Both Nintendo and Sega had shot themselves in the foot. Nintendo's decision to go with expensive cartridges hurt them. As a result Squaresoft couldn't release Final Fantasy VII on the N64 as it was way too large to fit on the cartridge and the Saturn wasn't capable of running it either so it become a Playstation exclusive and helped the PlayStation immensely early in it's life when it got released in 1997. One other thing I admired what Sony did, is they wanted the PlayStation to be as easy as possible for developers to develop games for, unlike the Saturn and the Jaguar which were extremely difficult, and they got the dev kits into developers hands extremely early and allowed them plenty of time to play around with them and get used to it. Sony played their cards right, and also had the luxury of both the major players at the time (Nintendo & Sega) shooting themselves in the foot. Ahhh the Dreamcast, the greatest of all the failed consoles IMO. And home to the greatest video game ever, Shenmue! Worth owning a DC just for that jewel! The remakes of Part 1 and 2 come out next month. :0 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SIO2 Posted July 20, 2018 Share Posted July 20, 2018 Strange how things turn out. I hated PS1 and loved my Saturn. But if Sony had not succeeded we wouldn't have the mighty PS4. So, it all works out in the end. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andromeda Stardust Posted July 20, 2018 Share Posted July 20, 2018 While I am weary of the AVCS. I do believe that they will be somewhere in between. I do think they will deliver something to the backers. Exactly why i only backed the stick. The vcs will be dead on arrival from a support standpoint but might be a great linux emulation box with a lot more muscle than raspberry pi. The joystick is low risk and if it turns out i threw 33 bucks into a dumpster fire, i can live with that. The modern controller will likel be a rebranded clone or suck like the ouya. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pink Posted July 20, 2018 Share Posted July 20, 2018 (edited) Strange how things turn out. I hated PS1 and loved my Saturn. But if Sony had not succeeded we wouldn't have the mighty PS4. So, it all works out in the end. I love my Saturn too for the things it does have and does well (Lots of fighters and shmups) The big issue is trying to collect for it for anyone who got into it the past 10 or 15 years, a huge chunk of the stuff worth playing is insanely expensive (such as Panzer Dragoon Saga or Shining Force III) or is an import, or both an import AND insanely expensive (Like Radiant Silvergun) Fortunately playing imports is ridiculously simple, just get an action replay cartridge for like $20-30 and just pop it into the cartridge slot. If I would of been the age I am now back in 1997 and had the job I have now in 2018, I would of had a massive field day amassing a large Saturn library when stores were clearancing stuff out for dirt cheap (Same thing with the Dreamcast, and the Jaguar) With that being said, while the Saturn does have plenty of great games in it's library, as a whole it's not even close to the Playstation, and if I would of had the choice of getting only 1 console back anytime between 1995-1997, theres no chance I would of chose the Saturn over the Playstation. That being said, the Saturn was on the market for a significantly smaller amount of time, and it wasn't capable of running a lot of the games the Playstation could. Edited July 20, 2018 by Pink Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flojomojo Posted July 20, 2018 Share Posted July 20, 2018 Yay. Again with comparing consoles that exist with one that doesn't. I think we're all just having fun here. One flopped 25 years ago and still has a few fans who swear by it, the other isn't even out yet and has a few fans who will defend it to the death for some reason. The vast majority of the public doesn't care or thinks Atari is old and silly. We're also comparing AtariBox to Mexican fast food, which is unappreciated by a different group of people. Your right, the Jaguar press was worse. Im not a fan of aggressive in your face attitude in advertising. It worked for Sega back in the war with Nintendo, but Atari failed at it. Ill get a 5200 because of the games, and that trackball does look sweet. The press was so different back then. Conferences really mattered, print coverage really mattered, print and television advertising mattered too. Are there television or magazine advertisements for Fortnite, which earned a billion dollars in less than a year? I honestly wouldn't know, I wouldn't have run into them personally. Hardware development was different back then, too. A console platform like the Jaguar required a lot of specific engineering and development. The 2019 VCS is an off-the-shelf, non-upgradeable PC running a "heavily modified" (we'll see about that) Linux kernel and the hopes and prayers that existing Linux software will be sufficient to entice people to buy. They're not comparable at all, except for the giggles. Enthusiasts of the low-end PC scene would do better to check out Lon.TV than anything coming out of the shambling corpse wearing the skin of Atari. Seriously, Lon Seidman is great at what he does, and you're likely to find something way better than AtariBox by watching his videos. Does anyone remember this infamous drama from Atari's Sam Tramiel? I remember when he said that, but I can't recall exactly where or when he talked about how Sony's moves being "illegal." Total wishful thinking, with the same whiff of bullshit as Next Generation Issue 4, in which he talks about how Jaguar will have a voice modem and a VR headset, in addition to the CD-ROM attachment. There's a bunch of 1994-era Atari stuff in this issue, but the Tramiel interview is the worst of it, especially in hindsight. Maybe he really wanted it to happen. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pacman000 Posted July 20, 2018 Share Posted July 20, 2018 It was in Next Generation. Sony dropped the S-Video port on the US PS1, so they were technically selling a different system from the one in Japan, which meant Atari couldn't sue them for dumping. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pacman000 Posted July 20, 2018 Share Posted July 20, 2018 Atari was working on that stuff. Where else would the $9 million R&D budget go? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pacman000 Posted July 20, 2018 Share Posted July 20, 2018 Sam was talking to the wrong group of people; gamers want games; investors want to hear about returns on those games. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andromeda Stardust Posted July 20, 2018 Share Posted July 20, 2018 Nice! I gotta love the Saturn ads were Sega is trash talking the Playstation. That "Play Thing" outsold the Saturn by an 11:1 ratio hahahahahaha I'm too young to remember the PS1 launch, but I remember the PS2 launch fairly well and all the hype surrounding it, and also vaguely the Dreamcast. Remember seeing the Dreamcasts in Sears right around release and wanting one badly as a 7 year old. Sony entered right at the perfect time. Both Nintendo and Sega had shot themselves in the foot. Nintendo's decision to go with expensive cartridges hurt them. As a result Squaresoft couldn't release Final Fantasy VII on the N64 as it was way too large to fit on the cartridge and the Saturn wasn't capable of running it either so it become a Playstation exclusive and helped the PlayStation immensely early in it's life when it got released in 1997. One other thing I admired what Sony did, is they wanted the PlayStation to be as easy as possible for developers to develop games for, unlike the Saturn and the Jaguar which were extremely difficult, and they got the dev kits into developers hands extremely early and allowed them plenty of time to play around with them and get used to it. Sony played their cards right, and also had the luxury of both the major players at the time (Nintendo & Sega) shooting themselves in the foot. i dont think nintendo shot themselves in the foot with carts. They think outside the box. Just look at switch cards. Its doing great right now. The zero load times and durabilty of the cart media makes the n64 a great system to collect for. The ps1 load times were awful, though it improved somewhat with ps2s faster drive and ps1 b/c. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
godslabrat Posted July 20, 2018 Share Posted July 20, 2018 i dont think nintendo shot themselves in the foot with carts. They think outside the box. Just look at switch cards. Its doing great right now. The zero load times and durabilty of the cart media makes the n64 a great system to collect for. The ps1 load times were awful, though it improved somewhat with ps2s faster drive and ps1 b/c. All good points, but there's a world of difference between what makes a system desirable 20 years later, to collectors, and what makes it appealing at its prime. Nintendo lost a lot of confidence with carts because of the limited storage compared to CDs (objective fact) and the fact that the public saw CDs as good and carts as bad (subjective bias). Even at the time, I was a fan of carts over CDs, but the wind was definitely blowing the other way at the time. In hindsight, Nintendo probably would have been better off going with discs, not for any technical reason, but because they lost so much credibility by not doing that. As for the switch, I think it's a different era now... no one media has the allure of being "the best". 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dj_convoy Posted July 20, 2018 Share Posted July 20, 2018 Sam was talking to the wrong group of people; gamers want games; investors want to hear about returns on those games. A lesson that apparently never gets fully understood. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flojomojo Posted July 20, 2018 Share Posted July 20, 2018 In hindsight, Nintendo probably would have been better off going with discs, not for any technical reason, but because they lost so much credibility by not doing that. As for the switch, I think it's a different era now... no one media has the allure of being "the best". Gosh, I really don't know ... I love how tidy and economical Mario 64 and Zelda Ocarina of Time are. Could you imagine if they were stuffed up with silly cutscenes like disc games? The weird controller and fast (if expensive, and limited) cartridges made N64 feel very different from PSOne and Saturn. I like it when Nintendo is the oddball doing its own thing in interesting ways. Many people would say not getting Square and Final Fantasy VII was the end of their good relationships with third parties. I think that's overstated -- mainly because I think FF7 is overrated -- but I'm sure if you add up enough stuff like that, Psygnosis, Crystal Dynamics, and other big dogs who went CD-only, it's easy to sympathize with the argument. This is still That Ataribox thread, right? How come no one is bitching about the absence of physical media on it, like they do with every other thread where discs and cartridges are mentioned? Are they holding out hope that Tempest 4000 will come out on a limited edition wooden cartridge or something? After all, "Rob Wyatt never said it wouldn't happen!" 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andromeda Stardust Posted July 20, 2018 Share Posted July 20, 2018 All good points, but there's a world of difference between what makes a system desirable 20 years later, to collectors, and what makes it appealing at its prime. Nintendo lost a lot of confidence with carts because of the limited storage compared to CDs (objective fact) and the fact that the public saw CDs as good and carts as bad (subjective bias). Even at the time, I was a fan of carts over CDs, but the wind was definitely blowing the other way at the time. In hindsight, Nintendo probably would have been better off going with discs, not for any technical reason, but because they lost so much credibility by not doing that. As for the switch, I think it's a different era now... no one media has the allure of being "the best". flash storage is the way of the future. You can fit more data on a micro sd card than a 5 inch triple layer uhd bluray, with faster data transfer and virtually zero seek time. Compare to the mid 90s when the cd held 650mb and the largest n64 carts were 64mb. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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