What could have saved the Jag?

[zzip]

2 hours ago, Bill Loguidice said:

Atari didn't have a 3D vision. If that's the case, then Sega with the 32X and 3DO also had 3D visions. These were not 3D first platforms. These were 2D systems that had varying degrees of 3D capabilities. There's a big difference with what Sony did versus what came before.

In retrospect they don't look like 3D systems based on what we have now.   However at the time they hardware that assisted with various 3D tasks and that was used in the marketing for these systems.

 

Yes prior systems also had 3D titles.   3D can always be done in software without hardware assist.   The end result was typically low-frame rate games with polygons that lacked surface details in environments that were very sparse.

[Bill Loguidice]

40 minutes ago, alucardX said:

I may be incorrect in my understanding, but I didn't think the PSX had any 2D oriented hardware and all 2D stuff was just drawn on polygons as pseudo tiles.

I don't think so (at least as far as I understand), but whatever the avenue, the fact remains that the PS1 was surprisingly capable as a 2D games platform - easily equal to the best that came before - despite being primarily designed around 3D capabilities. That's really here nor there, though. My opinion remains that the Jaguar clearly struggled with textured 3D content - and even occasionally non-textured stuff - so it would have been nice to play more to its other strengths, particularly for the developers who weren't skilled in the former. Outside of Rayman, I can't think of any "ultimate 2D game" that appeared on the Jaguar. There was too much emphasis on rendered sprites and 3D stuff that didn't put the system in its best light. Of course, a lot of that was no doubt due to smaller developers, limited budgets, and/or quick ports, but to me, that's what remains the biggest lost opportunity, not more 3D stuff that it wasn't optimized for.

[Lostdragon]

2 hours ago, Zerosquare said:

True. But that's a tautology, since Atari didn't have a vision at all.

I'm reminded of Fred Gill of ATD talking about Leonard Tramiel's approach to game design. 

 

 Gill complaining to him that he  needed more game design for  levels,Leonard replying   that side scrollers were too dynamic to justify lengthy design, that the best way to do it was to toss a bunch of NPC scripts at the game engine, then test hell out of the results until the team and testers deemed the result 'fun'.

 

 

Tramiel Atari trying to out do the competition in the bit wars arms race with marketing, but they themselves still being stuck firmly in the 16 bit era. 

 

 

This was never going to be another Amiga vs ST war. 

[Mr SQL]

4 hours ago, Bill Loguidice said:

Atari didn't have a 3D vision. If that's the case, then Sega with the 32X and 3DO also had 3D visions. These were not 3D first platforms. These were 2D systems that had varying degrees of 3D capabilities. There's a big difference with what Sony did versus what came before.

Yes there were earlier implementations including wireframe that proceeded those but I was impressed by the marketing push presenting the Jag as a 3D platform.

 

I think Atari had excellent potential to popularize 3D with the Jag like they did with cartridges for the 2600.

 

The elements of the 1995 Cave video match many modern 3D genre Today.

 

I wonder how the Atari 2600 would have done if Atari made the design decision to start bundling built in Pong variations?

 

[Atlantis]

We saved the Jag.

[alucardX]

Imagine something as simple as this:

 

SNES StarFox but on the jag with better color, higher frame rate, better sound and speech and NO dithering. It would be a more enhanced version than the SuperFX2 chip could produce through the SNES.

 

SNES Donkey Kong Country 1/2/3 with better color and animation.

 

These games were not only fun and popular but if the Jaguar could have had them instead and had them done properly to take full advantage of what the Jag could do it would really have helped. The Jag could have done DKC at launch and bested the MegaDrive and SNES in their glory days and then released StarFox shortly thereafter making any FX chip 3D look terrible.

 

Now replace the names of those two games with whatever you want but keep the style of game play and you get the idea.

[Bill Loguidice]

1 hour ago, alucardX said:

Imagine something as simple as this:

 

SNES StarFox but on the jag with better color, higher frame rate, better sound and speech and NO dithering. It would be a more enhanced version than the SuperFX2 chip could produce through the SNES.

 

SNES Donkey Kong Country 1/2/3 with better color and animation.

 

These games were not only fun and popular but if the Jaguar could have had them instead and had them done properly to take full advantage of what the Jag could do it would really have helped. The Jag could have done DKC at launch and bested the MegaDrive and SNES in their glory days and then released StarFox shortly thereafter making any FX chip 3D look terrible.

 

Now replace the names of those two games with whatever you want but keep the style of game play and you get the idea.

I get what you're saying, but that's no easy task. You're basically asking some mid- to low-tier developers to replicate and/or exceed the work of world class developers, which includes thoughtful level designs and compelling characters. That's a HUGE ask. 

Look at it this way. Thanks to the large libraries of systems like the SNES and Genesis, we can point to many dozens of AAA titles and easily ignore the many dozens of mediocre to downright bad titles that are like those AAA titles but are seriously lacking in design, character, and fun. If it was so easy to simply use a top tier game as a model and do your own thing, we'd see far fewer poor games.

We have some good 2D examples in Rayman (artistic pixel art) and Tempest 2000 (psychedelic pixel art). We also have some examples of good 3D, including Iron Soldier and Zero 5 (both notably not texture-mapped). If the 2D was in the right hands, it could be done well. If the 3D was similarly in both the right hands and not overly ambitious, it could also be done well for the time. I think if there were mostly games like the four examples I gave and fewer outright disasters, then certainly the Jaguar would have been both received and remembered differently. Since the Jaguar had few truly top developers, it was hit or miss if something would ultimately be good from both a technical and play standpoint. Of course, as hinted at in my first paragraph, since the original library is so vanishingly small, the mediocre to downright bad titles stand out all the more and by default stand out more than the bad titles on most other platforms.

[roots.genoa]

6 hours ago, alucardX said:

I may be incorrect in my understanding, but I didn't think the PSX had any 2D oriented hardware and all 2D stuff was just drawn on polygons as pseudo tiles.

Yes, starting with the PlayStation, there were no tile anymore and 2D games are now made with polygons on a single plane. The N64 and the Dreamcast were designed the same way, as the following systems. The GBA was the last tile-based game system.

[alucardX]

1 hour ago, Bill Loguidice said:

I get what you're saying, but that's no easy task. You're basically asking some mid- to low-tier developers to replicate and/or exceed the work of world class developers, which includes thoughtful level designs and compelling characters. That's a HUGE ask. 

Look at it this way. Thanks to the large libraries of systems like the SNES and Genesis, we can point to many dozens of AAA titles and easily ignore the many dozens of mediocre to downright bad titles that are like those AAA titles but are seriously lacking in design, character, and fun. If it was so easy to simply use a top tier game as a model and do your own thing, we'd see far fewer poor games.

We have some good 2D examples in Rayman (artistic pixel art) and Tempest 2000 (psychedelic pixel art). We also have some examples of good 3D, including Iron Soldier and Zero 5 (both notably not texture-mapped). If the 2D was in the right hands, it could be done well. If the 3D was similarly in both the right hands and not overly ambitious, it could also be done well for the time. I think if there were mostly games like the four examples I gave and fewer outright disasters, then certainly the Jaguar would have been both received and remembered differently. Since the Jaguar had few truly top developers, it was hit or miss if something would ultimately be good from both a technical and play standpoint. Of course, as hinted at in my first paragraph, since the original library is so vanishingly small, the mediocre to downright bad titles stand out all the more and by default stand out more than the bad titles on most other platforms.

I agree with you on all counts. Back then, how many of the developers working on these titles were "world class"? Some of these titles are what helped them earn the "World Class" title. I think Miyamoto would have been the "World Class" influence on these titles. But there were other game designers in those times that were not well known and produced great games. My approach to pointing this out assumes a lot of things align but imagine that they did and some of the technical prowess (for its time) of the Jaguar would have been realized in a very respectable way.

[Matt_B]

6 hours ago, Lostdragon said:

AVP was nowhere near ready to be a launch title. 

 

If you look at comments made by Rebellion, Bob Brodie etc (and ignore the bullshit ones by Jane Whittaker)... 

 

 

A launch AVP would of only been on a 2 Meg cart, missing lots of samples, level design would of been 64x64 grid designs, large, sprawling environments, sparsely populated by enemies. 

 

You'd would into rooms where Xenomorph eggs wouldn't peel open, you'd not have face huggers running around. 

 

 

Gamesmaster TV programme here in the UK reviewed the AVP Beta by error, thinking it was the final version and it took flak for being pretty boring to play. 

 

Maybe a ideal world scenario would of been to have Rebellion focusing on AVP and not having teams split between it and Checkered Flag 2.

 

 

Teque could of been left to handle the Virtua Racing clone Atari wanted with the game they were working on, which Atari had moved to CD and became World Tour Racing. 

 

 

It wouldn't of saved the Jaguar, but it would of spared it some embarrassment at the hands of the press. 

 

I certainly didn't mean to imply that anything like that might have happened in the real world.

 

It's just that ideally, the Jag gets its 3D period out of the way early, during its first year, and then gets out of that space quickly once the more capable systems start to hit the market.

Burying Checkered Flag 2 to get the game finished earlier sounds like a good idea, but I suppose the feeling was that the system had to have a racing game and they didn't know they'd got a prize turd until a lot of effort had already been spent on it.

 

Anyway, I'm more than happy that we got the AvP that we did and they took the time to finish it properly, as the gameplay has really stood the test of time.

 

It's just that, like practically everything else in 3D on the Jaguar, it was already starting to look dated when it came out.

[Atlantis]

Guys I think we just SOLVED IT! And. In only 30 years! 

[alucardX]

5 minutes ago, Atlantis said:

Guys I think we just SOLVED IT! And. In only 30 years! 

I hope you brought the beer.

[Atlantis]

It’s so simple… and yet so brilliant 

[phoenixdownita]

1 hour ago, Matt_B said:

....

 

It's just that ideally, the Jag gets its 3D period out of the way early, during its first year, and then gets out of that space quickly once the more capable systems start to hit the market.

....

Say what?

So the Jag comes out swinging hard on 3D but after the first year turns around, farts in the face of all the fans that bought it because of the 3D and decides instead to turn to 2D so it can "mop the floor" with the SNES/Genny because .... because ..... because ..... I really have no segue here ... someone help???

I mean once in a long while I like seeing a behemoth punch in the face a tiny little sucker but in general leave alone the little guys and play in your own league, there's a reason why heavy-weight and fly-weight do not play in the same ring at the same time.

[Bill Loguidice]

11 minutes ago, phoenixdownita said:

Say what?

So the Jag comes out swinging hard on 3D but after the first year turns around, farts in the face of all the fans that bought it because of the 3D and decides instead to turn to 2D so it can "mop the floor" with the SNES/Genny because .... because ..... because ..... I really have no segue here ... someone help???

I mean once in a long while I like seeing a behemoth punch in the face a tiny little sucker but in general leave alone the little guys and play in your own league, there's a reason why heavy-weight and fly-weight do not play in the same ring at the same time.

Agreed. I think it's more like kick-ass on the 2D first and foremost (the strength of the platform) and be strategic with the 3D releases (its secondary prowess). As we know, Atari as a corporate philosophy was get the 3D games out there even if they're broken or run in single digit framerates. Combined with mediocre 2D games, that's how you make your system a running joke when it's actively on the market and for years thereafter.

[Matt_B]

1 hour ago, phoenixdownita said:

Say what?

So the Jag comes out swinging hard on 3D but after the first year turns around, farts in the face of all the fans that bought it because of the 3D and decides instead to turn to 2D so it can "mop the floor" with the SNES/Genny because .... because ..... because ..... I really have no segue here ... someone help???

I mean once in a long while I like seeing a behemoth punch in the face a tiny little sucker but in general leave alone the little guys and play in your own league, there's a reason why heavy-weight and fly-weight do not play in the same ring at the same time.

I'm not saying that they should have gone hard on 3D, just that games like AvP, Wolfenstein and Doom are pretty good on the Jaguar and deserved to come out during that first year.

 

That's pretty much where it should have ended though, at three games that are a credit to the platform and none of the ones that are trying too hard.

 

I don't think there was ever much danger of them competing with the SNES and Genesis, but if they'd stuck to games that the hardware was good at they might have embarrassed themselves a little less.

[phoenixdownita]

50 minutes ago, Matt_B said:

I'm not saying that they should have gone hard on 3D, just that games like AvP, Wolfenstein and Doom are pretty good on the Jaguar and deserved to come out during that first year.

 

That's pretty much where it should have ended though, at three games that are a credit to the platform and none of the ones that are trying too hard.

 

I don't think there was ever much danger of them competing with the SNES and Genesis, but if they'd stuck to games that the hardware was good at they might have embarrassed themselves a little less.

Well we all know both Wolf3D and Doom cheated in the 3D dept, ray casting does not really count as 3D however nice the final effect is, I suspect AvP is in the same league but I have no evidence so I can't say. At any rate I know what you mean at the same time why have you excluded the 2 Iron Soldiers and BattleMorph, Zero 5 as well seems decent (I have not played it so I can't comment on this one), I'd say event World Tour Racing was ok (not for a 1997 release but ...).

The point is we can't just say: Atari should have limited itself to what became the good "3D" showings on the platform, as that is unrealistic and hindsight, sure they should have stopped some atrocity but the amount of mediocrity would not have changed by much.

 

In 2D it's the same, we can say Atari should have only released X, Y, Z .... but that's not how it works, it would have ended with the Jaguar only release 10-20 games total (according to the arbitrary criteria of "it's good in hindsight") and that in no way could have been a success.
If anything the Jag needed more games, for sure not just shovelware (the CD32 got so much of it is not even funny) but having less games was likely not the winning strategy imho.

[Matt_B]

I left out the likes of Iron Soldier and Zero 5 pretty much for the reasons you suggest. You can't just pick the winners in advance and Atari had to throw a lot of money at developing a bunch of lesser 3D games alongside them to turn up a handful that are hidden gems at best. I don't hate them or anything; it just looks to have been a poor strategy for allocating their limited resources.

 

In contrast though, Doom and Wolfenstein were established hits and ported by Id themselves, who surely weren't going to make anything else for the Jaguar so there wasn't much opportunity cost. AvP ran on a modified Wolfenstein engine so would have been similarly low risk. You don't really need to apply hindsight to see them as better bets. They're all cheaty pseudo-3D, but that looks and performs better on marginal hardware.

 

With 2D games being much cheaper and quicker to develop, giving 3D a miss or cutting back on it severely could potentially lead to more games overall, assuming the development budget remained the same.

 

I still doubt there'd be anything like enough to keep the machine relevant though, and a lot of the better 2D games are just straight ports of SNES and Genesis ones that didn't really do much to give people a reason to get the Jaguar.

 

 

[alucardX]

42 minutes ago, Matt_B said:

AvP ran on a modified Wolfenstein engine so would have been similarly low risk

I don't think it ran on any kind of an id engine at all.

[Matt_B]

9 minutes ago, alucardX said:

I don't think it ran on any kind of an id engine at all.

It doesn't. I meant to say Wolfenstein-style but it came out far more ambiguous than that.

 

Given how much better Wolfenstein performs on the Jaguar it'd have been interesting if they did though.

[Atlantis]

As you say, a release having 3D games from the start would have impressed. Maybe Doom as pack in. And fast release waves of 3D games would help, as you Said.

 

Me, never even heard of FPS only bits back then. And my background 1993 was Amiga 600 that had some early 3D games at best, all games moving soooo slow. 
 

My point: more 3D games somewhat impressive no matter being slower like Hovetstrike together with faster like Wolfenstein. The FPS argument, from a consumer point, came years after, after this age of bits and ”stunning graphics”, imo. 
 

excluding the distribution problems, that is.

[roots.genoa]

I always felt the Jaguar was made with 3D in mind, at least the first 3D games like FPS based on raycasting. It was powerful enough for that kind of games, and I always assumed the keypad on the controller was added to select weapons easily like you would on a PC keyboard ; before games like Halo rethought the weapon system, most FPS on consoles require cycling with one or two buttons (which can be tedious in the heat of battle).

 

I know some people here told me the keypad was a "tribute" to old game systems, but frankly I have a very hard time believing that. It wouldn't be the first bad idea for an Atari system, including for its controller, but at the time video games were about blast processing, 64-bit, silicon graphics, VR, and stuff (according to marketing that is), so paying homage to old consoles would have been really strange... Especially since the only Atari system that got a keypad was the Atari 5200! Or was it a tribute to their rivals? ?

[phoboz]

On 2/7/2022 at 6:24 AM, phuzaxeman said:

There was nothing innovative with the Jaguar. There was no large 3rd party support.  It really was destined to fail.

The design was very innovative from a technological perspective. 5 processor system with a shared bus. 2 custom RISC cores, as opposed to the path every SoC designer takes today, e.g. to get licensed ARM, or MIPS cores in there.

 

The problem is that there wasn't enough effort, nor prestige in the software development area. I heard (rumors) that a software developer had the same status as a person who assembles a cartridge (e.g. they are both into assembly ?)

[ArneCRosenfeldt]

1 hour ago, phoboz said:

The design was very innovative from a technological perspective. 5 processor system with a shared bus. 2 custom RISC cores, as opposed to the path every SoC designer takes today, e.g. to get licensed ARM, or MIPS cores in there.

 

The problem is that there wasn't enough effort, nor prestige in the software development area. I heard (rumors) that a software developer had the same status as a person who assembles a cartridge (e.g. they are both into assembly ?)

Back in the day the Amiga Team designed a custom processor: Copper. Archimedes Team : ARM2 . General instruments designed PIC for their microcontrollers. AVR designed ATMEL for their chips. Nintendo let other design SuperFX . The Gamboy got a custom CPU losely inspired by the 8080 . DEC wanted RISC, but not MIPS, so they invented alpha.

MegaDrive had 68k & Z80. Virtua Racer brought RISC on board . SNES WDC 6516C08 (?) and some custum multiply units and division units mapped to memory which run in parallel ( like division on JRISC) + superFX (RISC).
NeoGeo also has 68k + Z80.

JRISC feels like a copy of SuperFx at times.

[zzip]

13 hours ago, phoenixdownita said:

Well we all know both Wolf3D and Doom cheated in the 3D dept, ray casting does not really count as 3D however nice the final effect is, I suspect AvP is in the same league but I have no evidence so I can't say. At any rate I know what you mean at the same time why have you excluded the 2 Iron Soldiers and BattleMorph, Zero 5 as well seems decent (I have not played it so I can't comment on this one), I'd say event World Tour Racing was ok (not for a 1997 release but ...).

Remember we judge tech on whether it's better than we had before, not whether it's a "proper" implementation.  

 

It's kind of like now when the new Xbox/PS5 have raytracing hardware, which is exciting   But the overhead required means it will likely be limited in how it gets used.   In the future we'll probably look back and say "bah, those systems could barely do raytracing!"

 

Doom and all these other games that used similar pseudo-3D techniques were ground-breaking at the time, and all the rage.  People were jumping to PC or upgrading their PCs to play these games, so if an inexpensive console like the Jag was able to run them at all was definitely a credit to the system.