What could have saved the Jag?

[+madman]

2 hours ago, johannesmutlu said:

What could,ve saved the jaguar was 1,release the jagduo because it looked much much better then the toilet looking jaguar with CD addon on top of it,

2,atari should,ve tried to come up with a 3D version of scrapyard dog to compeat against sega’s sonic and nintendo’s,

3,they should,ve come woth more smooth running 3D textured games for the jaguar CD aside from cartrides to convince people that the jaguar could do more then 16bit graphics,

4,if atari did had a huge sack of money,they could,ve paid nintendo and sega to port mario 64 and sonic extreme to the atari jaguar (remember those 8bit atari days),am sure that would,ve absolutely boost up the sales of the atari jaguar because supermario 64 was all the rage and everyone wanted to jump to 3D so sonic extreme would,ve helped to sell more atari jaguar systems as well (not sure if atari would get their cash back wich they might could & would,ve spended on both sega and nintendo in such case),BUT it could,ve ended up to be more disastrous to atari if those ports flopped on the jaguar as well,mmm.

5,it needed ps1 & N64 ports of games to it,wether the system was truelly or not fully capable of running those games,they should,ve tried such attempts of risks to do so,

6,atari should,ve come with atari classics for the jaguar with emulated atari 2600,5200 and 7800 games on it,including those onces from sega & nintendo in order to also target atari retro fans,even if it would,ve require licenses to put those nintendo & sega games on it,it might,ve been worth it

etc,,,

 

BUT since it all didn’t happen,let’s see if a homebrewer could port supermario 64 and the incompleted saturn version of sonic extreme to the jaguar to see how really capable the jaguar really is.

 

Jag forum gonna Jag forum.

1. Yes, in order to save the Jag they should've released a console that combined a cart console few bought with a CD add-on with a handful of games even fewer people wanted let alone purchased. Brilliant!

2. Of course, the well known Scrapyard Dog franchise could've bested Sonic and Mario or at least been fierce competition. It seemed like in the early 90's all anyone talked about on the playground was Scrapyard Dog and come 1994 we didn't have a 64-bit version. Atari really screwed up there.

3. Agreed, smooth running texture mapped games were the Jag's strong point, I don't know why there weren't more of those.

4. Nintendo was well known in the 90's for allowing competitors to release their flagship titles on their own hardware, so it's hard to understand why they couldn't come to an agreement with Atari for Mario 64. Just like how many licks it takes to get the the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop, we'll never know why this didn't happen. I'm sure the fact the Jag was discontinued by the time the N64 came out had nothing to do with it. I heard Excitebike 3DO was close to release too.

5. Yeah, why didn't developers spend 10s if not 100s of thousands of dollars trying to port PS1 and N64 games to the Jag. It's like they didn't even care enough to try and see what happened. Laziness.

6. What better way to sell a next-gen 64-bit console than to offer 15+ year old games on it. Now there's what would've saved the Jag!

 

So to summarize, releasing a JagDuo that played Mario 64, Daytona, Tomb Raider, Combat, Pac-Man and Sonic & Knuckles would've saved the Jag. Simple as that.

[jerseystyle]

3 hours ago, johannesmutlu said:

What could,ve saved the jaguar was 1,release the jagduo because it looked much much better then the toilet looking jaguar with CD addon on top of it,

2,atari should,ve tried to come up with a 3D version of scrapyard dog to compeat against sega’s sonic and nintendo’s,

3,they should,ve come woth more smooth running 3D textured games for the jaguar CD aside from cartrides to convince people that the jaguar could do more then 16bit graphics,

4,if atari did had a huge sack of money,they could,ve paid nintendo and sega to port mario 64 and sonic extreme to the atari jaguar (remember those 8bit atari days),am sure that would,ve absolutely boost up the sales of the atari jaguar because supermario 64 was all the rage and everyone wanted to jump to 3D so sonic extreme would,ve helped to sell more atari jaguar systems as well (not sure if atari would get their cash back wich they might could & would,ve spended on both sega and nintendo in such case),BUT it could,ve ended up to be more disastrous to atari if those ports flopped on the jaguar as well,mmm.

5,it needed ps1 & N64 ports of games to it,wether the system was truelly or not fully capable of running those games,they should,ve tried such attempts of risks to do so,

6,atari should,ve come with atari classics for the jaguar with emulated atari 2600,5200 and 7800 games on it,including those onces from sega & nintendo in order to also target atari retro fans,even if it would,ve require licenses to put those nintendo & sega games on it,it might,ve been worth it

etc,,,

 

BUT since it all didn’t happen,let’s see if a homebrewer could port supermario 64 and the incompleted saturn version of sonic extreme to the jaguar to see how really capable the jaguar really is.

 

The common thread in all of these responses, over the decades: “now someone other than me do the work and prove me right!”

[Wayler]

In all fairness, you cannot put common thread and johannesmutlu in the same sentence.

[Bill Loguidice]

1 minute ago, jerseystyle said:

The common thread in all of these responses, over the decades: “now someone other than me do the work and prove me right!”

While I personally enjoy the concept of games that pushed the technology of hardware, the reality is we never did see, for all the 64-bit hype, a truly awe-inspiring Jaguar title. We of course know why that was, from certain technical challenges with the hardware to the lack of big budget, high-powered dev teams working on content, but I'm not even sure what a modern realization of that would prove anymore. It feels like it's relatively commonplace now for classic systems to have new homebrews that do amazing things on the hardware thanks to better knowledge of the system, modern dev tools, no commercial pressures, modern ways to work, modern technology assists, etc. In other words, if someday someone(s) could make a fully functional 15FPS Tomb Raider level, a 20fps Super Mario 64 level that kinda sorta looks and plays like the original, etc., what exactly would that change/prove? I mean, we more or less know what the theoretical hardware limits of all the platforms are at this point. Such things would be pyrrhic victories at best.

(And I'm not even sure what my point is, and I know I've engaged in the thought experiments myself in the past, but it just seems like we should move on.)

[jerseystyle]

23 minutes ago, Bill Loguidice said:

While I personally enjoy the concept of games that pushed the technology of hardware, the reality is we never did see, for all the 64-bit hype, a truly awe-inspiring Jaguar title. We of course know why that was, from certain technical challenges with the hardware to the lack of big budget, high-powered dev teams working on content, but I'm not even sure what a modern realization of that would prove anymore. It feels like it's relatively commonplace now for classic systems to have new homebrews that do amazing things on the hardware thanks to better knowledge of the system, modern dev tools, no commercial pressures, modern ways to work, modern technology assists, etc. In other words, if someday someone(s) could make a fully functional 15FPS Tomb Raider level, a 20fps Super Mario 64 level that kinda sorta looks and plays like the original, etc., what exactly would that change/prove? I mean, we more or less know what the theoretical hardware limits of all the platforms are at this point. Such things would be pyrrhic victories at best.

(And I'm not even sure what my point is, and I know I've engaged in the thought experiments myself in the past, but it just seems like we should move on.)

I totally agree- some great games came out on the Jag, but nothing that blew my mind in terms of graphics, sound, etc. AVP, T2K, and Battlemorph were awesome but due much more to design then tech. 

[+GoldLeader]

TBH,

 

At the time,  I can't remember a single game coming out for the Jaguar that made me want to buy one.

[+GoldLeader]

WAIT!  I've got it!  It's all so Clear to me now!

 

What could have saved the Jag?

 

 

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$!

 

Or for our UK Friends...

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(Etc.)

[Bill Loguidice]

1 minute ago, GoldLeader said:

TBH,

 

At the time,  I can't remember a single game coming out for the Jaguar that made me want to buy one.

I worked at Electronics Boutique at the time. I remember being excited for the idea of the Jaguar, but after it actually released, not much was happening with it software-wise for way too long. I was much more excited for the 3DO and all that it promised (it had much better running demos too thanks to the CD format), though some of that turned out to be vaporware as well (the Star Trek: TNG game and the EA hockey game).

[Bill Loguidice]

3 minutes ago, GoldLeader said:

WAIT!  I've got it!  It's all so Clear to me now!

 

(Etc.)

(excuse the visual conversion) I agree, and it's the same reason why the Dreamcast failed. The parent company needs to have the financial resources and wear-with-all to properly compete. There was no way Atari was going to be competitive with mostly lower-tier development studios that they could barely pay. It's also important to note that the Jaguar wasn't even close to sustainable console sales. They didn't even crack a quarter of a million consoles sold. I mean, that's a MASSIVE gap that would have been needed to overcome. The only way that would have happened was with better and more consistent software releases early on, going back again to the money thing (and pre-launch prep).

[+GoldLeader]

Yeah,

 

At the time,  Only seeing it in magazines;  I Liked the look of the console,  I thought the controller looked interesting and exotic (so far so good),  But then the games?  They kept rolling goose eggs as far as I'm concerned.  Now,  back then... pre-internet,  none of us knew that Atari had botched the 7800,  Hell we were barely aware of it, and no one knew they'd (I'm told) burned bridges with Devs,  and hadn't put together good dev kits etc.,...

 

In all honesty I had no idea what they were up against,  but I saw it this way.  (Although I could care less now),  At the time Fighters were King!  So why didn't Atari Make a concentrated effort to get the latest Mortal Kombat?  Or develop a Great Fighter on their own?  Same for a cool racing game,  whether arcade conversion or home grown?  And a cool space shooter?  Round it off with some cool arcade games and maybe a well done platformer...Give or take a few things,  it seemed like they weren't even trying.  Can't remember a system seller in their lineup,  though my friend thought AvP looked cool.

 

Thing is;   I was a Poor college student at the time...Scholarship covered classes,  Scholarship money went to textbooks, lab fees, etc....Pell Grants covered food and Beer,...Lessee,  Oh yeah Student Loan Money went to recording my band's Album...And some SNES/Genesis stuff I s'pose

[+davidcalgary29]

26 minutes ago, Bill Loguidice said:

I worked at Electronics Boutique at the time. I remember being excited for the idea of the Jaguar, but after it actually released, not much was happening with it software-wise for way too long. I was much more excited for the 3DO and all that it promised (it had much better running demos too thanks to the CD format), though some of that turned out to be vaporware as well (the Star Trek: TNG game and the EA hockey game).

I really wasn't excited by anything from the '90s. I saw one (and only one) Jag display in '94 in a store in Toronto, thought the games looked nice ("Val d'Isere" was the Game du Jour)...and then realized that it just wasn't going to fit into the budget of a university student. And that was that: no Jag for me until I entered the workforce in 2002. I bet a lot of Gen Xers found themselves in my position: liking (but not loving) systems, but being too broke to afford them in the '90s.

 

People also tend to forget that there was a massive recession in the early '90s, and that "gaming", which was considered a wasteful pasttime at the time (not being something you could monetize as an "influencer"), was not an essential part of one's entertainment budget, as it is for many today. A lot of my junior colleagues "game" as their major non-work activity, and spend up to eight hours a day doing it; I couldn't imagine doing that in the '90s, and certainly do not do that now.

[Clint Thompson]

One aspect I don’t really recall mentioned: even if Atari had all the money in the world with some of the best AAA games ever created for any game console, it still wouldn’t have been enough.
 

Because during the time, almost everyone spoke of Atari like they were a joke. The brand was just tainted. That compounded by the nonstop magazine articles mocking both Atari and the Jaguar before bad games even flooded the gates really proved that. Even the good games got static in some magazines. 
 

1993, 94, 95 and no one thought Atari was cool anymore. Some people have a set-in-stone perception and despite whatever gold Atari may had been offering, person x will never bother looking because the brand is dead to them. It wasn’t the far more popular Nintendo and exiting newcomer Sony to the scene. 
 

Nothing would have saved the Jag. 

[+davidcalgary29]

20 minutes ago, Clint Thompson said:

One aspect I don’t really recall mentioned: even if Atari had all the money in the world with some of the best AAA games ever created for any game console, it still wouldn’t have been enough.
 

Because during the time, almost everyone spoke of Atari like they were a joke. The brand was just tainted. That compounded by the nonstop magazine articles mocking both Atari and the Jaguar before bad games even flooded the gates really proved that. Even the good games got static in some magazines. 
 

1993, 94, 95 and no one thought Atari was cool anymore. Some people have a set-in-stone perception and despite whatever gold Atari may had been offering, person x will never bother looking because the brand is dead to them. It wasn’t the far more popular Nintendo and exiting newcomer Sony to the scene. 
 

Nothing would have saved the Jag. 

I wish that the entire PRGE Jag session was uploaded, as there was a lot of great info presented during the panel, including just how little money Atari had for the Jag (or anything else) during this time. Notwithstanding rumours to the contrary, all of the panelists agreed that Atari's budgeting was "miniscule" and that they only realized what marketing could accomplish with an actual budget when they went off to work in the big software houses. I'm just amazed that Atari could turn out any product at all when they budgeted thousands (and not hundreds of thousands, or millions) to complete a game.

 

I note that no one has started a comparable "what could have saved the Lynx?" thread in the years since the first post was made in this thread -- probably because the results would just be depressing. The Lynx, unlike the Jag, certainly could have been "saved" (translation: moved at least three times the units it did).

[roots.genoa]

1 hour ago, GoldLeader said:

So why didn't Atari Make a concentrated effort to get the latest Mortal Kombat?

Wait, but they got even better!!! Kasumi Ninja!

 

OK, sorry.

[zzip]

On 11/10/2023 at 3:52 PM, Clint Thompson said:

One aspect I don’t really recall mentioned: even if Atari had all the money in the world with some of the best AAA games ever created for any game console, it still wouldn’t have been enough.
 

Because during the time, almost everyone spoke of Atari like they were a joke. The brand was just tainted. That compounded by the nonstop magazine articles mocking both Atari and the Jaguar before bad games even flooded the gates really proved that. Even the good games got static in some magazines. 
 

1993, 94, 95 and no one thought Atari was cool anymore. Some people have a set-in-stone perception and despite whatever gold Atari may had been offering, person x will never bother looking because the brand is dead to them. It wasn’t the far more popular Nintendo and exiting newcomer Sony to the scene. 

I don't agree,  people are fickle.    Perceptions of Atari would change on a dime if Jaguar had actually delivered killer exclusive AAA titles.   The main problem is Atari lacked the R&D/Marketing budget and know-how to make that happen 

[Lostdragon]

On 11/10/2023 at 2:46 PM, Bill Loguidice said:

While I personally enjoy the concept of games that pushed the technology of hardware, the reality is we never did see, for all the 64-bit hype, a truly awe-inspiring Jaguar title. We of course know why that was, from certain technical challenges with the hardware to the lack of big budget, high-powered dev teams working on content, but I'm not even sure what a modern realization of that would prove anymore. It feels like it's relatively commonplace now for classic systems to have new homebrews that do amazing things on the hardware thanks to better knowledge of the system, modern dev tools, no commercial pressures, modern ways to work, modern technology assists, etc. In other words, if someday someone(s) could make a fully functional 15FPS Tomb Raider level, a 20fps Super Mario 64 level that kinda sorta looks and plays like the original, etc., what exactly would that change/prove? I mean, we more or less know what the theoretical hardware limits of all the platforms are at this point. Such things would be pyrrhic victories at best.

(And I'm not even sure what my point is, and I know I've engaged in the thought experiments myself in the past, but it just seems like we should move on.)

One thing that struck me, was even 'late' into the Jaguar's commercial life, they were still trying to compete in areas the PC was already leading the field in. 

 

The hype for Legions Of The Undead for example.. 

 

 

".... believe it or not, the texture mapping engine of Legions of

the Undead has been refined over the one in AvP and will supposedly smoke

all competition, including and especially the Ultima Underworld". 

 

It just seems absolutely mad, Atari had switched from seeing the competition as the SNES, MD, CD32 and 3DO,to the PC, PlayStation and Saturn and thought releasing a CD add-on, enabled the platform to compete. 

 

 

I bought my Jaguar as at the time, it was the only system doing an Alien's game, from the first person perspective, i stuck with it, as it was the cheapest method of playing a decent version of Doom... 

 

Dactyl Joust and Black Ice, White Noise looked like the type of titles Atari should of been pushing on the system from day 1,but for the former, we never actually got to discover if the combat even worked, so it remains to date, little more than a curiosity. 

 

I'm totally with you here Bill, if somebody out there created a playable first level of something like Quake, Tomb Raider, Radiant Silvergun, Road Rash, NFS or whatever the mythical possible on Jaguar game of the day currently is.. 

 

With lower polygon counts, far less textures, lower frame rates etc... 

 

It'd be an absolutely pyrrhic victory. 

 

Can't folk just embrace the superb homebrew games coming to the system and be content with that? 

[Lostdragon]

On 11/10/2023 at 3:11 PM, jerseystyle said:

I totally agree- some great games came out on the Jag, but nothing that blew my mind in terms of graphics, sound, etc. AVP, T2K, and Battlemorph were awesome but due much more to design then tech. 

Take something like Hoverstrike on the Jaguar CD, the deluxe version of the game, coding moved to the GPU for a very minimal frame rate increase. 

 

It could be argued Atari should of canned the cartridge version, kept Hoverstrike as a CD exclusive, lord only knows the add-on needed quality exclusives, but it was never going to have the impact the original Battlezone had and it's journey, if claims are true, starting out as BZ2000, but deviating so far from the source, it had to become a stand alone title.. 

 

It wasn't ever going to convince people the Jaguar was a must-have system, it was just a shot in the arm for those who bought it, as quality titles so scarce. 

[Lostdragon]

On 11/10/2023 at 8:00 PM, GoldLeader said:

Yeah,

 

At the time,  Only seeing it in magazines;  I Liked the look of the console,  I thought the controller looked interesting and exotic (so far so good),  But then the games?  They kept rolling goose eggs as far as I'm concerned.  Now,  back then... pre-internet,  none of us knew that Atari had botched the 7800,  Hell we were barely aware of it, and no one knew they'd (I'm told) burned bridges with Devs,  and hadn't put together good dev kits etc.,...

 

In all honesty I had no idea what they were up against,  but I saw it this way.  (Although I could care less now),  At the time Fighters were King!  So why didn't Atari Make a concentrated effort to get the latest Mortal Kombat?  Or develop a Great Fighter on their own?  Same for a cool racing game,  whether arcade conversion or home grown?  And a cool space shooter?  Round it off with some cool arcade games and maybe a well done platformer...Give or take a few things,  it seemed like they weren't even trying.  Can't remember a system seller in their lineup,  though my friend thought AvP looked cool.

 

Thing is;   I was a Poor college student at the time...Scholarship covered classes,  Scholarship money went to textbooks, lab fees, etc....Pell Grants covered food and Beer,...Lessee,  Oh yeah Student Loan Money went to recording my band's Album...And some SNES/Genesis stuff I s'pose

Atari did make a big song and dance at the time, about securing MK3 for the Jaguar, but we all know how that turned out 🙄

 

Asking development studios like Hand Made Software  and Beyond Games to deliver Mortal Kombat-beaters, in the short-term, was in my view, as foolish as asking Rebellion to deliver a Virtua Racing beater, these studios had no experience in these genres. 

 

Things like Dragon:Bruce Lee Story and the horrendous Double Dragon V did the platform no favours, just more 16-bit grade crud.. running on 64-bit architecture. 

 

Do The Math they said and consumers did just that. 

 

You also need to appreciate that your talking the same Atari who felt they didn't need Mortal Kombat on the Lynx, as they had Pitfighter 😳

[Bill Loguidice]

43 minutes ago, Lostdragon said:

Take something like Hoverstrike on the Jaguar CD, the deluxe version of the game, coding moved to the GPU for a very minimal frame rate increase. 

 

It could be argued Atari should of canned the cartridge version, kept Hoverstrike as a CD exclusive, lord only knows the add-on needed quality exclusives, but it was never going to have the impact the original Battlezone had and it's journey, if claims are true, starting out as BZ2000, but deviating so far from the source, it had to become a stand alone title.. 

 

It wasn't ever going to convince people the Jaguar was a must-have system, it was just a shot in the arm for those who bought it, as quality titles so scarce. 

I think if we're going to play the "in retrospect" game, which is always a bit of fun, we can easily make the argument that the CD add-on should have never been released at all. You don't release an add-on for a console with fewer than 150,000 units sold (remembering it only hit around 225,000 even after liquidation) to further distract from making games for that core audience. As has been stated many times before, it either should have been released as a CD-based, or CD-capable console with cartridge, from day one, or they shouldn't have bothered at all. 

[guSTaw]

[guSTaw]

1 minute ago, guSTaw said:

- camel simulator

- oil field simulator

[Mittens0407]

The lack of any dedicated 3D hardware seems like a death knell by fifth gen. All the other competing consoles had at least some form of hardware drawn polys. Expecting every dev to write a fast software 3d renderer on your buggy console is asking a lot, especially for the inexperienced devs Atari had working with shoestring budgets.

[Lostdragon]

41 minutes ago, Bill Loguidice said:

I think if we're going to play the "in retrospect" game, which is always a bit of fun, we can easily make the argument that the CD add-on should have never been released at all. You don't release an add-on for a console with fewer than 150,000 units sold (remembering it only hit around 225,000 even after liquidation) to further distract from making games for that core audience. As has been stated many times before, it either should have been released as a CD-based, or CD-capable console with cartridge, from day one, or they shouldn't have bothered at all. 

The reasoning behind it, has been gone over multiple times before (Atari wanted Jaguar to be the cheapest Next Generation system on the market by some margin, cue being cartridge-based as a base unit..), but when you look at how they handled the software for it.. 

 

Defender 2000 starting life as a CD title, Teque's F1 Racer, being moved from Cart to CD and becoming W. T. R.. 

 

Title's like Primal Rage and Baldies... they didn't really need to be on CD. 

 

 

ATD being in over their heads with Blue Lightning... 

 

People like myself, burnt by the core system, were never going to invest further in it, the money went on exciting new systems like the PlayStation and we never looked back, as the system couldn't match the experiences we were now getting on hardware by others. 

[Bill Loguidice]

34 minutes ago, Mittens0407 said:

The lack of any dedicated 3D hardware seems like a death knell by fifth gen. All the other competing consoles had at least some form of hardware drawn polys. Expecting every dev to write a fast software 3d renderer on your buggy console is asking a lot, especially for the inexperienced devs Atari had working with shoestring budgets.

The 3D thing is hard to say for the time. Sure, the PS1 proved that solid 3D prowess was indeed the future and something that was needed post-PS1 launch, but before that, it's arguable that the Jaguar's 3D capabilities were sufficient, as long as they weren't overtaxed, which of course Atari insisted upon more than once. The 3DO was far more forward-thinking, being both CD-based and with more robust 3D capabilities, but it still didn't make much of a difference in the end, despite selling something like 9x the amount the Jaguar did. It was just a bit too early for the 3D stuff to be what it eventually needed to be.

I think what we missed out on with the Jaguar that would have helped was more premium 2D experiences like Rayman. That goes back to the budget thing, though. Even if the Jaguar couldn't necessarily wow with 3D, it should have consistently wowed with 2D. That could have been enough to move the needle to at least respectable sales, if not the nigh impossible task of saving Atari itself (much like Dreamcast with Sega).

[Lostdragon]

32 minutes ago, Bill Loguidice said:

The 3D thing is hard to say for the time. Sure, the PS1 proved that solid 3D prowess was indeed the future and something that was needed post-PS1 launch, but before that, it's arguable that the Jaguar's 3D capabilities were sufficient, as long as they weren't overtaxed, which of course Atari insisted upon more than once. The 3DO was far more forward-thinking, being both CD-based and with more robust 3D capabilities, but it still didn't make much of a difference in the end, despite selling something like 9x the amount the Jaguar did. It was just a bit too early for the 3D stuff to be what it eventually needed to be.

I think what we missed out on with the Jaguar that would have helped was more premium 2D experiences like Rayman. That goes back to the budget thing, though. Even if the Jaguar couldn't necessarily wow with 3D, it should have consistently wowed with 2D. That could have been enough to move the needle to at least respectable sales, if not the nigh impossible task of saving Atari itself (much like Dreamcast with Sega).

Indeed. 

 

Jaguar was originally intended to take on likes of 3DO,CDi, CD32 etc. 

 

Jaguar 2 was to take on likes of the Saturn and PlayStation. 

 

Even Sega in their arrogance, thought nobody could touch them in the realm of polygon 3D hardware in the arcades outside of NAMCO (and NAMCO had no plans to enter the home console market, with a machine of their own), SONY caught them off guard and hence Saturn rushed back to drawing board to be hastily upgraded in order to compete and even then using Quads at a time everyone was using polygons. 

 

Atari Marketing put the knife into any hopes the machine could ever have the opportunity to excel as a 2D powerhouse, killing promising titles like Deathwatch, stone cold. 

 

 

"Although rumoured to have been completed, the game was actually cancelled at around a 50-60% complete stage, when DDI decided to drop the title when Atari kept stalling on feedback and payments for milestones. Atari even at one stage wanted DDI to turn the game into a fully 3D title, but DDI refused after the lack of engagement and confidence with Atari over the course of its development. Focus switched to projects that paid, and on time."

 

 

https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/2020/10/deathwatch/

 

 

When your up against behaviour like this, there's no saving of a system.