How powerful was the cancelled Atari Panther compared to the Atari ST/Amiga?

[carlsson]

17 hours ago, Leeroy ST said:

I know Cybermorph was a 3D port later released for the Jaguar

I thought that Lost Dragon debunked that myth about 15 pages ago? (September 4th to be exact) The early footage and screenshots are from the Jaguar. There is no solid proof that even a prototype version of Cybermorph ran/was developed on the Panther. However I realize some urban legends never will die.

Edited September 29, 2020 by carlsson

[Leeroy ST]

5 minutes ago, carlsson said:

I thought that Lost Dragon debunked that myth about 15 pages ago? The early footage and screenshots are from the Jaguar. There is no solid proof that even a prototype version of Cybermorph ran/was developed on the Panther. However I realize some urban legends never will die.

Even so programmers have said that the Panther could run a mild 3D game like Cyberpunk so even if it wasn't a port I assume that early screenshots for the Jag could likely be done on the Panther.

 

Back in the day you'd only need decent playable 3D to wow gamers so a 3D game in 1991 or 1992 would have helped a hypothetical Panther launch, just look at how much hype Star Fox got in 1993 despite it's poor frame rate, mostly empty ground with no terrain and rectangle buildings.

 

Edit:

 

Apparently this is a game that was going to be on Panther

 

 

That would be more than effective at drawing hype.

Edited September 29, 2020 by Leeroy ST

[carlsson]

Yes, that is Starglider II (1988) on the Amiga and Atari ST. The page for the Konix Multisystem, which also was linked to by Lost Dragon, explicitely says so. At this point we're assuming a system to be released in 1992 to have graphics capacities at least equal to systems from 1987, implementing games released in 1988. It was said the Konix running a 6 MHz 8086 with additional helper chips would've reached 5 fps. Sure the Panther with up to a 16 MHz 68000 or even '020 (I'm still not sure exactly which CPU was inside) should have processing power to at least double that figure.

[Leeroy ST]

1 minute ago, carlsson said:

Yes, that is Starglider II (1988) on the Amiga and Atari ST. The page for the Konix Multisystem, which also was linked to by Lost Dragon, explicitely says so. At this point we're assuming a system to be released in 1992 to have graphics capacities at least equal to systems from 1987, implementing games released in 1988. It was said the Konix running a 6 MHz 8086 with additional helper chips would've reached 5 fps. Sure the Panther with up to a 16 MHz 68000 or even '020 (I'm still not sure exactly which CPU was inside) should have processing power to at least double that figure.

I don't think Panther would be capable of of 30fps though. Maybe Doom and Wolfenstein which would look and run much better than the SNES version. 

 

I suppose a very basic polygon action game could run at 30fps. Maybe something like Zero 5 or Checkered Flag.

[carlsson]

Here is another thought nugget, quote from Wikipedia: "Work on the Jaguar design progressed faster than expected, so Atari canceled the Panther project to focus on the more promising Jaguar".

 

What if Flare II had not progressed with the Jaguar design ahead of time, essentially still making the Panther possible for 1992? If the architecture was different from existing formats, and in practice had not overshadowed the Genesis and SNES to the amount as we want to believe it should've - remember the "knocking off your socks" quote - it might as well have lead to Atari no longer funding the development of the 64-bit architecture and by 1994, before the PlayStation and Saturn, have given up gaming for good. I don't buy into the idea that there was a market for two Atari systems less than two years apart, unless the Jaguar was more or less a direct upgrade of the Panther architecture.

[mr_me]

https://web.archive.org/web/20031207084119/http://www.atari-explorer.com/Panther-Spec.htm

 

Here are the panther specifications.  Similar to the 7800 it is object/sprite based.  The key is how many objects can it display on a scanline without overloading the system.  There's some comments about this in the panther topic in the prototypes section.

[Leeroy ST]

6 minutes ago, carlsson said:

Here is another thought nugget, quote from Wikipedia: "Work on the Jaguar design progressed faster than expected, so Atari canceled the Panther project to focus on the more promising Jaguar".

 

What if Flare II had not progressed with the Jaguar design ahead of time, essentially still making the Panther possible for 1992? If the architecture was different from existing formats, and in practice had not overshadowed the Genesis and SNES to the amount as we want to believe it should've - remember the "knocking off your socks" quote - it might as well have lead to Atari no longer funding the development of the 64-bit architecture and by 1994, before the PlayStation and Saturn, have given up gaming for good. I don't buy into the idea that there was a market for two Atari systems less than two years apart, unless the Jaguar was more or less a direct upgrade of the Panther architecture.

 

The original plan was to launch the Panther and then release the Jaguar 18 months later which I believe would have been the better idea. Give developers an easy system to start on, build up sales and library, than gradually move them over to the Jaguar as the more expensive high-end machine, eventually becoming the only machine in a year or two. 

 

I'm assuming that plan was made because they expected both to have some compatibility between their architectures otherwise that plan would have never made sense. 

[zzip]

45 minutes ago, Leeroy ST said:

Yes, 4th best selling hardware

4th best selling hardware of a generation?   Seriously?   This is an industry that's long been dominated by the top-3, and everything else is an asterisk

 

47 minutes ago, Leeroy ST said:

You really don't know how any of this works, PS3 would be considered a sales success for the numbers but was a massive commercial failure that it negatively impacted the whole company which you could overall come to a objective conclusion that the system was a failure overall but set the stage for a success (PS4.)

PS3 had a rough launch, but they turned it around into a success and it ultimately sold almost 90 million, beating the Xbox 360 by a few million.    Note they didn't simply walk away from it like Atari did with the 5200.

 

48 minutes ago, Leeroy ST said:

Nor did I say that, show me the quote where I said you said that. You're twisting words once again

You implied I called Jaguar a success.   You are the one twisting words here.

 

1 hour ago, Leeroy ST said:

They didn't piss away anything. Lynx was their best selling console since the 2600. Atari brand with Atari games (a different company) had a shit ton of successful arcade titles.

 

Lynx: 3 million sales

Game Gear:  10 million sales

Gameboy: 118 million

 

That is absolutely pathetic!   Atari had 2% of the handheld market.  Again this is a company that was THE DOMINANT player in 1984.  Going from that to 2% is exactly what I mean by pissing away market-share and mind-share.   Worse the 3 million figure is the high end of estimates, and actual sales of the Lynx may have been much lower.

 

But I suppose in your world if the 3DO is a success at 2 million, then Lynx was a runaway hit at 3.

 

Because Atari Corp split from the arcade division no longer have automatic rights to produce home versions of Arcade hits, and they were now being sold under the Tengen label.   That's another thing that hurt their game efforts.   All the exclusives they could have had if

 

1 hour ago, Leeroy ST said:

New managements messed up the computer division and caused the Atari name to be irrelevant to the Amiga which itself would die not too long after. Poorly though out Falcon launch also a factor.

It was doomed from the start.   PC Clone market was inevitably going to be too much to compete against with a proprietary computer because of economies of scale.  But that wasn't yet obvious in 1984.   However, Proprietary consoles platforms are still thriving to this day.  Jack bet on the wrong horse-  but he was an executive from a computer company he built and that's what he knew.

 

1 hour ago, Leeroy ST said:

Cancelled Panther, than pushed for the Jaguar lying to people it was ready, had no games ready for launch. Delayed it in 1993 to 1994 so 1993 was only a "test launch" which only had 20,000 consoles sold. Then decided to kill off the 2600/7800/XE/Whatever computers were left so now no money is coming in at all and will rely on a console they could only produce 20,000 copies for to test launch. More game delays, never able to manufacture enough consoles, failed CD module launch. Atari is now dead and brand is owned by Hasbro.

 

Wow that effort right? lol.

It was a year late-  As opposed to 7800 being two years late simply because Jack didn't want to pay GCC, and then releasing it with a bunch of titles that were already dated in 1984 because that's what was sitting in their inventory.  But you seem to think that was a stellar effort?

 

At least here we have new tech, new games and at least one hot IP.   That's far more effort than I ever saw from them in the 80s.   Was it enough?   Not close.   But if they had been treating consoles this way back in the 80s,  they would have likely had better results and a lot more money coming in at this point.

[zzip]

1 hour ago, carlsson said:

I don't buy into the idea that there was a market for two Atari systems less than two years apart, unless the Jaguar was more or less a direct upgrade of the Panther architecture.

I don't think so either.   History shows the average length of a console generation is 5 years.   But Atari repeatedly made the mistake in the 80s of releasing too many consoles in too short a time, and abandoning some too quickly

 

1 hour ago, carlsson said:

unless the Jaguar was more or less a direct upgrade of the Panther architecture.

even then, we know how this games usually turns out..   Developers develop for the lower spec for broader sales, and few games would take advantage of Jags extra power/features

[carlsson]

3 minutes ago, zzip said:

Developers develop for the lower spec for broader sales

Indeed! That is one of the reasons why Commodore were better off not releasing an improved C64 within two years of the original one. Simply it became too popular. It probably was the reason why Atari only lightly improved their 8-bit computers too, until the point of no return and a technology shift to 16-bit, regardless if it was in Warner or Tramiel times.

 

For that matter, it is not like we've had a shortage of oddball consoles (and computers) during the years, so we would mourn a lost opportunity of diversity.

[Leeroy ST]

2 minutes ago, zzip said:

You implied I called Jaguar a success.  

Nope, you can't pull this shit, I already explained in detail what I meant twice, you are no better than a liar at this point.

 

3 minutes ago, zzip said:

4th best selling hardware of a generation?  

At $700 with barely any games, $500 with a good chunk of games for the second year. The fact it sold 2 million is an accomplishment and all the cheaper competition with decent libraries all sold less.

 

4 minutes ago, zzip said:

PS3 had a rough launch, but they turned it around into a success and it ultimately sold almost 90 million, beating the Xbox 360 by a few million. 

Not you're making up numbers, do you have 360 numbers? Sony released theirs did you bother to look them up? Yeah they as I said, had a sales success, however the system was a commercial failure You don't know how this works.

 

5 minutes ago, zzip said:

Lynx: 3 million sales

Game Gear:  10 million sales

Gameboy: 118 million

 

That is absolutely pathetic!

Your deceptive shallow interpretation of the sales results is not valid. Lynx had low manufactured shipments and only increase them significantly just before LYNX II which is when the new management started pulling support because they were bad maangers. The Game Gear had more games and ran a much longer time so did the GB which also had a compatible sequel and the GB was cheap to make and easy to produce.

 

What' you're ignoring is even with those issues the LYNX was the best selling Atari hardware since the 2600, because you like lying and it's more conventioneer to spin that narrative to back your subjective opinion. You know what isn't an opinion? The events I just told you that impacted sales.

 

7 minutes ago, zzip said:

But I suppose in your world if the 3DO is a success at 2 million, then Lynx was a runaway hit at 3.

 

 

Comparing a console to a handheld, two systems with different obstructions to their success as well. getting desperate with these emotion aren't you?

You are the one that said Atari didn't try or put in effort until the Jaguar, you just happened to ignore that that the 3DO did a better job when you were throwing shade at it earlier.

 

9 minutes ago, zzip said:

It was doomed from the start.   PC Clone market was inevitably going to be too much to compete against with a proprietary computer because of economies of scale.  But that wasn't yet obvious in 1984. 

1984? You do realize the ST was a success and wasn't doomed and revived Atari right? You are all over the place.

 

10 minutes ago, zzip said:

It was a year late-  As opposed to 7800 being two years late simply because Jack didn't want to pay GCC, and then releasing it with a bunch of titles that were already dated in 1984 because that's what was sitting in their inventory.  But you seem to think that was a stellar effort?

Two years late for what? All the competition came out in the same year, 1986. If you mean that it was delayed two years that's because of negotiations with the console and then another negotiation for games (which you ignore conveniently) all started and ended in 1985 the same year. 

 

You're opinion on effort isn't relevant. You don't like what they put out, but using an objective definition for effort or "attempt" Atari put more effort in the 80's than the 90's despite what YOU believe, you can cry about this all you want, even consumers and the media don't agree with you thinking Atari put in more effort in the 90's, you are in a niche. 

 

14 minutes ago, zzip said:

That's far more effort than I ever saw from them in the 80s. 

 

Then what YOU I ever saw, and this is the problem you refuse to acknowledge you are making false claims as fact when they are your opinion and then continue to move the goal posts. This isn't a winnable argument for you because we have historical documentation from consumers, media, and for events that actually happened.

 

You don't like it is fine, stop saying that you're dislikes were universal. Stop saying that they didn't try to do anything with games when they did, because you didn't like what came out of it. 

 

[Serguei2]

2 hours ago, Leeroy ST said:

Yes, 4th best selling hardware, of the gen and considering what it went through it was clearly a minimal success in number sold but a commercial failure objectively. With a different business model it "may" have sold more and been commercially successful despite not being number one. Youa re using a subjective version of success designed to move with goal posts.

 

Why are you bringing up two old consoles and the LTD of one console that sold for another 8 years after 3DO discontinued?

 

You really don't know how any of this works, PS3 would be considered a sales success for the numbers but was a massive commercial failure that it negatively impacted the whole company which you could overall come to a objective conclusion that the system was a failure overall but set the stage for a success (PS4.)

 

Did you know 7800 was a commercial success despite being ~29 million less sold? Because all the consoles and games made money. Wasn't a sales success though, although it was if you remove the NES out of the equation but that would be manipulating the statistics.

 

 Nor did I say that, show me the quote where I said you said that. You're twisting words once again, I said you said that Atari didn't try until the Jaguar and yes YOU DID say that, and also said "by then it was too late" after saying that's when they strangely tried. Yet you switch the standards for the more successful 3DO. Hypocrisy. 

 

You're opinion is not relevant to the facts, Atari put more effort in the 80's than anything they did in the 90's even if they barely had the money to do it. You are clearly not capable of understanding the difference or understanding that you not liking the outcome isn't the same as them not trying, it means you didn't like it, other people didn't either, and some did, that's a opinion. 

 

Opinions are not facts we have the FACTS that Atari made multiple moves from 1985 to get games going as quickly as possible Atari not foresseing Nintendos steal of third parties and expecting most competitors not to make that much more than 100k in 1986 (which the SMS proved their point the NES was the one who surprised everyone with high sales numbers that year) are things they couldn't have possible known until it was too late. But that doesn't mean they didn't try because they aren't psychic. 

 

You also consistently ignore the timeline of events.

 

1984: Atari Corp gets brand, prepares to set up company branches and HQ, hires people.

1985: Massive game developer gathering for t

1985: Hires game developers

1985: Continues Atari 2100 project

1985: Hires people for gaming specifially

1985: Negotiates access to 7800 console only

1985: Revives 5200, releases never before released titles, reproduced game cartridges and consoles until 1987

1985: Negotiates access to games for 7800 console

1985: Starts developing games internally with new staff.

1986: Releases Atari 2600 jr.

1986: Get's license to produce games from third parties they themselves couldn't publish because Nintendo lockdown (including Xevious)

1986: Releases Atari 7800 months before competition

 

It's very clear Atari Corp put in effort and did their best, you don't like the result of these steps that's fine but for some reason you are failing to comprehend that's an opinion and you thinking their efforts are lackluster does't mean it actually was. Were some of the decisions they made bad in hindsight and they could have maybe not done things like revive 5200? Sure, but they did do it and that does cost money, money they were short on at the time. Was 2600 jr a mistake? Maybe maybe not, but that's still effort into trying to crack into the market with a tiered plan.

 

Sorry but you're just wrong, but you are allowed to have your opinion just stop saying your opinions are facts.

 

They didn't piss away anything. Lynx was their best selling console since the 2600. Atari brand with Atari games (a different company) had a shit ton of successful arcade titles. Not to mention Atari 2600 still popular into the 90's, and they had a good size of the computer market.

 

You are living in an alternate reality.

 

Atari's mindshare died in the 90's not the 80's sorry to burst your bubble, the time frame you keep claiming they put in more effort (what?) yeah.

 

New managements messed up the computer division and caused the Atari name to be irrelevant to the Amiga which itself would die not too long after. Poorly though out Falcon launch also a factor.

 

Started reducing support for Lynx pissing off fans and making any relevancy of Atari in the handheld space invalid, which instead of fixing they decided to kill the Lynx instead.

 

Cancelled Panther, than pushed for the Jaguar lying to people it was ready, had no games ready for launch. Delayed it in 1993 to 1994 so 1993 was only a "test launch" which only had 20,000 consoles sold. Then decided to kill off the 2600/7800/XE/Whatever computers were left so now no money is coming in at all and will rely on a console they could only produce 20,000 copies for to test launch. More game delays, never able to manufacture enough consoles, failed CD module launch. Atari is now dead and brand is owned by Hasbro.

 

Wow that effort right? lol.

 

 

 

How Atari would expect to sell consoles when only few stores sell Atari products in late 1980s where I live in Canada.

 

Atari 2600 and Lynx are sold in Consumer distributing, Compucentre.

 

I once saw Atari 7800 in one store, I don't remember which one.

 

Nintendo and Sega are present in most of all stores.

 

There is no way to make Atari popular again this way.

Edited September 29, 2020 by Serguei2
typo

[Leeroy ST]

2 minutes ago, carlsson said:

Indeed! That is one of the reasons why Commodore were better off not releasing an improved C64 within two years of the original one. Simply it became too popular. It probably was the reason why Atari only lightly improved their 8-bit computers too, until the point of no return and a technology shift to 16-bit, regardless if it was in Warner or Tramiel times.

 

For that matter, it is not like we've had a shortage of oddball consoles (and computers) during the years, so we would mourn a lost opportunity of diversity.

But in the Jaguar and Panthers case Atari's bank account was near empty, that would have likely been the only solution to address that issue even if the Jaguar may have suffered from the Panther being more popular initially.

 

We saw what happened when they cancelled the Panther, all the R&D and budget gone, they had to delay 1993 launch for a test launch of 20,000 consoles and only had two games for months until 1994 and they couldn't produce enough carts or consoles to take advantage of their potential killer app, AVP.

[Leeroy ST]

2 minutes ago, Serguei2 said:

How Atari would expect to sell consoles when only few stores sell Atari product in late 1980s where I live in Canada.

 

Atari 2600 and Lynx are sold in Consumer distributing, Compucentre.

 

I once saw Atari 7800 in one store, I don't remember which one.

 

Nintendo and Sega are present in most of all stores.

 

There is no way to make Atari popular again.

Atari was US focused they didn't really care much about Canada other than a side arm to America. 7800 Canada had some shipments but they got more 2600's there and even then it wasn't that much. Atari didn't have the money for massive multi-country campaigns, they bet on Europe and the US to get them more money. Parts of Europe that is.

Edited September 29, 2020 by Leeroy ST

[carlsson]

So, going by the details posted in the other thread, the timeline looks something like this:

 

January (??) 1990: Guido Henkel rides the elevator with Jack Tramiel at CES and is told about the Panther.

November 1990: The ST console finally scrapped, new RISC based console to be released in September 1991.

January 1991: Panther is reported to have been in development for a year and likely to be released by December 1992. (!!)

January 1991: Atari UK plans to display the Panther at the Summer Atari Show in London.

Spring 1991: Press told that the Panther would be released by September 1991.

Early summer 1991: There won't be any Atari Show in London.

June 1991: Panther ready to be relased by Xmas 1991.

Summer 1991: Sam Tramiel says Panther is put on hold, Jaguar is good to go. Here comes the quote of 18 months inbetween the two.

 

So from this, I gather that the Panther may have been in development for 1.5 years, perhaps a little longer? I don't know how much R&D was spent within this timeframe, and at which point the R&D of the Jaguar appeared to pay off sooner than expected.

 

In order to fill the bank account from the Xmas 1991 sales, the cost of the Panther obviously would have to cover not only its R&D, manufacturing, marketing and distribution, it would also need to have some profit to make sure the Jaguar was ready by .. no later than May 1993, compared to the actual test release six months later, in November 1993.

 

To put some dates into perspective:

 

The Mega Drive/Genesis was released in Japan in October 1988, in the US in August 1989, in Europe in November 1990.

The Super Famicom/SNES was released in Japan in November 1990, in the US in August 1991 and Europe in April-June 1992.

The Neo Geo was released in Japan and USA in June 1991 and in Europe later (?) into the same year.

The CDTV was released in the USA in March 1991 and Europe later (?) into the same year.

The CD-i was released in the USA in December 1991, in Japan in April 1992 and in Europe in July 1992.

 

While it would seem unlikely that the Panther was released simultaneously in Europe and America, perhaps that had been Atari's best bet, to get onto the European market at least ahead of the SNES. Then again the European customers traditionally are more price sensitive so possibly that had not been a good move after all.

Edited September 29, 2020 by carlsson

[zzip]

18 minutes ago, Leeroy ST said:

Nope, you can't pull this shit, I already explained in detail what I meant twice, you are no better than a liar at this point.

And I explained what I meant at least a dozen times at this point, and you always twist it into something else.

 

30 minutes ago, Leeroy ST said:

Not you're making up numbers, do you have 360 numbers? Sony released theirs did you bother to look them up? Yeah they as I said, had a sales success, however the system was a commercial failure You don't know how this works.

I took my numbers from wikipedia,  they say 360 sold 84 million, PS3 sold 87 million

 

PS3 was the 5th best selling console of all time  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_game_consoles#Home_game_consoles

 

But that was a commercial failure according to you, and the 3DO which isn't even on that list was successful for reasons only obvious to you.  

 

37 minutes ago, Leeroy ST said:

Your deceptive shallow interpretation of the sales results is not valid. Lynx had low manufactured shipments and only increase them significantly just before LYNX II which is when the new management started pulling support because they were bad maangers. The Game Gear had more games and ran a much longer time so did the GB which also had a compatible sequel and the GB was cheap to make and easy to produce.

Here you admit they were bad managers,  so why do you keep defending their efforts?

 

39 minutes ago, Leeroy ST said:

What' you're ignoring is even with those issues the LYNX was the best selling Atari hardware since the 2600, because you like lying and it's more conventioneer to spin that narrative to back your subjective opinion. You know what isn't an opinion? The events I just told you that impacted sales.

 

2600 -  30 million     Lynx 3 million or less.     "Best selling console since 2600" is corporate spin.  Technically true, but still pathetic when you look at the actual numbers, and the numbers the competition was selling in the same space.

 

44 minutes ago, Leeroy ST said:

1984? You do realize the ST was a success and wasn't doomed and revived Atari right? You are all over the place.

look up the word "inevitably"  yes, the ST sold well for a couple of years,  but inevitably the rate of innovation and prices in the clone market exceeded anything Atari or Commodore could hope to compete with.   There was nothing either company could do to stop that.   So their proprietary computing platforms were ultimately doomed.

 

48 minutes ago, Leeroy ST said:

Two years late for what? All the competition came out in the same year, 1986. If you mean that it was delayed two years that's because of negotiations with the console and then another negotiation for games (which you ignore conveniently) all started and ended in 1985 the same year. 

 

All Jack needed to do was pay GCC.  Instead he spent a year arguing with Warner over the issue, and losing.

[zzip]

50 minutes ago, Serguei2 said:

How Atari would expect to sell consoles when only few stores sell Atari products in late 1980s where I live in Canada.

 

Atari 2600 and Lynx are sold in Consumer distributing, Compucentre.

 

I once saw Atari 7800 in one store, I don't remember which one.

 

Nintendo and Sega are present in most of all stores.

 

There is no way to make Atari popular again this way.

Jack burned bridges with many retailers and there were few chains left that would actually carry Atari products.   That was the reason Atari made the disastrous Federated acquisition

[zzip]

1 hour ago, carlsson said:

Indeed! That is one of the reasons why Commodore were better off not releasing an improved C64 within two years of the original one. Simply it became too popular. It probably was the reason why Atari only lightly improved their 8-bit computers too, until the point of no return and a technology shift to 16-bit, regardless if it was in Warner or Tramiel times.

True.  I remember we Atari 8-bit owners were wanting something like what Apple did with the IIgs. But we didn't realize at the time what a weird, oddball machine the IIgs actually was.

 

The C-128 at least provided the coveted 80-column mode for applications.   The Atari answer for 80 columns was the kludgy and slow XEP-80.

 

[Leeroy ST]

1 hour ago, zzip said:

And I explained what I meant at least a dozen times at this point, and you always twist it into something else.

 

 

No all your posts are quoted by mean so edits are pointless, you have changed your arguments and moved the goal posts many times the last thing you want is me to quote all your changes so I'd cut it here. You doubled down on multiple things only to switch and say that's not want you meant but then switch back if another console is compared to an Atari console you have to find something to drag them down with.

 

The problem has always been that you keep trying to project your feelings as facts and the consensus of the time of consumers (Atari 2600 sold more than SMS and 7800 together and Atari sold more consoles total than anyone else form 1984-1987), to the press, to the insiders, to the actual logs from Atari from an employee, all prove all your points wrong.

 

You not liking the results of their effort doesn't mean they "didn't try" and yes that is what you said pages back, and yes you do recently switch it to no effort which is still wrong. No them trying to compete will little money had nothing to do with not taking it seriously, if anything that means they did take it seriously if they felt the need to try to compete without the cash to do so. But that only applies in part because another fact you omit again, because you hate facts, when comparing 7800 for example to NES which you did often, is that Atari did not know Nintendo was going to manufacter as many consoles as they did. If Nintendo had only 200,000 sold in 1986, then it would have fit in to their plan. the SMS doing 125k or 100k (sources are mixed) is exactly what they were expecting and their 100k consoles, which SOLD OUT (I thought they had no mindshare?) and Atari regretted they weren't able to produce more, would have been a good start until more money came in. 

 

Not only did that not end up happening, historically(which is fact btw) but Nintendo also locked out Atari from third parties hurting support right out the gate which they wouldn't understand the impact by until months after launch. Remember the 7800 launched Nationwide FIRST. Keep in mind the console contract included guys like Activision as well not just japanese devs, and other devs didn't want to touch Nintendo from the west so you have Sega and Atari having two consoles with low sales and low support, of course that's not enough to convince them to replace the gap.

 

That's why you were "disappointing" with the final product I assume, but that has nothing to do with the facts of why it happened, which you have and continue to ignore and have no interest in because you are too busy hating on Atari Corp like some 5 year old kid with a grudge 34 years later.

 

1 hour ago, zzip said:

I took my numbers from wikipedia,  they say 360 sold 84 million, PS3 sold 87 million

 

 

Notice that we don't have recent 260 numbers and those are from 2014? Of course not you are too busy trying to crash down Atari. 

 

1 hour ago, zzip said:

Here you admit they were bad managers,  so why do you keep defending their efforts?

 

And this is why you are hard to have a discussion with. Because you are constantly twisting words and lying and then saying the same to someone else. Are you really going to pretend Atari was under the same management under late Lynx and the 7800? WHy did you ignore in the very quote you posted "new management" because you have no interest in actually having a point or having a discussion you keep losing the same argument over and over and won't let go until people say that your feelings and emotions are facts and they aren't. You haven't supported yourself with anything to say otherwise other than "I feel" which is pretty sad.

 

1 hour ago, zzip said:

There was nothing either company could do to stop that.   So their proprietary computing platforms were ultimately doomed.

 

 

Contradicting line, they could have done something, they could have opened up and came up with standards something Commodore realized when it was too late. They could have put out more capable hardware instead of things like the Amiga 1200 that fixed nothing other than being an Amiga with a CD-drive and a bit more oomph with software and games not comparable with the 500. All management mistakes. C64 had problems but Commodores management back then was at least smart.

 

  

1 hour ago, zzip said:

Jack burned bridges with many retailers and there were few chains left that would actually carry Atari products.   That was the reason Atari made the disastrous Federated acquisition

Different quote but this post contradicts many of your stances page ago especially in regards to competing with NES and production.

 

1 hour ago, zzip said:

All Jack needed to do was pay GCC.  Instead he spent a year arguing with Warner over the issue, and losing.

Yes company who was not to blame for GCC not getting paid with low cash on hand would try to negotiate. How dare they do something that make sense. If only they spend that ST money on a game console where they wouldn't be able to make enough money off of to support it without an additional cash flow. Or went to that imaginary money tree that didn't exist! 

 

What actually happened was Jack was smart and wanted to try and not have to overpay, he ended up closing things with GCC. For the Console, not the games. Then he did negotiation for the games which that negotiation went a bit better. Because you know, Atari Corp was brand new, and just got the console and was just hiring people. 

 

So you know, couldn't just pop out a team with 50 games ready for 1986 launch, had to get some game support from somewhere else while games were being made. 

 

All you have shown with this quote is you "FEEL" mad because they didn't have the games you wanted which has nothing to do with what actually happened. Nothing. It's not relevant, you're feelings don't matter, sorry.

Edited September 29, 2020 by Leeroy ST

[Leeroy ST]

1 hour ago, carlsson said:

So, going by the details posted in the other thread, the timeline looks something like this:

 

January (??) 1990: Guido Henkel rides the elevator with Jack Tramiel at CES and is told about the Panther.

November 1990: The ST console finally scrapped, new RISC based console to be released in September 1991.

January 1991: Panther is reported to have been in development for a year and likely to be released by December 1992. (!!)

January 1991: Atari UK plans to display the Panther at the Summer Atari Show in London.

Spring 1991: Press told that the Panther would be released by September 1991.

Early summer 1991: There won't be any Atari Show in London.

June 1991: Panther ready to be relased by Xmas 1991.

Summer 1991: Sam Tramiel says Panther is put on hold, Jaguar is good to go. Here comes the quote of 18 months inbetween the two.

 

So from this, I gather that the Panther may have been in development for 1.5 years, perhaps a little longer? I don't know how much R&D was spent within this timeframe, and at which point the R&D of the Jaguar appeared to pay off sooner than expected.

 

I think that some demos and the 64-bit marketing campaign had to do with them claiming the Jaguar was good to go, they didn't even start production of the machine until late 1993 with 20,000 units and pushed the 93 release back so all consoles sold in 1993 were for test markets. Sam and other leaders wanted the buzzwords and likely inflated their own expectations.

 

They likely spend a lot on Panther for this decision and thought the Jaguar would be an a two birds one stone situation where they have a better stronger console and the sales would follow as a result. Either that or someone led the top brass to BELIEVE that but where not actually telling the truth.

 

1 hour ago, carlsson said:

In order to fill the bank account from the Xmas 1991 sales, the cost of the Panther obviously would have to cover not only its R&D, manufacturing, marketing and distribution, it would also need to have some profit to make sure the Jaguar was ready by .. no later than May 1993, compared to the actual test release six months later, in November 1993.

 

To put some dates into perspective:

 

The Mega Drive/Genesis was released in Japan in October 1988, in the US in August 1989, in Europe in November 1990.

The Super Famicom/SNES was released in Japan in November 1990, in the US in August 1991 and Europe in April-June 1992.

The Neo Geo was released in Japan and USA in June 1991 and in Europe later (?) into the same year.

The CDTV was released in the USA in March 1991 and Europe later (?) into the same year.

The CD-i was released in the USA in December 1991, in Japan in April 1992 and in Europe in July 1992.

 

While it would seem unlikely that the Panther was released simultaneously in Europe and America, perhaps that had been Atari's best bet, to get onto the European market at least ahead of the SNES. Then again the European customers traditionally are more price sensitive so possibly that had not been a good move after all.

CD-I has some business models in 1990 but that's not much of a thread to any Panther launch. Or NG/CDTV

 

A Panther launch in 1991 would have been favorable to the NES which may have removed Sega from the "vs.Nintendo" mindset and replaced them with Atari, since Sonic was the primary reason that came to be. Atari with some great looking launch titles and a couple 3D games out the bx would have favored nicely.

 

At the time Atari had a base in Europe so Panther may have had a shot there as well.

 

I think the biggest hurdle for the Panther would have been the price. I do find it interesting that some information we have on Panther cancellation to Jaguar was focus on price. It makes me wonder how much the Panther was going to cost at the final stretch, the amount they would make off each console sold, or if they would make any money on each console sold at first.

 

 

[Leeroy ST]

I'm also curious about any notes about 2D capabilities of the Panther. I tagged @Lost Dragon on that since he seems to have a lot of articles and logs from Atari UK which may give us a clue. I know that some developers had issues with some arcade style titles but I don't know if that was developer incompetence or a flaw with the Panthers architecture.

[zzip]

16 minutes ago, Leeroy ST said:

you have changed your arguments and moved the goal posts many times the last thing you want is me to quote all your changes so I'd cut it here.

My argument has always been the same.   The Tramiel Atari was not serious about games until it was too late.  None of the articles you cited are convincing because the proof is in the pudding..   They were the dominate player in gaming in 84, and a has-been a decade later.

 

Obviously the problem here is you have a radically different view of success than I do.   My metric of success is they fight to keep their market share and remain one of the dominant companies in gaming, while yours seems to be that selling 2 or 3 million units of something is good enough.

 

23 minutes ago, Leeroy ST said:

Notice that we don't have recent 260 numbers and those are from 2014? Of course not you are too busy trying to crash down Atari. 

It's not my fault Microsoft stopped reporting console sales figures.   Even if it's higher, so what?  These are the kinds of sales numbers successful consoles post.

 

29 minutes ago, Leeroy ST said:

Contradicting line, they could have done something, they could have opened up and came up with standards something Commodore realized when it was too late.

They were going to come up with a standard that's going to compete with IBM???  Really?  Atari didn't have that kind of clout,  neither did Commodore.

 

36 minutes ago, Leeroy ST said:

Different quote but this post contradicts many of your stances page ago especially in regards to competing with NES and production.

Jack burned bridges with many in the industry, this is well known.   But you'll probably dispute that as well.

[Leeroy ST]

Just now, zzip said:

My argument has always been the same.   The Tramiel Atari was not serious about games until it was too late.

And there is the Jaguar right there case closed.

 

You also are now moving the goal post to success, has nothing to do with your Atari Corp argument. Learn to stay on one debate topic next time.

 

1 minute ago, zzip said:

Jack burned bridges with many in the industry, this is well known.   But you'll probably dispute that as well.

Actually I brought htat up and you ignored it pages ago. This is what happens when your argument constantly changes. Better luck next time.

[OldSchoolRetroGamer]

[OldSchoolRetroGamer]

Hey after 18 pages of madness and bickering back and forth I was wondering about something. How powerful was the cancelled Atari Panther compared to the Atari ST/Amiga? ?