Was not releasing with CD at launch the biggest mistake Atari made with the Jaguar?

[Pete5125]

57 minutes ago, JagChris said:

I believe this also hurt the Jag. Atari was still putting out arcade style games. 2-3 different screens etc. Damn near ten years after the success of Mario World,  Castlevania etc. 

 

The only thing the Jag got like that was Rayman. And it wasn't their doing. 

Oh definitely, that and 94 slow release rate, sorry but Dino dudes, checkerd flag, cyber morph, Trevor, club drive mixed in with a couple must haves, avsp, is, doom, wolf, raiden didn't help, that was what was on most store shelves from launch till mid 95, and even then it was 3 ports of c list sega games, mixed in with a few must haves, making the Jag look like a system with a forth of a library good 12 library c grade 16 bit ports and a 4th very bad games, with only 30 or so games made, only 6 to 14 of witch was year 1 games you could find.

 

It's truely easier and cheaper in most cases to get gas now online then it was back in retail at the mall, you have to remeber over half the retail library was released late 95, early 96 and didn't get to store shelves till late 96 after the Jag was in liquidation.

 

I can't see a cd unit changing much of anything outside of maybe game releases, but retail still had to invest shelf space in a machine that user base was to low, to continue ordering new releases for.

 

I am a fan, have most commercial releases, but it was a flawed system day 1, almost always during release years u had to own it and another system to fulfill your gaming needs.

 

[JagChris]

I agree with everything you said. 

 

I think the crippling one was lack of available units. You could have a great must have system and library but if there are no units available to buy...

[Bill Loguidice]

16 hours ago, roots.genoa said:

I don't know but in this world, Super Mario Bros. was only successful because it was bundled with the NES, apparently.

My favorite is the one pushing the idea that Super Mario Bros. stole from/was DIRECTLY influenced by Smurf's Rescue on the ColecoVision because of how the ColecoVision game changed between overworld and underworld settings and tones. Any contrary evidence presented by me didn't mean anything, of course, nor the idea that most games borrow at least some concepts from just about everything that came before.

[The Helper]

42 minutes ago, Pete5125 said:

Oh definitely, that and 94 slow release rate, sorry but Dino dudes, checkerd flag, cyber morph, Trevor, club drive mixed in with a couple must haves, avsp, is, doom, wolf, raiden didn't help, that was what was on most store shelves from launch till mid 95, and even then it was 3 ports of c list sega games, mixed in with a few must haves, making the Jag look like a system with a forth of a library good 12 library c grade 16 bit ports and a 4th very bad games, with only 30 or so games made, only 6 to 14 of witch was year 1 games you could find.

 

It's truely easier and cheaper in most cases to get gas now online then it was back in retail at the mall, you have to remeber over half the retail library was released late 95, early 96 and didn't get to store shelves till late 96 after the Jag was in liquidation.

 

I can't see a cd unit changing much of anything outside of maybe game releases, but retail still had to invest shelf space in a machine that user base was to low, to continue ordering new releases for.

 

I am a fan, have most commercial releases, but it was a flawed system day 1, almost always during release years u had to own it and another system to fulfill your gaming needs.

 

My thing was I never saw any good games on the shelves.  Even when AVP and Tempest 2K were out I never saw them on the shelves ended up buying Double Dragon crap.  Whatever good games they had were gone and all that was left was the crap.  Then Fight For Life showed up on the shelves and it was not even finished.

[Bill Loguidice]

1 hour ago, JagChris said:

I believe this also hurt the Jag. Atari was still putting out arcade style games. 2-3 different screens etc. Damn near ten years after the success of Mario World,  Castlevania etc. 

 

The only thing the Jag got like that was Rayman. And it wasn't their doing. 

I generally agree with this. We pretty much got the "wow factor" going to NES from what came before, then Genesis from the NES, etc. Rarely did the Jaguar get to show that "wow factor" a next generation system was supposed to generate. It certainly didn't help that by the time the Jaguar hit, the Genesis and SNES were fully into their primes and were pretty capable machines all their own. It's telling that "next gen" (post-16-bit) console sales didn't take off in a big way from the Genesis/SNES era until the PS1 hit, which, for its time, did present something wholly different and clearly more advanced (as in something even a casual observer could tell). 

[Pete5125]

1 minute ago, Chris Brockman said:

My thing was I never saw any good games on the shelves.  Even when AVP and Tempest 2K were out I never saw them on the shelves ended up buying Double Dragon crap.  Whatever good games they had were gone and all that was left was the crap.  Then Fight For Life showed up on the shelves and it was not even finished.

Yep remeber going to electronic Boutique that had a 14 day return policy, choices of games I didn't own were like club drive, checkerd flag, Dino dudes, and double dragon 5, had an argument with the manager, that I was a frequent customer, that I wanted checkerd flag he assured me it was bad and I would just return it, I couldn't imagine a driving game being bad, grafix looked like virtua racing, and lynx version rocked...what can I say, had to keep it but, he was cotrect.

[JagChris]

3 minutes ago, Chris Brockman said:

 Then Fight For Life showed up on the shelves and it was not even finished.

How stupid was Atari. One guy with very little help to code a game like that in assembly from start to finish. And right it still wasn't finished after a year and a half. 

[The Helper]

7 minutes ago, JagChris said:

How stupid was Atari. One guy with very little help to code a game like that in assembly from start to finish. And right it still wasn't finished after a year and a half. 

I paid full retail price for it though.

[The Helper]

11 minutes ago, Pete5125 said:

Yep remeber going to electronic Boutique that had a 14 day return policy, choices of games I didn't own were like club drive, checkerd flag, Dino dudes, and double dragon 5, had an argument with the manager, that I was a frequent customer, that I wanted checkerd flag he assured me it was bad and I would just return it, I couldn't imagine a driving game being bad, grafix looked like virtua racing, and lynx version rocked...what can I say, had to keep it but, he was cotrect.

Yeah the EB people were not keen on the Jag or the Lynx and I saw them routinely warning customers to not buy them.  I remember seeing stacks of Lynx at Incredible Universe and other Electronics stores and they were still all full priced.  I should have loaded up on the Hover Strike CDs my Incredible Universe had during there store clearance sale because that is all they had of Atari stuff when I was there.  It was just overpriced.

[Keatah]

Price was an off putting experience. A store in my area seemed hot on taking the base unit at $249 and increasing it to $259 + 2 cartridges - for $299 or $329. Granted it was a retail experience in a cushy mall, it just made it seem harder to afford. My disposable funding was around $300 at the time and I wasn't sure if I'd want to give up a whole month for a couple of games.

 

My logic was cut that price into thirds. Get 2 PC games. Save some for more PC hardware, and the rest put into savings.

 

Long gone were the days when we could ask the parents for rides to the arcades, and on the way back bum some cartridges from Venture and Turn-Style.

[JagChris]

At the time it was probably the most affordable Next Gen machine. Though off putting for some it wasn't for many. But unfortunately the systems weren't available. 

[Leeroy ST]

18 hours ago, agradeneu said:

It's still debatable. You narrow it down to profits, but by that logic, Xbox360 was a failure too.

An installment base of over 80 Million sold consoles can't be considered as a full commercial failure. 

 

 

The 360 recovered the money in the end, but that's not even relevant you're trying to bring the 360 up only to try dismissing the PS3 was a commercial failure, a definition change doesn't help. At least if you used the original Xbox there would be some similarities.(other than Xbox 1 not harming the company as a whole)

 

You also need knowledge and context of how badly the PS3 damaged the company which you aren't likely aware of due to you focusing on paper sales shipments which isn't relevant deep in the red.

 

Like for example, building sales, several company internal restructurings, layoffs, impact on other divisions, and more. It's not a straightforward situation we are discussing but you're trying to over solyfy things without proper context.

 

15 hours ago, zzip said:

Remember there was a format between HD-DVD and Bluray.   Bluray was a Sony-backed standard so they took the bold move of putting a bluray drive into PS3 to help drive adoption of that format.   It worked, and the PS3 was the cheapest Bluray player around.   But it was a very costly move...  They lost hundreds of dollars on each console sold.    They played it a lot safer with the PS4 design.

Large PS3 losses were gained after blu-ray too, you can't blame bluray for multiple wrong movess and internal damage across the company. It was part of the heavy initial losses yes.

 

18 hours ago, roots.genoa said:

Failed test launches don't change the fact that Super Mario Bros. remains one of the most influential video games in history, whether you like it or not.

Which wasn't argued so now you're moving the goal posts trying to seem clever.

 

 

 

 

[+CyranoJ]

7 minutes ago, Leeroy ST said:

.......

It's not just you, its lots of other people as well.

 

If everyone constantly rehashing this thread asks themselves "but do you really care?" maybe this thread can just die like the 40 billion identical ones before it?

[Leeroy ST]

5 hours ago, Bill Loguidice said:

My favorite is the one pushing the idea that Super Mario Bros. stole from/was DIRECTLY influenced 

People sure like being dishonest and taking things out of context to make up a lie. 

 

5 hours ago, JagChris said:

I agree with everything you said. 

 

I think the crippling one was lack of available units. You could have a great must have system and library but if there are no units available to buy...

This was a pattern for all Status consoles, though in the 7800's case you have an exception, NES over shipping and working with WoW to push competition out of retailers wasn't for seen. Even Sega produced similar numbers to Atari otherwise.

 

But outside that and the (initial)ST they never were able to get the machines out needed.

 

5 hours ago, Bill Loguidice said:

I generally agree with this. We pretty much got the "wow factor" going to NES from what came before, then Genesis from the NES, etc. Rarely did the Jaguar get to show that "wow factor" a next generation system was supposed to generate. It certainly didn't help that by the time the Jaguar hit, the Genesis and SNES were fully into their primes and were pretty capable machines all their own. It's telling that "next gen" (post-16-bit) console sales didn't take off in a big way from the Genesis/SNES era until the PS1 hit, which, for its time, did present something wholly different and clearly more advanced (as in something even a casual observer could tell). 

Actually SNES and Gen were in decline when Jaguar hit, there was this hole thing about some gaming bubble popping and a big decrease in revenue for the industry (bigger drop than the "crash") and some press were concerned about the "32-but" sales even for Saturn and PlayStation until 96. Before then you saw larger 16-bit sales due to price first and slow adoption in 3D until summer 96.

 

Jan 96:

SNES 2.7 million

Sega Genesis 2.1 million

32-bit

Sega Saturn[*] 300,000

Sony PlayStation[**] 550,000

3DO 250,000

64-bit Atari Jaguar 150,000

 

 

[Leeroy ST]

7 hours ago, JagChris said:

I believe this also hurt the Jag. Atari was still putting out arcade style games. 2-3 different screens etc. Damn near ten years after the success of Mario World,  Castlevania etc. 

 

The only thing the Jag got like that was Rayman. And it wasn't their doing. 

The arcade game myth has always interested to me when many of the NES and SMS best selling games particularly in America were arcade games including SMB, if you dont think that's an arcade game so have a bridge to sell you in ohio.

 

Then you have the issue of Atari selling out of 7800s consistently at first until being shoved out of retailers forced them to partner with middle men and but federated. SEGA similarly effected partnered with Tonka 

 

Like the Crash I think people are retrospectively blaming the wrong things, I mean yeah it would have been nice to have more new games on the 7800 looking at the library now, but it's kind of hard to have got developers on board when you have no shelf space and little money in the early days. Again, they were selling out at first so I feel people look back and thinking no one actually cared initially and that's the wrong take.

 

Similar to the Jaguar, although that initial interest was very, very short. And third parties played a much bigger role in that failure.

[Spider-Dan]

On 7/27/2021 at 1:14 PM, MikeA said:

That's pretty much how every successful console has worked - strong first party titles.

That paradigm ended with the PS1; of the top 50 bestsellers on PS1, the only first-party titles are the two Gran Turismo games.  Even if you add third-party developed and first-party published titles like Crash Bandicoot and Spyro, the overwhelming majority of the top-selling PS1 games were not from Sony.

[Spider-Dan]

On 7/27/2021 at 1:30 PM, roots.genoa said:

I don't think it is. As Bill explained above, Nintendo didn't create the Game Boy less powerful than the Lynx because they were unable to do better. They actually considered a color screen, but realized it would have been a mistake. And they were right.

Define "right."  Do you think that if Nintendo had released the Lynx and Atari had released the Game Boy, the market would have chosen Atari (and Atari's game library) based on portability and battery life?  I think the opposite is true.

 

Nintendo hasn't won every single round of the portable console wars because they are supernaturally insightful as to the exact sweet spot of portable console technology.  They are winning on games, period.  They've beaten portables that were more advanced and power-hungry (Lynx, Game Gear, PSP, Vita) and portables that went low-tech (monochromes like Wonderswan & NeoGeo Pocket).

 

It's the games.  Every time.  Not only does Nintendo have the strongest first-party titles, but every powerhouse third-party is lined up to give their portable first crack at the best properties.  And it's been that way since 1989.

Edited July 30, 2021 by Spider-Dan

[+GoldLeader]

I know next to nothing, haven't read this thread, never even seen a Jaguar, (and I'm sure smarter people have already said it all better),   but here's my 2 cents:

 

Atari's biggest mistakes with Jaguar were:  Lack of Games (Needed more, needed bigger titles)

                                                                 Lack of Advertising

                                                                 Lack of Developers/Dev Tools/3rd Parties

                                                                 Lack of Availability (Lack of consoles, lack of games) ...

 

Likely all stemming from a Lack of Money...

 

 

[philipj]

10 hours ago, Stephen said:

Of course - just don't use the 68000 and run GPU in main

 

8 hours ago, JagChris said:

I believe this also hurt the Jag. Atari was still putting out arcade style games. 2-3 different screens etc. Damn near ten years after the success of Mario World,  Castlevania etc. 

 

The only thing the Jag got like that was Rayman. And it wasn't their doing. 

It's funny the 7800 is mentioned... the "Maria" graphics chip on the 7800 is able to read display list supper fast until the main processor slows things down especially when it's accessing the "Tia" sound chip... It was always my assumption that similar principles apply on the Jaguar when the Motorola 68K accesses the BUS slowing the other processors down when in use "Hogging the BUS".

[roots.genoa]

28 minutes ago, Spider-Dan said:

Define "right."  Do you think that if Nintendo had released the Lynx and Atari had released the Game Boy, the market would have chosen Atari (and Atari's game library) based on portability and battery life?  I think the opposite is true.

 

Nintendo hasn't won every single round of the portable console wars because they are supernaturally insightful as to the exact sweet spot of portable console technology.  They are winning on games, period.  They've beaten portables that were more advanced and power-hungry (Lynx, Game Gear, PSP, Vita) and portables that went low-tech (monochromes like Wonderswan & NeoGeo Pocket).

 

It's the games.  Every time.  Not only does Nintendo have the strongest first-party titles, but every powerhouse third-party is lined up to give their portable first crack at the best properties.  And it's been that way since 1989.

I agree, but the Game Boy may not have been as successful as it was if its battery only lasted 2 hours or something. Of course it's impossible to verify in retrospect. Besides WonderSwan did very well in Japan but never left the country, and NeoGeo Pocket didn't have the same advertising and distribution Nintendo (and even SEGA and Sony) handhelds got. So it's difficult to compare.

 

What I meant is Nintendo did consider using a color screen for the Game Boy, that's well documented, but knew it would make the system too expensive and power hungry.

[Spider-Dan]

18 minutes ago, roots.genoa said:

What I meant is Nintendo did consider using a color screen for the Game Boy, that's well documented, but knew it would make the system too expensive and power hungry.

Nintendo thought that using a backlit screen would be too expensive and power hungry for the GBA.  But then they released the GBA SP, which ended up being the most popular GBA model.

 

I'm just not convinced that the price or battery difference between the GB and the Lynx were that significant.  Nintendo has shown that they can win these wars with a less powerful/less expensive solution (GB), or a more powerful/more expensive solution (SNES).  It all boils down to games.

[agradeneu]

3 hours ago, Leeroy ST said:

The 360 recovered the money in the end, but that's not even relevant you're trying to bring the 360 up only to try dismissing the PS3 was a commercial failure, a definition change doesn't help. At least if you used the original Xbox there would be some similarities.(other than Xbox 1 not harming the company as a whole)

 

You also need knowledge and context of how badly the PS3 damaged the company which you aren't likely aware of due to you focusing on paper sales shipments which isn't relevant deep in the red.

 

Like for example, building sales, several company internal restructurings, layoffs, impact on other divisions, and more. It's not a straightforward situation we are discussing but you're trying to over solyfy things without proper context.

 

Large PS3 losses were gained after blu-ray too, you can't blame bluray for multiple wrong movess and internal damage across the company. It was part of the heavy initial losses yes.

 

Which wasn't argued so now you're moving the goal posts trying to seem clever.

 

 

 

 

Your definition of commercial failure is very shaky. I doubt you have any deeper understanding or insight into video game industry, sorry. 

 

Do you know the Atari Jaguar was a profitable hardware? When Atari shut down their business, they were not in the reds. So why it was a commercial failure then?

The failure was defined by low and declining sales, low revenue, lack of consumer interest and declining market share. When Atari shut down, they had no viable product to sell and no market.  It was also a failure with critics, resulting in a very low reputation and low quality software products. In the end they had to get rid of their inventory by price dumping.

 

Now, do you know Microsoft never focused on profits with their Xbox division? Their goal was to take away market share from Nintento and Sony, the needed to conquer the market by loosing money. Before you can think about profits, you need a reasonable market share and a reasonable stream of revenue (=software and hardware sales).

They are doing it again with GamePass, not focusing on being profitable but aggressively regaining market share from leader Sony. So, are all Xbox consoles commercial failures? 

(BTW you are wrong about MS recouping the losses with the Xbox360: Xbox 360 and PS3 losses total $8 billion, ex-Sony employee paints grim future - VG247

 

 

However , I think you are probably right the PS3 was a failure for Sony, but only compared to the PS2 and PS4. CELL technology was a commercial failure for sure. But, it was still a very popular ganing console with high software sales and big hits. They managed to turn around a struggling product, which broke even in 2010. And like I already said, it was a transformative restructuring peroid for PS that build the foundations for later successes.

Edited July 30, 2021 by agradeneu

[digdugnate]

I'm waiting for the inevitable 'versus' thread.  People LOVE those!

[roots.genoa]

3 hours ago, Spider-Dan said:

a more powerful/more expensive solution (SNES)

When it happened, they usually were the last on the market though, like for the N64 as well. In the case of the N64, they delayed it precisely to lower the cost.

[Bill Loguidice]

8 hours ago, Leeroy ST said:

Actually SNES and Gen were in decline when Jaguar hit, there was this hole thing about some gaming bubble popping and a big decrease in revenue for the industry (bigger drop than the "crash") and some press were concerned about the "32-but" sales even for Saturn and PlayStation until 96. Before then you saw larger 16-bit sales due to price first and slow adoption in 3D until summer 96.

 

In my case, I was more referencing being at the peak of their technical powers, where the audio-visual quality was high and the machines were well understood. The Jaguar was up against some extremely polished 16-bit games by that point and extremely beefy and diverse game line-ups. In general, the Jaguar didn't demonstrably show games that were clearly superior to those for a variety of reasons, including the trickle of releases, lower budgets, smaller development teams, and the challenges with learning the ins and outs of new hardware. In the instances where the Jaguar did avail itself very well and in a way that even the casual observer could see the difference, it already had something of a reputation and wasn't helped by many of the other games being substandard. Again, on the 16-bit side, you already had sufficient depth and breadth to minimize the impact of the dreck.