VCS out in the wild? I'd say 10 to 15K.

[leech]

Hardware wise, I think the VCS is fine, but it's not fine for '4k gaming'. It isn't exactly weak for when it was announced.  The several years of delay is what caused it to be 'weak' on launch.  But realistically, you don't need a giant power house to have fun games on it!

[Lord Mushroom]

2 hours ago, leech said:

But realistically, you don't need a giant power house to have fun games on it!

Of course. My point was that the VCS didn´t have anything to offer the masses. There were already consoles which were more powerful, cheaper and with a large and fast expanding game library. So it was dead on arrival, even with a big marketing campaign. 

 

The Jaguar, on the other hand, had a chance as it was an early next generation console from Atari when Atari still meant something. It was a bad idea to make the Jaguar, given how little it would be supported, and therefore how unlikely it was to succeed. But given that it had been made, it was a good idea to advertise for it. If initial sales had been high, in part due to good advertisement, third-party game support would have increased, and it could have become a profitable console.

[tripled79]

On 8/21/2022 at 4:26 PM, Lord Mushroom said:

Of course. My point was that the VCS didn´t have anything to offer the masses. There were already consoles which were more powerful, cheaper and with a large and fast expanding game library. So it was dead on arrival, even with a big marketing campaign. 

 

The Jaguar, on the other hand, had a chance as it was an early next generation console from Atari when Atari still meant something. It was a bad idea to make the Jaguar, given how little it would be supported, and therefore how unlikely it was to succeed. But given that it had been made, it was a good idea to advertise for it. If initial sales had been high, in part due to good advertisement, third-party game support would have increased, and it could have become a profitable console.

When I read about initial sales regarding the Jaguar, they usually say that it was pretty good. But of course that depends on your perspective of what "good sales" are...

[Lord Mushroom]

5 minutes ago, tripled79 said:

When I read about initial sales regarding the Jaguar, they usually say that it was pretty good. But of course that depends on your perspective of what "good sales" are...

For third party developers to take sufficient interest in the Jaguar to make it a contender, they would have needed to sell millions of them in the first year, but they sold less than 150 000 over the whole lifespan.

[tripled79]

Just now, Lord Mushroom said:

For third party developers to take sufficient interest in the Jaguar to make it a contender, they would have needed to sell millions of them in the first year, but they sold less than 150 000 over the whole lifespan.

Weird, I read it sold 250,000 during it's run.

[Lord Mushroom]

7 minutes ago, tripled79 said:

Weird, I read it sold 250,000 during it's run.

My source is Wikipedia. It even says there that Atari themselves said they had only sold a total of 125 000 at the end of 1995. However, they had 100 000 more in stock, most of which they sold to a private liquidator in December 1996. So technically they sold 225 000 Jaguars. How many of those bought by the private liquidator reaching consumers, I don´t know, though.

[GraffitiTavern]

1 hour ago, tripled79 said:

When I read about initial sales regarding the Jaguar, they usually say that it was pretty good. But of course that depends on your perspective of what "good sales" are...

I always heard it was good sales in the test market, but then production issues caused them to not be able to ship units to Europe which would have been their largest market. Don't think it would have been a success either way(Atari wasn't "retro" at this point, just old) but they might have been able to at least get some early adoption due to releasing 1993. They never had to have Nintendo or Sega-level sales considering how much smaller their budget was in the 90s but I can't imagine any major console contender selling under a million units being considered a success.

 

On 8/21/2022 at 6:26 PM, Lord Mushroom said:

Of course. My point was that the VCS didn´t have anything to offer the masses. There were already consoles which were more powerful, cheaper and with a large and fast expanding game library. So it was dead on arrival, even with a big marketing campaign. 

 

The Jaguar, on the other hand, had a chance as it was an early next generation console from Atari when Atari still meant something. It was a bad idea to make the Jaguar, given how little it would be supported, and therefore how unlikely it was to succeed. But given that it had been made, it was a good idea to advertise for it. If initial sales had been high, in part due to good advertisement, third-party game support would have increased, and it could have become a profitable console.

I see the issue not in the hardware but the games, the games seem good, but most people don't buy a console for $10 indie and arcade titles. Adamvision didn't a really good job on the Recharged series, but those are small titles. The company also doesn't seem to have made much of an attempt at rebuilding credibility and legitimacy, which likely hurt their niche of classic Atari fans.

 

Also, crowdfunded consoles are just a bad idea. If you don't have the money to launch a system you certainly won't have the money to support it and with competitive games. Most consoles in the past 20 years are sold at a loss, which Atari couldn't afford to do, not to mention games AND not even being able to market the damn system.

[leech]

The sad fact of the matter is, that by the time Atari attempted to get back into the console market there were like.. 8 (I did not count them, but about that many) that all launched at the same, or within a year of it coming out.  Developers basically had the choice of supporting Nintendo, Sega and... who? 

 

Atari was barely even known as a brand by a large amount of people who were born with a NES controller in their hands.

 

They were in competition with 3Do, CDi, CD32, etc.  Didn't help that it launched without a CD-ROM, when that was already about to become the standard (with whatever terrible crap FMV that entailed at the time.)  It was like they were a chimp tossing their fieces in a full on shit storm of competition.  There was no way with the terrible documentation, and small amount of developers that Atari managed to still have loyal to him, that could have made the Jag a success.  It could have had the best hardware at the time, and still flopped.  Games make the console.  No one gives two craps about them otherwise.  😜

 

 

[GraffitiTavern]

Adamvision did* do a really good job with the Recharged titles, stupid midnight typos

[jerseystyle]

On 8/26/2022 at 9:23 PM, GraffitiTavern said:

Adamvision did* do a really good job with the Recharged titles, stupid midnight typos

Yeah I’m REALLY digging the recharged series. What other games would y’all like to see “recharged”? I think a new Dark Chambers would be fun.

[Cebus Capucinis]

Star Raiders: Recharged. 

[stirrell]

58 minutes ago, Cebus Capucinis said:

Star Raiders: Recharged. 

With the two most recent Recharged games having a series of missions, I think that would be a great fit for an updated Star Raiders game. Although I would love to see a full-fledged campaign-style game with a story for Star Raiders.

[RollOut]

5 hours ago, Cebus Capucinis said:

Star Raiders: Recharged.

I strongly agree. That is an important property, that needs some love. I would also love to see it's successor, Solaris get some attention. Do we definitely know if Atari SA still owns these IPs?

[Lord Mushroom]

19 minutes ago, RollOut said:

I strongly agree. That is an important property, that needs some love. I would also love to see it's successor, Solaris get some attention. Do we definitely know if Atari SA still owns these IPs?

Yes, unless they have sold it in the last year, which is highly unlikely.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GtOwuQVdm-YWVtzM8Q7n2CsgTjThIi7M/view

[GraffitiTavern]

1 hour ago, Lord Mushroom said:

Yes, unless they have sold it in the last year, which is highly unlikely.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GtOwuQVdm-YWVtzM8Q7n2CsgTjThIi7M/view

https://drive.google.com/file/d/11oWssnYQrtPlUI-VtQ9YyqlXoZ42YSyn/view

This is the 2022 catalog, I don't think they went anywhere

7 hours ago, jerseystyle said:

Yeah I’m REALLY digging the recharged series. What other games would y’all like to see “recharged”? I think a new Dark Chambers would be fun.

Warlords, and there might be something like that in the 50th anniversary collection if I recall?