Was the Atari Jaguar too expensive to succeed? Did it take too long for PAL release (7 months)?

[oky2000]

I have been looking up info on the release of the Jaguar, seeing as I have played enough games to get an idea of the owner's experience back then vs rival systems, and a few questions came to mind. You can only judge a games console on the games you can play on it, unlike a computer which you can do other things with (desktop video, music, pixel art and animation etc etc)

 

1. Was the Jaguar too expensive? 

2. Was the 7 month delay to get it released in the EU too long?

3. Was Cybermorph the right pack-in game?

 

By Xmas 1993 you could buy a SNES with Mario for £105 from a huge high street retailer in the UK, the 1994 RRP launch price from what I can tell was £199.99 but in reality the first batch of just 1700 consoles in the UK were marked up at £249.99 to be sold by Rumbelows (a terrible choice, a store for old farts and has-beens) as reported by C+VG magazine. Cybermorph is a game that will appeal to maybe 1% of console owners IMO too so as a pack in game that is a disaster too. Don't get me wrong, Altered Beast was an utterly pants bundled game for the Mega Drive too in the UK, I loathe that arcade game never mind various conversions to home systems, it's DIRT!

 

So really, as far as the non US markets go, was the Jaguar severely handicapped from the start? Why so few machines sent to the UK, why such a long delay to get it into PAL land? How many NTSC consoles were sent to retailers from Nov 93-Summer 94 period before it was on sale in the EU?

 

Such a weird bit of info diving on the subject of the Jaguar launch. Few machines recover from a bad launch, the Amiga 500 barely sold more than the duff idea that is the Commodore 128 kludge of an 'upgrade' and that is because of all the cockups with the Amiga 1000 (which was the best personal computer money could buy in 1985-86 all things, including OS, considered). 

 

 

[LynxJagLunatic]

I believe it was too expensive at launch for the games available. If I remember correctly they launched the system with Cybermorph and Cresent Galaxy. I paid $300 for my Jaguar in April of 1994. I seem to remember less than 5 games were available.

[+madman]

I imagined it failed in PAL territories for the same reasons it failed in NTSC. Maybe some of the points mentioned were additional knocks against the Jag, but the root of the problem was still Atari itself. 

[+Gemintronic]

Was the Atari Jaguar too expensive to succeed?
Didn't feel abnormally expensive like the Neo Geo or 3DO for me at the time.

Did it take too long for PAL release (7 months)?
Greater allocation of units and promotion should have gone to Europe as Atari computers and systems had greater traction.

[+Stephen Moss]

As usual the real answer to all these "what if?" type questions is nobody knows.

 

Without being able to jump to a parallel universe where it was sold for less and better advertised (I only remember it in Atari related computer mags in the UK so limiting potential customers base) and comparing how it went between the two any answer other than "I don't know" is purely personal opinion/speculation and thus ultimately redundant.

[Pete5125]

Launch price was ok, it was next generation machine with pack in, for less than 300 bucks, it's competition launch at near 800, 3 yrs later 400 for a Saturn, 2 yrs later 32x will launch for 179, being a add on to a 100 buck sega genesis, and no pack in.

 

Cybermorph was probably the wrong pack in, but it was the best thing they had.  It did at least generate a game that look and felt next gen.  Once Raymon came out probably should of switched to that, but no matter what that was not what killed them.

 

They had a 2.5 year window they blundered with lack of systems/games, true should of got to Europe faster with more systems, but they could never keep up, then by the time they got that course corrected sega/Sony had arrived w, better systems and games.

 

Could a more competent company of succeed no idea, trip Hawkins 3do, had both good games, and cd based and couldn't make it work.  Philip's cdi had Mario and Zelda on their machine and was cd based and couldn't make it work.

 

91, is when the 16 bit boom had happen, 93 I'm being told, by Atari, it's over on to next gen  system, I think it was just to soon, plus Atari, had a few good games, but sports, arcade ports, fighters, and platforms were the main games people wanted, atari had none.

 

Atari foccused on Computer ports, in a time PC market had exploded because the internet boom of 95, and pcs had dropped in price, so most were getting doom fix on pc.

 

When it's all said, Atari didn't mess up European launch on purpose, they had low funds and a chip shortage, so focused and trying to get us orders 1st, and soft launch Europe with what they had left, every video game company has done si

Ilat, hoping to catch up with hype of product in demand.

[zzip]

considering its rival was the 3DO,  it was a bargain

 

Main problem was insufficient resources.    They needed resources to develop an impressive game library that would get the attention of fans of other consoles.  They needed resources to pour into marketing to get the message out.   

 

I don't think Cybermorph pack-in is a problem if there are enough other games to make the system worth owning for someone who already has an SNES or Genesis.

 

They probably also needed Sony to not release the Playstation.

[Editorb]

A killer app is silver bullet. Space Invaders wasn't pack-in for VCS but sold tons of systems. I bought PS2 for GTAIII, Wii for Wii Sports Resort, PS3 for GTA 4-5. Always warned wife we'd have to buy whatever new console if Road Rash sequel was released. More games of quality of T2K was key rather than T2K in April (I think) and AvP in November. That's one big-ass block of months of nothing.

[Major Havoc 2049]

On 2/16/2023 at 8:21 AM, zzip said:

considering its rival was the 3DO,  it was a bargain

 

Main problem was insufficient resources.    They needed resources to develop an impressive game library that would get the attention of fans of other consoles.  They needed resources to pour into marketing to get the message out.   

 

I don't think Cybermorph pack-in is a problem if there are enough other games to make the system worth owning for someone who already has an SNES or Genesis.

 

They probably also needed Sony to not release the Playstation.

This.  Atari just didn't have enough money to make enough systems for a worldwide launch and support it with a proper marketing budget. Money was also an issue with game development.  Like the Atari Jaguar commercials were cool, especially the Doom and AVP ones, but you had to be watching TBS, USA Network, MTV2, etc., at non-prime time hours to even see them, because that is all Atari could afford. 

[Fadest]

They also had not enough money to secure a national launch in US, so of course, it was had to expect a faster launch for us in EU.
For games, it was lots of computers ports because developers and publishers who signed with Atari was mostly ex Atari ST developers (or demomakers) that were committed to Atari brand (so many europeans devs... - and no japanese ones).

[Lostdragon]

On 2/14/2023 at 2:40 PM, oky2000 said:

I have been looking up info on the release of the Jaguar, seeing as I have played enough games to get an idea of the owner's experience back then vs rival systems, and a few questions came to mind. You can only judge a games console on the games you can play on it, unlike a computer which you can do other things with (desktop video, music, pixel art and animation etc etc)

 

1. Was the Jaguar too expensive? 

2. Was the 7 month delay to get it released in the EU too long?

3. Was Cybermorph the right pack-in game?

 

By Xmas 1993 you could buy a SNES with Mario for £105 from a huge high street retailer in the UK, the 1994 RRP launch price from what I can tell was £199.99 but in reality the first batch of just 1700 consoles in the UK were marked up at £249.99 to be sold by Rumbelows (a terrible choice, a store for old farts and has-beens) as reported by C+VG magazine. Cybermorph is a game that will appeal to maybe 1% of console owners IMO too so as a pack in game that is a disaster too. Don't get me wrong, Altered Beast was an utterly pants bundled game for the Mega Drive too in the UK, I loathe that arcade game never mind various conversions to home systems, it's DIRT!

 

So really, as far as the non US markets go, was the Jaguar severely handicapped from the start? Why so few machines sent to the UK, why such a long delay to get it into PAL land? How many NTSC consoles were sent to retailers from Nov 93-Summer 94 period before it was on sale in the EU?

 

Such a weird bit of info diving on the subject of the Jaguar launch. Few machines recover from a bad launch, the Amiga 500 barely sold more than the duff idea that is the Commodore 128 kludge of an 'upgrade' and that is because of all the cockups with the Amiga 1000 (which was the best personal computer money could buy in 1985-86 all things, including OS, considered). 

 

 

I've discussed this at some length before, but both the Jaguar console and it's software, came out in the UK at a higher price than the likes of Bob Gleadow and Peter Walker, had been telling the UK to expect. 

 

Why so few machines sent to the UK? 

 

Manufacturing issues with the fabrication plants making the custom chips, meant IBM were left with material shortages, so we're unable to assemble, Q. A test and ship enough units to meet demand. 

 

 

Also discussed before, be grateful we had Cybermorph was the in-game pack, if others at Atari had their way it would of been Crescent Galaxy. 

 

 

As for how many NTSC machines sent to retailers? 

 

I believe SDL and Thornley Distrubution handled UK indie stores assume one or both also handled distribution for places like Virgin, HMV etc, we'd need material and sources from them to get a realistic idea. 

 

 

Releasing it earlier in the UK would of only meant an even longer wait for the Killer-App titles. 

Edited February 17, 2023 by Lostdragon

[oky2000]

The CD32 failed because it was a luke warm upgrade to the CDTV (awesome machine but with bugger all games worth buying the system for in 1991) AND it cost as much as a SNES, Mega Drive as well as a PC Engine with a stack of games from the small ads combined by 1993. Price is important because you look at the price and look at the exclusive games library and make your choices as a consumer.

 

You could argue the CD-i had VCD movie playback capability but then again VCD movies are inferior in quality to a retail VHS release played back on a good quality machine, certainly the audio is terrible on VCD compared to VHS hi-fi stereo track encoded. Probably why the CD-i failed, a couple of good games needed the VCD playback expansion and the rest were junk.

 

The 3DO was insanely expensive, £600 or something? There were only about 3 decent games on it for me, none of which were around before PS1 went on sale anyway.

 

PS1 was £299.99/$299.99 and Ridge Racer was jaw droppingly good, a bit like if the VCS launch title included Space Invaders type scenario. Saturn looked like garbage until Sega Rally, Virtua Fighter II double whammy hit the shops at the end of 1996, at which point sales of the Saturn rocketed to PS1 levels for a brief period.

 

History teaches you plenty, it's a lot more than 'what if'. If your machine costs 1.5x more than a rival and yet the exclusive games are not as well designed and the multi-format release on your system is not actually any better (bit like ST port jobs killed the Amig) then you are not going to be winning any format war.

 

I guess it is a combination of things, it's one of the few systems that never got a port of Mortal Kombat or SF2, fashionable games at the time although not really something I bought into as I am more of a driving/shmup gaming sort of person in the arcade.

 

Microsoft lost many many millions forcing their way into the console market, all other new comers except Sony never made it into the big leagues no matter what happened. If Namco had not been in the Sony camp from well before launch of PS1 that too could have suffered poor sales as the Saturn did with it's underwhelming early library. 

 

Still 150,000 is too low, the Jaguar is not that bad in my opinion as an outsider, so it came as a bit of shock so I did some research at the time of posting. Not sure I really understand what happened. Perhaps 1993 onward people had made up their minds about what logo they wanted on the box of any new console they bought. 

[LynxJagLunatic]

I’ve always felt like Atari fudged the numbers for total sales. 150,000 seems way too low for 3 years on the market. Maybe it’s true but I’ve always felt the numbers were higher. Maybe 500k.

[jhd]

1 hour ago, LynxJagLunatic said:

I’ve always felt like Atari fudged the numbers for total sales. 150,000 seems way too low for 3 years on the market. Maybe it’s true but I’ve always felt the numbers were higher. Maybe 500k.

 

I am not disagreeing (as I have no access to original sales data), but what would motivate Atari (or any firm) to misrepresent its sales data by reducing it? If anything, firms try to make themselves look more successful by inflating the numbers.

 

I suppose it could be part of some complex scheme to embezzle money by reporting far fewer sales than in reality and then diverting the money, but this would amount to millions of dollars (and warehouses full of missing inventory). It would be nearly impossible to hide fraud on such a vast scale as too many people would need to be involved to make it work.  

[LynxJagLunatic]

59 minutes ago, jhd said:

 

I am not disagreeing (as I have no access to original sales data), but what would motivate Atari (or any firm) to misrepresent its sales data by reducing it? If anything, firms try to make themselves look more successful by inflating the numbers.

 

I suppose it could be part of some complex scheme to embezzle money by reporting far fewer sales than in reality and then diverting the money, but this would amount to millions of dollars (and warehouses full of missing inventory). It would be nearly impossible to hide fraud on such a vast scale as too many people would need to be involved to make it work.  

Yes that’s most likely true. I just find it hard to believe so few were sold. 

Edited February 18, 2023 by LynxJagLunatic

[+madman]

I don't know, even when they were on mega close out they still didn't sell, that's why B&C and Best scooped literally pallets worth and still have units to sell nearly 30 years later. 

[Clint Thompson]

On 2/18/2023 at 2:14 PM, oky2000 said:

The CD32 failed because it was a luke warm upgrade to the CDTV...

Maybe the fact that the CD32 was never officially sold in the U.S. may have been a bigger issue than anything else but a hunching guess would be that it wouldn't have really mattered much, just like with the Jaguar.

[Lostdragon]

6 hours ago, Clint Thompson said:

Maybe the fact that the CD32 was never officially sold in the U.S. may have been a bigger issue than anything else but a hunching guess would be that it wouldn't have really mattered much, just like with the Jaguar.

The CD32 library lacked anything like the number of Killer Apps it needed to gain any real traction even here in the UK. 

 

 

A mere handful of titles used the AKIKO chip. 

 

 

Enhancing  existing Amiga titles, with CD music, intro's and maybe an extra level, was not going to make a difference. 

 

 

[juansolo]

UK person who had a Jag back in the day and had a SNES also.

 

It didn't even come onto my radar until AvP came out which was it's killer app at the time and it was just too expensive. I only bought one after it had failed when the stores were selling them off for buttons. Bought one with with a copy of every game the store had and an RGB lead (which was a shonky ribbon cable thing at the time). I enjoyed it for the handful of games that were good. AvP took up a lot of my time as expected, but I fell in love with T2K. What I spent on it at the time I consider to have been reasonable (and it was way cheap...). I honestly don't think it had a chance of competing with the SNES or Megadrive as it's library simply wasn't strong enough and when the N64 and PS came along it was over.

 

Lately it's more of the same, it's too expensive again for it really to be a viable platform. Again I managed to pick one up cheap so I have one. But I wouldn't now for what it costs because once again, where there's a handful of great homebrew for it, it's a again just a handful and other platforms are much cheaper and better supported.

[mickster]

On 2/18/2023 at 1:20 PM, LynxJagLunatic said:

I’ve always felt like Atari fudged the numbers for total sales. 150,000 seems way too low for 3 years on the market. Maybe it’s true but I’ve always felt the numbers were higher. Maybe 500k.

If you dig into the past at atari,  the fudging being done was in the opposite direction.  Their sales numbers never added up to what they said they sold.  This goes for stuff even before the Tramiels.

[oky2000]

11 hours ago, Clint Thompson said:

Maybe the fact that the CD32 was never officially sold in the U.S. may have been a bigger issue than anything else but a hunching guess would be that it wouldn't have really mattered much, just like with the Jaguar.

No it wouldn't really, I don't know what was going on in the Amiga scene but during the era of A1200 there wasn't much evidence of super talented coders and artists making the most of the machine which is a double whammy with a crippled 020 in them and dirt cheap Sega/Nintendo rivals now with 16bit hardware unlike for half the life of the A500 which only had to fend off the Japan only PC Engine technically. Even worse, not every A1200 game made it to the CD32 (no floppy drive port like the CDTV) and when it did the music was sometimes worse than the MOD tunes on the disk based release, like Super Stardust.

 

At least the Jaguar is a powerful bit of kit.

 

The AKIKO chip is a Wonderbread style cock up (you removed all the nutrients from the grain so you have to do something to compensate and artificially introduce those nutrients back doh!). I doubt if Commodore hadn't gone with Chip RAM only spec for CD32/A1200 and therefore the CPU not being crippled to 7mhz if in reality you would really have much use for AKIKO, a 28mhz EC020 accelerator does the AKIKO stuff faster in software anyway. The AKIKO is also the reason why the A1200 never got an official CD-ROM any time soon and it would have hogged the trapdoor accelerator slot for the expensive C= daughterboard with an AKIKO onboard. Probably the worst design decision Commodore ever made having chip RAM only on AGA which was never designed to be used without CPU exclusive RAM and then adding AKIKO to compensate! The only people who could ever have made a decent killer app CD-ROM only Amiga game were busy going bankrupt during the CDTV launch (Cinemaware!) but a 100mb version of It Came from the Desert would have been a real boon for the CDTV and better than anything CD32 ever got, I spent my money on a Mega Drive and SNES and PC Engine personally, didn't miss out on bugger all from CD32 and I refuse to buy a replacement CD32 now that mine has an issue with 1 channel on the surface mount Paula chip.