Sam Tramiel interview - Next Generation 1995

[carmel_andrews]

I remember an Atari article and small interview with ST in Edge Magazine (UK) it seems to be an edited version of the thing that this thread is talking about, because the one in Edge magaizine also briefly discusses Jeff Minter's contribution to the Jag...i still have that issue but alas no scanner and it's a bit dog eared

 

Or was that Atari article and what your talking about 2 seperate interviews

Edited August 26, 2009 by carmel_andrews

[Goochman]

And then Sam Tramiel had a heart attack - Jack stepped back in and wound down operations. I truly think is Sam didnt have his heart attack that Atari would've continued to fight to the last $$$ - but Jack and Leonard were not interested anymore.

 

Truthfully, Leonard didn't have much to do with the daily operations, he was more involved with the products themselves. And I'm not sure that Sam would have been able to change things if he didn't have the heart attack. Every since he had taken over, the company itself was on a downward spiral. When Jack turned the company over to him, he had mananged to bring the company out of the red and in to the black - shedding all the debt they took on from Warner in the purchase. That was his dream after all, to be able to hand something solid over to his sons and retire. Sam managed to take it from a multi-division multi-product company to a single product company by the time Jack came back in. If they would have fought to the last $$$, there would have been nothing left of a legacy for his kids, hence the reverse merger to get out while they still could. Truthfully, I would rather have had Jack not retire back in the late 80's and have him stick around for the oncoming Wintel onslaught to see how he would have dealt with that. I can't picture just turning tail and closing down the computer division like that.

 

Ah good insight - I guess from a selfish point of view I think Sam would've kept the Jag products coming out a bit longer - but I agree the finish line was quickly approaching..........If Sega couldnt survive the next few years, Atari def had 0 chance.

[kool kitty89]

Ah good insight - I guess from a selfish point of view I think Sam would've kept the Jag products coming out a bit longer - but I agree the finish line was quickly approaching..........If Sega couldnt survive the next few years, Atari def had 0 chance.

 

Maybe, but using Sega as evidence rerally doesn't hold up, they totally screwed themselves (and their fans) in that generation, probably the main reason the Saturn even sold what it did (outside of Japan) was Sega's fanbase and reputation (which was quickly crumbling).

So, had Atari gotten everything right (or reasonably close) they could have had a chance to be reasonably successful with the Jag, but that wasn't the case. Not competed directly with Sony, but they could have probably taken up the slack where Sega was screwing up, and Nintendo didn't come in til later. (and by that time there's the Jaguar 2 to considder, had things gone well)

 

As for their computers, who knows what could have happened if Jack had stayed at the helm, probably fought a bit more as suggested, but I really don't have any idea. (Sam really didn't seem anywhere near as capable as his father at least, who knows how Jack would have treated the Jaguar though -if it would have existed at all, there could have been interesting possibilities of using the Jag hardware in their computers though)

[WatchVenusSpa]

The one line that rocked the entire interview was when he said "Saturn sadly, is a pooch!" The best gaming smack this side of id Software!

[Cebus Capucinis]

The slant of the press against the Jaguar really didn't help Atari out much in a time of need -- basically it seems like this interview was another nail in the coffin for the company. Consumers just weren't buying what Atari was selling conceptually anymore. It's pretty funny to see something like this and then look at the gaming press today -- "Nintendo craps out ANOTHER GOLDEN BRICK!" and the like -- to simply show how the industry had switched from an open-ended perspective to a very closed-perspective. People had made up their minds about Atari and that was essentially that for the company.

[WatchVenusSpa]

The slant of the press against the Jaguar really didn't help Atari out much in a time of need -- basically it seems like this interview was another nail in the coffin for the company. Consumers just weren't buying what Atari was selling conceptually anymore. It's pretty funny to see something like this and then look at the gaming press today -- "Nintendo craps out ANOTHER GOLDEN BRICK!" and the like -- to simply show how the industry had switched from an open-ended perspective to a very closed-perspective. People had made up their minds about Atari and that was essentially that for the company.

 

Another thing to remember was that at the time of the interview the Big N had a virtual monopoly with Sony and Microsoft being so powerful that if they didn't dis the little guy, they'd lose all relevance because the powerhouses would simply ignore them come press time. That and pull all advertising from their magazine.

 

Sega and Atari were such little fish that the arrogant gaming press really didn't care if their systems were good or not, they sucked and would be put out of business, simple as that. Give Tramiel credit, he tried, something more than Playstation has done in the most recent generation...

[kool kitty89]

Nintendo wasn't that huge of a company either, their success from the NES and SNES really built things up, but they were still a relatively small company compared to the likes of Sony.

 

Sega... well that another story, they just completely screwed themselves from a number of directions from ~1993 onward, the early launch of the Saturn possibly being the biggest mistake, but a erneral lack of coordination and cooperation between US/EU and Japan really messed things up, the Sega CD was OK and did fairly well for what it was, and I think it actually outsold the Saturn in the US. (there were flaws though and SoA emphesized FMV probably more than was healthy, but it did give them some experience with the media) The Saturn's design was kind of problematic, rather expensive to manufacture, complex and a little buggy (less so than the Jag), and didn't have anywhere near the development tools that the PSX got. The 32x confused things, the early Saturn launch exacerbated this, gave an opening for Sony to undercut their price, and pissed off many developers and retailers left out of the loop, probably the biggest single mistake with the system. There were later mess-ups, but this was one of the worst.

 

 

Anyway, I think Atari Corp management/Tramiels kind of screwed things up with the Jaguar as well, but that's kind of a double sided thing. They could have put some private funding in to help but that would be riskier, and as things happened the Tramiels certainly made out pretty well when they sold off Atari to JTS. But specifically in therms of the Jaguar Sam/atari management could have done better, not sure what would have happened under Jack had he not retired when he did, but that questions other things like fighting in th ecomputer market longer and possible managing those activities better; in such a scenario who knows if the Lynx or Jaguar would have existed as they did (or if Epyx or Flare would have gone elsewhere entirely).

Still I think this sums thing up pretty well in that respect:

And I'm not sure that Sam would have been able to change things if he didn't have the heart attack. Every since he had taken over, the company itself was on a downward spiral. When Jack turned the company over to him, he had mananged to bring the company out of the red and in to the black - shedding all the debt they took on from Warner in the purchase. That was his dream after all, to be able to hand something solid over to his sons and retire. Sam managed to take it from a multi-division multi-product company to a single product company by the time Jack came back in. If they would have fought to the last $$$, there would have been nothing left of a legacy for his kids, hence the reverse merger to get out while they still could. Truthfully, I would rather have had Jack not retire back in the late 80's and have him stick around for the oncoming Wintel onslaught to see how he would have dealt with that. I can't picture just turning tail and closing down the computer division like that.

 

And as it was, brining out the Jag 2 might not have been a great idea, but perhaps it could have worked out, at least maybe if they learned from the mistakes of the Jaguar. (had Sam not had the heart attack)

 

 

 

However, if Sam was really serious about making Atari Corp into a gaming company and push the Jaguar, he really needed to handel some things differently. (I'm leaving the Lynx out here)

For one, they needed to maintain good relationships with developers, both those they paid to develop games Atari was to publish, and 3rd parties publishing their own software for the system. This means getting them interested (this apears to have been done fairly well historically), maintating reasonable relations and keeping to agreements, paying developers properly (not sure on the details but it sound like Atari short changed some of their developers), make the system attractive to develop for in general, and particularly reasonable to program on. (so fewer bugs, other modifications, and better development tools, or a mix depending on what you change) Also encourage developers to upgrade any older ports (ie 16-bit titles), particularly using a larger color palette, maybe higher resolution.

 

I really think making it CD based could have been a deciding factor, even if it meant a 1x speed drive to keep cost reasonable: CD media is cheap making it attractive to developers and allowing high profit margins at lower sale prices, along with that there's the large storage capacity along with CD audio and streaming video, also attractive to developers and, of course consumers. The other thing would be working out the hardware bugs (to a reasonable degree) and providing tools to work around any remaning problems. Now, switching to a 68EC020 from the 68000 is a major suggestion, and could substancially effect things, but also adds to cost, so you can go either way, keep the 68000 and get tools out to make the best use of the system, of just go with the 68EC020 and work less on the other stuff. (even some of the bug issues should be less important in that case, and the need for better tools substancially less)

Along with any such changes, make sure there's a decent launch lineup to give a good initial impression of the system. With some of the hardware changes, you might increase the system clock speed a bit as well if it's practical, like someting closer to 32-33 MHz. (the chipset was intended for 40 MHz iirc, but limited by some issues, cheaper RAM being at least part of it)

I don't think the controller would have been that big of a deal though, they're OK, though the pro controllers are better.

 

Don't try to compete directly with the spending contemporary companies are doing on marketing, but do use what you have as efficiently as possible.

 

 

They early launch was kind of forced by the lack of anything else for Atari Corp to sell, however, if the Tramiels invested a bit of their personal funds (a bit of a risk) and pushed things back until it was really ready, things probably could have gone better. Release it in Spring/Summer of 1994, providing plenty of time to work out many of the bugs make any other changes (integrating CD drive, changing CPU and/or put together some nice tools for the hardware, including a working compiler), allow a sizable launch line up to be available and bring many other major releases much closer to the launch date, plus certain rushed games could be developed properly. (like Crescent Galaxy and to lesser extent Cybermorph) Plus hadware improvements (and/or better tools) should allow improvements in other games that weren't necessarily rushed, along with facilitating some games that would otherwise have not been ported.

 

The later release should allow some portions of the hardware to be cheaper, like the CD drive (particularly if it's off the shelf rather than a custom design), the CPU shoud be as well, though RAM wouldn't change. (at least per size, faster RAM might be cheaper though, facilitating the faster system speed) Still with both the CD drive and a 68EC020 (assumeing a 1x speed drive and the cheaper 16.7 MHz rater EC020, and assuming they got a reasonably good deal on both) it would still be more expensive than the Jag was in 1993, possibly a $299 launch price in mid 1994 would be feasible? (but remember Atari did want to at least make a slim profit on hardware, unlike contemporaries, particularly Sony who was taking a huge loss on console sales, though I think Sega may have set the Saturn's prices in a profitable range initially, but lost that once they started competing with Sony) Plus there's all th emoney coming from winning the Sega lawsuit, but that's definitely something only visible with hindsight.

 

 

 

And of couse a lot of this has alrady been discussed here: http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/119048-its-1993-youre-in-charge-of-the-jag-what-do-you-do/page__st__525

Edited September 28, 2009 by kool kitty89

[WatchVenusSpa]

That said, Sony screwed up their business in the long run by resorting to "how low can your price go" at the CES when Sega put their price out there first and they waited and simply pulled numbers out of their asses to undercut them. From there the PS2 had mostly crappy games and PS3 is suffering from that now. (Weakened reputation, weak games and all graphics, no gameplay.) NOBODY is going to screw up like Sega did when they pre-empted SaturnDay but I have a feeling Sony will resort to price dumping at the last second again but I don't see the gaming public being that gullable again with X-Box kicking their ass.

[kool kitty89]

I don't know, I'm not a big fan of Sony's consoles (and have never owned one), but I think the PS2 had plenty of good games (and even the ones stil trickling in are fairly good). Of course it got plenty of crap and shovelware, but that's not surprising, it;s something that happens with every popular system, and the PS2 is the best selling console to date. I've never cared for sony's 1st party controllers, which is part of the turn off, plus PC emulation is pretty darn good now for PS1, so hardware compatibility isn't too much of an issue. (that is for any old PS1 games that were never ported to PC, or were but have problems on newer OSs)

 

I think the PS3 is somewhat of a different problem, the launch price was simply too high for one, and Blu-Ray doesn't have quite the same pull as DVD's did, the problematic (and subsequently discontinued) PS2 compatibility didn't help either. The hardware isn't especially programmer freindly, but as I understand, still better than the PS2 in that respect. (but nothing close to the PS1) At least it doesn't have the problems the 360 does, that thing's just rediculous, and not just in terms of failures of various components but also in operating tolerances. (the 360 will promply overheat and shut down in a warm room, at least the earlier models -approaching 90 degrees F, where no other system I know of has such problems, at least not when properly ventilated)

 

I guess we'll see if Sony can pick up the pace with the PS3 though, their new marketing campaign seems interesting at least. The Wii is the only current console we own, but I'm not especially impressed with that either, not hardware wise, most games are decent considering that limitation, but it's not as promising as the GC was for me. (from a buisness standpoint it was obviously the right decision for Nintendo, particularly selling it at these prices for that hardware, probably the first console to be sold for a profit since about the time the PS1 launched)

 

This is way off topic now, of course, moreso than my previous post.

Edited September 29, 2009 by kool kitty89

[superjudge3]

I agree Kitty, a launch of AvP, Tempest 2000, Iron Soldier and a better Cybermorph (music, backgrounds, better level design), and pushing back the launch until mid-1994 when bugs could have been fixed, and a proper dev kit would have helped the Jaguar so much. And these were simple things that could have been done without losing any money! Games like Checkered Flag, Trevor McFur, and Kasumi Ninja could have been much better and then Doom, Wolf 3D would be coming out, things would be looking good. Oh and at the very least release the controller with six buttons like on the pro controller, and hell do away with the number pad while your at it.

[kool kitty89]

Yeah, this is really just pushing into the topic of the 1993 what if? thread. (so any more comments please go there, I don't want to shif this thread more off topic with a much more suitable one already established)

 

But in short, a major reason they rushed things wa Atari had basicly no products at that point, their computer market had pretty much died and they'd started shifting efforts towards the Jag for a while. The Lynx wasn't doing very well either, though perhaps something could have been done with that. (a more compact and further cost reduced Lynx III would have been something, but Nintendo was dominating that market and Sega was taking up most of the slack, and without significant advertizing and more developer support the Lynx wouldn't be going any further) Definitely not anything like the Jag in terms of programming difficulty, apparently a very freindly platform to develop for.

So the problem with the delay would be lack of revenue to support the company, using private funds from the Tramiels would be the quick fix for that, provided they were willing to put that on the line. (there's the rub)

 

I agree about the controllers, except about the keypad, I think it could have ficilitated ports of PC games that would otherwise not been very practical, or at least offered a closer layout to the PC game. (weapon select in FPS's, though they screwed that up with Wolf3D, and a game like X-Wing for example definitely needs a good chunk of buttons to play properly) So I think the pro controller (with 6-buttons and L+R) would be ideal, maybe remove the redundant keys though. (leaving just 4 added keys, maybe arrange them in a diamond pattern?)

 

Another note is the Jaguar had been en development since ~1990 (give or take depending on how loose you define things), so in development for quite a while, hence some things would not be as focused on the mid 90s marketplace as its competitors (in particular the lack of a C compiler for the RISC chips and a greater emphesis on 2D with 3D being more limited, the CD drive probably to some extent as well), but they could have tried to make the best of things still, and adapt as much as they could without a major redesign to the base hardware. (and there were still bugs and some loose ends in general independent of this, and the use of the 68000 over the 68EC020 would be purely for cost reasons)

 

Again see the other topic.

Edited September 29, 2009 by kool kitty89

[kevincal]

thought I would bump this for kicks

[JagChris]

I want this entire issue. It was a good read. It had a lot of stuff in it. Its where I first heard of Daggerfall for PC and wanted to play it ever since. Also had some Doomish game for the Mac in there I thought was intriguing. Sensory Overload or something.

[Clint Thompson]

I want this entire issue. It was a good read. It had a lot of stuff in it. Its where I first heard of Daggerfall for PC and wanted to play it ever since. Also had some Doomish game for the Mac in there I thought was intriguing. Sensory Overload or something.

 

I remember at the local CVS when I purchased this magazine and it rang up for only $2.49. There were like 6 left and I almost went back and just bought them all.

Now I'm kind of wishing I did, heh...

[kevincal]

Next Gen was a really great mag in the mid 90s. Next Gen and GameFan, the best. I was a big Jag fan when this issue came out. Gotta give it to Tramiel, he stayed super confident through it all.

[JagChris]

Die Hard Game Fan was the biggest sell out, or one of them.

Next Gen was a really great mag in the mid 90s. Next Gen and GameFan, the best. I was a big Jag fan when this issue came out. Gotta give it to Tramiel, he stayed super confident through it all.

[atarilovesyou]

The take home message I got from this article:

 

Virtual Reality still hasn't been implemented the way we all thought it was going to be, even all these years later!

 

GIVE ME MY VIRTUAL REALITY, WORLD!!! GIVE ME MY LAWNMOWER MAN EXPERIENCE!!! :D

 

Thanks for the scan