Jayson

You know, for a company that claimed in court that it had to do all manufacturing of cartridges so they could meet its high quality standards, I've found more defective Nintendo systems and cartridges than any other company. Anyone else finding the same to hold true? Atari may have never learned to make a cartridge-slot dust cover, but you can drive a truck over the cartridges and they still work.

I still lack a TurboDuo. I may break down and actually buy one at Classic Gaming Expo this year. I've about given up on finding one in the wild. Of course I'd given up on ever again finding anything rare in the wild again and a little over a week ago added CommaVid's Stronghold NIB to my collection.

Atari 800 Second the 4-player M.U.L.E. comment and add ... 4-player Asteroids 4-player Survivor No need to disable BASIC while booting. Seriously, I own the 400, 800, 800XL and XEGS. I also once owned the 130XE. The beige tank is my all-time favorite of the bunch.

No Miner 2049er cartridge on the 7800 either. Four-player Asteroids on the 8-bit makes it way cool. Food Fight ... well, have to give respect to the 7800 Food Fight when compared to the 8-bit version. What happened there?

I've spent many happy hours with M.U.L.E. Had a four player game going within the last 6 months. I'd be glad to wringe a cartridge version out.

Really nice score. Getting the voice in the box is especially sweet.

You have a dollar figure in mind?

Race In Space in a dark arcade in 1973 that a young teenager probably should not have been in. Never forget that first game. Was hooked from then on. Very cool...that's one I have never played. I think my first serious arcade machine was Space Invaders....Ahh....the good 'ole days! It was actually an Atari arcade game. Think of an early version of Activision Freeway with space ships replacing the chickens and small asteroids (dots really) replacing the cars, trucks, etc. ANALOG Computing magazine actually did a version of the game for the Atari 8-bit computers. One of those type-it-in things. Was actually a pretty good version though. Still love that game. Set the asteroid count high and it made the hardest varients of Freeway look like a walk across a country dirt road.

By your own admission, and listing, you played 40% of the games you thought were good. Q.E.D. Jayson did. Then he tried to make it look like he was comparing the numbers of games released. But if you read what he said, he was blindly repeating the ideological rantings of Jag-bashers everywhere in saying that the Jaguar couldn't even do games as good as the SNES and Genesis. I assert one more time that the Jag has a better ratio of great games vs. stinkers than any of the systems you mention. Just because it had FEWER great games is nothing against the system. It just had fewer games in total. Naturally, it's not going to rack up as many hits since it wasn't around as long. I compared software playability, not hardware. There is no way the Genesis or SNES hardware can compare to the Jaguar's. It's power was simply squandered. To educate you a little on the difference between playability and just a nice looking game, Enduro on the 2600 plays better than DUI Driving ... uh, Checkered Flag on the Jaguar. Man, if we accept the bird's assertion, the Bally Professional arcade is really kicking butt! It's ratio of great games to stinkers is awesome. Another education point, historically a system (and these are just hypothetical numbers) with 10 good games out of a total library of 20 releases is not going to go down in history as a great system like a system with a hundred good games out of a thousand releases. Look at how many stinkers the 2600 ended up with in its long life. Would anyone seriously put the 2600 and the Jaguar in the same league ... not if you have any perspective on the hobby anyway. jwhyrock, don't bother arguing with the fanboys. It is useless and perhaps even a little tactless. Having participated in these which-system-is-better discussions for 20 years ("Whoa, dude, the Emerson Arcadia rules!"), I can safely say you are not going to change the mind that is too invested in one system. I've already gotten farther into this one than I've bothered to in years. Let it drop.

30 Years? Ok, I'm trying to figure this out. Are you referering to the first arcade games or a home system like PONG? Just curious what were you playing in '73? I guess I need to read a history of video games book. My video game life started with the 2600 in the late 70's. Jason Race In Space in a dark arcade in 1973 that a young teenager probably should not have been in. Never forget that first game. Was hooked from then on.

Sorry, T-Bird, no psych job going here. Like I said, I've been gaming for thirty years now and seen about everything happen. I think you might want to leave the Atari-only forums a little more often and quit breathing the vapors here. My experience is that hardcore Jag fans have developed a bunker mentality with a healthy dose of paranoia when it comes to their favorite system. I know nobody can tell me anything bad about my favorite system ... the Vectrex.

Newcomer? Son, don’t mistake length of time participating in a fan site with gaming experience. As someone who played his first arcade video game in 1973 as a teenager, bought every new system as it came out since the ColecoVision (except the TurboDuo which I still don't have), has a collection of video game magazines that go back to issue 2 of Electronic Games, a collection of over 80 consoles, and lived as an adult through the time you are talking about, I can safely say you are deluding yourself. While the hardware of the Jag got roundly praised the games got thoroughly ragged with rare exceptions from the beginning. Any first-year gamer will tell you that either the Genesis or SNES had way more games with better play value than the Jag. To maintain otherwise is a fanboy attitude. Yes, the DC died faster. But it also sold many times what the Jag did. I would not even call what Atari gave the Jag a life. Yeah it ended up staying around about three years with marginal distribution, but anyone who was paying attention knew it was on life support after six months. While I’m proud of my collection of almost 70 Jag games (including prototypes) I don’t let my love of Atari blind me to industry facts.

The thing that killed the Jag was poor games. With rare exceptions, the games that came out with the Jag were not even beating the SNES and Genesis games that were coming out at the time. The DC handily beat its main competition, the Playstation, in the games department. The Jag was never widely adopted by even core gamers. While the DC enjoyed, and still enjoys, a great reputation with core gamers. While they were both systems that failed rapidly, the failure of the DC pales in comparison to how badly the Jag was handled by Atari. Atari could never even get full distribution on the Jag at major retailers.

I know it is blasphamy on this forum, but I consider the Dreamcast to be a much better system than the Jag with LOTS more great games. When the decision came to get rid of one or the other ... I did not even hesitate. I wonder too what history will say. The Jag was always a mediocre system with a less than mediocre game library that was really never embraced by anyone except the Atari faithful and failed miserably. On the other hand the DC was a good system with a great library that was embraced by hardcore gamers and also failed - proving that the hardcore gamer was not enough to keep a system afloat in the modern era. A system has to be adopted by the mass gamer. I think the Dreamcast will go down as a system of the hardcore gamer and will be very sought after in the future.

Make me an offer. Remember that shipping is likely to run a bit.