pacman000

I wish I could forget that slogan...

Mine says TRW Electronic Components 4 switch, wood grain model Serial no 81633968

Well this hasn't been shut down yet so... https://www.retrogamer.net/profiles/hardware/atari-jaguar-2/ Article on the Jaguar, with comments from developers. Note that Retrogamer is a nostalgia based publication; they're going to accentuate the positive to get Jag fans to read. Still interesting, with some insights into what the system could do. 'Skilled programmer Steven Scavone, key member of 3D Stooges which released Gorf, still develops for Jaguar. Comparing it to systems hes worked on, Scavone elaborated on tech-specs, also explaining in laymens terms. It should be coded in as much assembler as possible. This machine flies when fuelled by assembler. The RISCs in proper concert with the 68k will do some absolutely amazing graphics. The Jaguar could [utterly] crush any 2D system. Its a lot easier to program 2D for than the PSX or N64. You can thank the Tramiels for it being underpowered. The chips were not complete and had bugs. The designers, who werent experts in silicon design, missed fundamentals. Just one more register and [it could have run without stalling all the time]! If they [had fixed this], the Jag would have blown away the PSX. Later 3D titles like Battlesphere proved that systems at the time were no match for it.' 'Scott LeGrand, who co-developed Battlesphere alongside Engel, gave his own comparisons. The Jaguar was anything but underpowered. It had more computational firepower than anything else of that era, including the original PlayStation. [Jaguar] was actually easier to code for than the Saturn. However, PlayStation had hardware 3D acceleration, was a dream to code, and had Sonys marketing muscle behind it. Atari didnt stand a chance. PlayStation had built-in hardware acceleration; everything had to be done manually with Jaguar. LeGrand explains more, BattleSphere might have looked better on the PSX [in terms of raw polygon count], but its gameplay would have suffered. The Jaguars multiple CPUs let me do things with physics and AI that were a good five years ahead of the rest of the industry. It wasnt until Halo that I finally felt utterly outgunned.' Remember when I said different systems might have different strengths, making them hard to compare?

Problem is Windows 8 didn't work the way consumers wanted it to.

Back to more serious discussion: can Atari, or anyone for that matter, deliver a modern gaming machine at their proposed price point? Curious, I looked up $300 gaming PC. Found this: https://www.toptengamer.com/top-300-gaming-pc-build/ Which has a link to this: https://www.toptengamer.com/150-gaming-pc/

I can see the basic logic here, but Atari today has less money than in 1996 when they decided to get out of the console business ($1 million today vs. $10 million then, not considering inflation.) They won't be doing any significant marketing for anyone. (Actually Atari probably had $35 million going into 96, but they gave JT Storage a massive loan early in the year.)

Possible, but most of what I've read suggests the 2600's cart slot was inspired by Pong-on-a-Chip-in-a-Cart systems. Atari was even planning one of their own: http://www.atarimuseum.com/videogames/dedicated/gamebrain/

Power + Programming = Performance The Traimels, being hardware people, focused on creating a powerful system, but ignored developer requests. This made the Jaguar harder to program, and few highly-skilled developers actually made games for it. Trip Hawkins, being a software developer himself, focused on creating a powerful system and the tools needed to exploit that power. So, yeah, 3DO games look better than Jaguar games. Which is more powerful? I dunno... From what I've read it's impossible to make a 1 to 1 comparison between game systems. Architectural differences can ensure the systems are equally powerful, but in different ways. One system may be able to move more sprites and background layers at a higher resolution than another, but the other system may be faster at 3D rendering. While I do find such debates interesting, they're of little use. Unless someone develops a game for both systems and decides to share their experiences, there's not much to say besides fan-boyish speculation. On that note... Atari is Awesome and the Jag 2 would've totally buried the N64 if JTS hadn't sold everything off !!!!!11!!! YAY!

The VCS and Channel F were in development at the same time. Magnavox sued Atari for copying Odyssey Tennis. Atari agreed to give Magnavox the rights to everything they produced in 1976, so the VCS's release was held off till 1977. It''s hard to run a startup, and after a lawsuit Atari didn't have the resources to produce the VCS, so Atari sold to Warner to get the money to release their already developed console. (Hopefully that's still all correct; it's been awhile since I reviewed the history on all this.)

Considering the Switch will probably be able to combine Nintendo's handheld and console markets, I can see it doing better than the Wii.

I generally agree with this, tho I must point out that Atari Games was kept alive as Midway West till about 2003. Even if they changed names to avoid confusion, it still existed, and would've been influenced by its past. I do care some about continued existence. If Atari has kept going from '96 till today they would have some sort of culture influenced by the company's history. even if all the 70's/80's employees had retired they would've passed their knowledge of the company on to new employees through stories. When JTS took over they fired all but 5 people who were supposed to help them sell off/license Atari's IP. From what I've read Hasbro only bought Atari's IP; I find no evidence they kept the few remaining Atari employees. Whatever we have today can't be the Atari of the past because Atari stopped existing. There's no history, no culture; the folks who would've set it up were left out of the deal.

http://ataripodcast.libsyn.com/antic-interview-299-john-skruch-atarisoft An interview with John Skrunch, mentioned in the essay as one of the few Atari employees JTS kept on.

I'd like to see reviews of Bit Corp's Games: http://atariage.com/company_page.php?SystemID=2600&CompanyID=194 Apollo's Games: http://atariage.com/company_page.php?SystemID=2600&CompanyID=36 BOMB's games: http://atariage.com/company_page.php?SystemID=2600&CompanyID=10 U.S. Games' games: http://atariage.com/company_page.php?SystemID=2600&CompanyID=41 Xonox's Games: http://atariage.com/company_page.php?SystemID=2600&CompanyID=9 And CommaVid's Games: http://atariage.com/company_page.php?SystemID=2600&CompanyID=22

Is this better than Telegames old Personal Arcade/Classic gamer packs? http://telegames.com/cgamer.htm http://telegames.com/pa.htm You can actually download a trial version of Personal Arcade for free: http://telegames.com/download.htm (EDIT: I just tried the download; it no longer works ) More importantly, is Telegames still in business selling these? They haven't updated their FaceBook page in years, the search engine on their website no longer works, and they never answered my email, telling them that their search engine's broken. It does look like AtGame's collection has a few different games (Wing War instead of Alcazar; I'd like to try both.)

On the dark side, all this AtariBox news appears to have forced AtariAge off the 1st page of Google for the keyword "Atari."

I think the Atari History Museum (Curt) has/had one. http://www.atarimuseum.com/videogames/consoles/jaguar/jag2.html Sounds like it even has the custom chips.

The screencaps or the entire box art? What resolution do you need?

Found this on Slashdot: https://games.slashdot.org/story/02/09/17/146252/interview-with-atari-jaguar-creator-john-mathieson They didn't have the full article, only a link, and the link was dead. Luckily the Wayback Machine had it: https://web.archive.org/web/20021013115028/http://www.chez.com/toxicmag/real/articles/mathieson.htm (Scroll down a bit unless you know French; the intro is in French.)

The rarity guide doesn't list any reviews, so here's one: http://videogamecritic.com/2600gg.htm?e=76114#rev208 Another, newer, longer. The reviewed liked it better: http://www.classicvideogamers.com/reviews/atari-2600-reviews/gas-hog-1983-atari-2600/ Video:

Atari licensed the game's rights. At the time they did make them, as far as business men were concerned. They marketed, distributed, -and gained profits- from them.

I'd say arcades were more like movie theaters; very good back-in-the day when they were the best/only option, but today consumers can get nearly the same thing at home. Arcades had a good run; they were still fairly popular in the early-to-mid 90's, and there are still some good ones around today. They're just not the massively popular be-all end-all everything of gaming anymore. (I hate saying this because I like both movie theaters and arcades; to me the home experience isn't the same. Going out to do something, be it seeing a movie or playing games at an arcade is an event; you can't replicate that at home.) http://www.businessinsider.com/movie-theater-attendance-is-declining-as-cord-cutting-becomes-more-popular-2016-9

It may be different for computer software. From the same story I linked to earlier: I really wish they'd written that other story. All this IP law stuff gets confusing. (Isn't a CD technically computer software, since it's digital code ran by a computer to reproduce music? But all this is getting us off topic...) Finding a Wii U developer kit is interesting, but probably not that valuable. The Wii U's being superseded by the Switch, so there's little worth to developers; as a collectible it's cool, but if you tired to sell it Nintendo could sue; they're really protective. Even if the courts decided that it was OK to resell you'd spend a lot on legal fees, too much for the system to be worth much. As for technical specs... I dunno. Probably the same as the Wii U without regional lockout. Might have a port to connect it to a PC. Don't know if it could play retail games. Just going by features other developer units have; I have no internal info on the system. As for the unit's history, you'd probably know more than I do. Where'd you find it?

Back on topic... It's interesting to note that the 1st article said, point blank, that video games weren't a fad. I always thought most folks at the time thought video games were a fad, and they game up on them after the crash for more versatile computers.

Oh my goodness... A Magnavox Odyssey pro-mo film. That's right. They would've had to invent a switch box too. Never even thought about it.

Thanks, Flojomojo! That's not nearly as cool looking as I thought it would be. The iPhone's full of little boxes! Not circuits, but boxes! Ah well.