If you had been in charge...

[A Sprite]

What would you have done differently? Don't just limit yourself to the hardware - what game would you pack in? Would you try to compete in Japan? How would you convince developers to take you seriously?

 

If everything had gone right, was there any hope Atari could have competed with the PSone and N64 in sales, or would they have to settle for respect?

[Pete5125]

They Should of teamed up w/ what was left of NEC(turboduo), brought out the new Jaguar(for history sake we will say they release the exact same system only make it CD based and Give it an Acade controller w/ a joustick and 6 to 8 buttons no #pad.

 

If this was done not only would they regain the Japanies market but they would have access to Bomberman/Adv. Island/Bonk/TV Sports lineup(I know it's not as good as EA Sports but better than nothing...also EA will be of no help since they have a vested intrest in 3D0 becoming a hit)

 

Include a 64 Bit Bonk game w/ system launch plus a 10 pack of classic NEC games, Sell an adaptor (or include it) to make it turboduo compatable....In America/Europe call it Atari Jaguar everywhere else NEC Jaguar (Japan will never by American computer products even XBOX has trouble overseas).

 

Step up production from the get..go both look to Nintendo and Acclaim(Mortal Monday) as to how to launch a product.

 

The hard thing at this point is you have the same developers but in yr1 and yr2 you are going to get the same games...and have the same problems because of cash flow etc.....But the trickle of NEC 64 bit updated Turbo Games should help you get into yr 3 and survive it...the only diffrence is less money would go to space 3-D sims more would go to Doom/AvsP clones, fighters, and sports games.

 

Under this plan would Atari of survived the onslaught of PS1 and Saturn.....maybe, you got to remeber it wasn't Sny that killed Atari it was WalMart.

 

If it wasn't for Walmart then Atari wouldn't of spent all their $$$ making systems and ad advertising (Walmart gave an Advertising quota to Atari and Atari responded w/ bad infomercials).

Walmart sold them all for Christmas and then returned the bulk of damaged systems to Atari after the season...If Atari would have included a more kid friendly game Bonk/or popular game Arcade perfect MK3...then maybe fewer kids would of returned their Atari and would of bean OK w/getting Atari since none of the stores had a PS1 in stock.

[DracIsBack]

What a wonderful thread to inspire the armchair CEOs of the world!

[ls650]

IMHO...

To be blunt, I think Atari should never have released the Jaguar and instead concentrated on the winner it had - the Lynx. The Lynx was well thought of, had a great library, and should have clobbered the Gameboy. If Atari has decided to spend those millions of dollars for the Jaguar on pushing the Lynx instead, they might have had a success story on their hands.

[Broonale]

Atari should of canned 1/2 of it's employees starting from the top- down.

 

That would of cleansed the company and allowed those with standards and vision to proceed.

[walter_J64bit]

I would had the one of the three 2600 emulators release for the Jag.

[BuddyBuddies]

i wouldnt have thrown in the towel so early........

[cubejunky]

"IMHO...

To be blunt, I think Atari should never have released the Jaguar and instead concentrated on the winner it had - the Lynx. The Lynx was well thought of, had a great library, and should have clobbered the Gameboy. If Atari has decided to spend those millions of dollars for the Jaguar on pushing the Lynx instead, they might have had a success story on their hands."

 

 

If they did something like that and it did work they might still be in the console market, they could have delayed the Jaguar and used Lynx profits to make the Jaguar better (much like how the GBA carried Nintendo when the GCN wasn't performing) make it a true CD system (instead of a add on), better 3D graphics (like Psx or N64), better controller, waited until the "next gen" (sat, psx, n64) was closer and release during that time instead of in between the generations. They maybe could have capitalized on Sega's mistakes (Sega CD, 32X) and the 64's delays and cart based system and jump on Squaresoft (who was at odds with Nintendo over the N64 being a cart system instead of CD) to get the Japanese market. They might have knocked Sega and/or Nintendo out of the race, Nintendo would not have there handhelds to carry them, Sega would be broke from all the other failed systems, Jag could have become what the PSX was.... I don't know how the PSX could beat it at that point.

Edited July 1, 2007 by cubejunky

[BuddyBuddies]

"IMHO...

To be blunt, I think Atari should never have released the Jaguar and instead concentrated on the winner it had - the Lynx. The Lynx was well thought of, had a great library, and should have clobbered the Gameboy. If Atari has decided to spend those millions of dollars for the Jaguar on pushing the Lynx instead, they might have had a success story on their hands."

 

 

If they did something like that and it did work they might still be in the console market, they could have delayed the Jaguar and used Lynx profits to make the Jaguar better (much like how the GBA carried Nintendo when the GCN wasn't performing) make it a true CD system (instead of a add on), better 3D graphics (like Psx or N64), better controller, waited until the "next gen" (sat, psx, n64) was closer and release during that time instead of in between the generations. They maybe could have capitalized on Sega's mistakes (Sega CD, 32X) and the 64's delays and cart based system and jump on Squaresoft (who was at odds with Nintendo over the N64 being a cart system instead of CD) to get the Japanese market. They might have knocked Sega and/or Nintendo out of the race, Nintendo would not have there handhelds to carry them, Sega would be broke from all the other failed systems, Jag could have become what the PSX was.... I don't know how the PSX could beat it at that point.

welcome to Atariage

[EmOneGarand]

"IMHO...

To be blunt, I think Atari should never have released the Jaguar and instead concentrated on the winner it had - the Lynx. The Lynx was well thought of, had a great library, and should have clobbered the Gameboy. If Atari has decided to spend those millions of dollars for the Jaguar on pushing the Lynx instead, they might have had a success story on their hands."

 

 

If they did something like that and it did work they might still be in the console market, they could have delayed the Jaguar and used Lynx profits to make the Jaguar better (much like how the GBA carried Nintendo when the GCN wasn't performing) make it a true CD system (instead of a add on), better 3D graphics (like Psx or N64), better controller, waited until the "next gen" (sat, psx, n64) was closer and release during that time instead of in between the generations. They maybe could have capitalized on Sega's mistakes (Sega CD, 32X) and the 64's delays and cart based system and jump on Squaresoft (who was at odds with Nintendo over the N64 being a cart system instead of CD) to get the Japanese market. They might have knocked Sega and/or Nintendo out of the race, Nintendo would not have there handhelds to carry them, Sega would be broke from all the other failed systems, Jag could have become what the PSX was.... I don't know how the PSX could beat it at that point.

I dunno about all that... The Jag is in the class of the TG-16 (except it wasn't popular at all in Japan) It had great potential but it wasn't tapped or the marketing was so bad that alot of people didn't even give it a glance. When it first came out Cartridges were the thing which most people related to at the time, CD was there, it was cool but was a more expensive piece of equipment (the Turbo CD was $399 when it came out) so maybe playing the CD card later allowed for an overall better quality piece of equipment and at a somewhat cheaper price. It's really a matter of opinion whether Atari made a good or bad decision with the Jaguar, could alot of things been done better? Yes. But then would the system have had such a cult following if it had been as successful as the other consoles of its day? I think not.

[A Sprite]

What a wonderful thread to inspire the armchair CEOs of the world!

 

Yes, actually. I almost made reference to it in the post itself. The business of making video games is often ignored. I have nothing but respect for those who can organize a company and feed families - how often do outsiders try to see things in the industry in terms of what can be realistically achieved with limited resources (Business is 1/4 strategy gaming and 3/4 survival horror) ?

Edited July 1, 2007 by A Sprite

[spiffyone]

WARNING: Long post ahead.

 

First thing I would've done is put an 020 processor in there instead of the orginal 68k that they used. That would've made the bus going to that part larger, and thus made the bus going to the DSP larger. The system wouldn't be held back in that regard, and the 68-20 was similar enough to the "normal" 68k that developers would be able to go that route if they couldn't get the finer points of the console (taking the 68k off the bus entirely).

 

I know some would just put another RISC, the same as or similar to the GPU and DSP, but I agree with the original designer's thoughts on putting the Motorolla processor in there: it gives developers a "warm, happy feeling" knowing there's something there that they already know and can come to grips with. I just would've used an actual 32-bit unit from the 68k family (the aformentioned 020). As the bus width would be larger to the 020, so too would the one going to Jerry (on which the DSP resides), so Jerry wouldn't be strapped with a 16-bit bus, instead going a full 32-bits and taking full advantage of Jerry's 32-bit RISC design. This would allow intrepid developers to use the DSP as the primary "CPU", leaving TOM to do all graphics operations, and if using the 020 at all, using that in a support function for Jerry.

 

I would've had the Pro Controller be the stock controller of the console. But I would've shrunk the controller size a bit by shrinking down the size of the keypad or perhaps doing away with the keypad altogether (as the L,R,X,Y and Z buttons on the Pro Controller are mapped to many of the same actions as the keypad).

 

No CD-ROM in the stock unit due to cost reasons. Sega and Sony were both stomaching huge hardware losses due to inclusion of CD-ROM, and 3DO would have if it weren't manufactured under the deal that it was under. Atari couldn't afford that sort of thing to be built in, IMHO, because they wouldn't be able to stomach those sorts of losses. That said, I would allow up the maximum size of the cartridges themselves to be larger than they were even without the compression, so that larger games could be made if desired. I also would not launch a CD-ROM add on until maybe 2 or 3 years into the life cycle, if at all (and at that point it would be low priced and come bundled in with stock Jaguar units for new consumers), because add-ons never sell all that well.

 

I also would delay the launch for about a year so that the hardware bugs could be sorted out, and proper dev tools built. The latter cannot be stressed enough. Proper dev tools and documentation would allow devs to get the most out of the console.

 

In the interim I would release CoJag (the 020 version) for the arcade market, particularly in Japan, thereby getting some market presence there (and this would be very important for the later JP launch). Developers would also get more acclimated to the Jag hardware in that regard. However, I would release the CoJag with a different hardware name and deny it being Jaguar, pulling the wool over the game mags' eyes, and hopefully not giving competitors hardware to focus on in their own console designs (as Sega did when they looked at 3DO).

 

But that extra near year delay would allow Atari to better analyze the market, horde marketing money for a year, and get all their ducks in a row in terms of developer support, especially when it is revealed that Jaguar is indeed the very same thing as the arcade hardware that has been out on market for that near year (sans HDD and with less RAM, of course).

 

And which developers would I first target?

 

European developers. Atari's ST line sold well in Europe (better than any other region), the developers over there had some familarity with Atari hardware, and so too did the consumers. And as at that time the EU market was smaller than the JP and NA markets, this would prove a nice testing ground. It also helps that it would sell fairly decent as well.

 

Next up would be Japan. Remember...there's that "CoJag" style arcade hardware I alluded to before. There'd be games already running on that hardware, and due to similarities between that "CoJag" and the 020 Jaguar, ports would be fairly simple to pull off, ensuring at least some support over there. Atari would never win Japan, but that doesn't matter as long as there is some headway there for games that will help the US release.

 

Last up would be the North American/US market. And here I would focus on arcade developers like Midway, and PC developers (like Id), while using the EU and JP developed games to ramp up the launch library and make the console more attractive.

 

With that extra year delay (releasing it in '94 instead of '93 in the US), the price of using the 020 would drop, and so too would the cost of the RISC chips. And that might mean a lower cost than the $249 it launched at, instead hitting that $199 sweet spot.

 

The titles from Atari themselves would also get a bump up in terms of using the system effectively, and therefore be better showcases for the console and therefore sell the console to more consumers.

 

Remember, Atari didn't need to win. They just needed to do well enough to get a foothold in the market and make some profit.

[superjudge3]

I would have waited until 1994 and made sure AvP, Tempest 2K, Iron Soldier and a better Cybermorph could all be released as launch titles.

[Goochman]

I wouldve taken a step back and realized that from a resource standpoint Atari had no chance of competing with Sega and Nintendo - From a Library standpoint they couldnt get the games. Forget Sony who did have the budget to compete.

 

I wouldve taken my catalog of titles and done T2K and others under the 'Atari' label for other platforms to survive another day - I would also have put some more effort into the Lynx since it was the best at the time. T2K on N64 and T2K on the Lynx.

 

I dont think anything else could stop the eventual demise of Atari as a standalone company as we knew it.

[BuddyBuddies]

I wouldve taken a step back and realized that from a resource standpoint Atari had no chance of competing with Sega and Nintendo - From a Library standpoint they couldnt get the games. Forget Sony who did have the budget to compete.

 

I wouldve taken my catalog of titles and done T2K and others under the 'Atari' label for other platforms to survive another day - I would also have put some more effort into the Lynx since it was the best at the time. T2K on N64 and T2K on the Lynx.

 

I dont think anything else could stop the eventual demise of Atari as a standalone company as we knew it.

even the "new" Atari is going belly-up!