Its 1993, you're in charge of the Jag, what do you do?

[belboz]

From what I remember and what I have read, Atari was prepared to ink the deal at CES (might have been a different show) and some Atari execs saw Coleco running Donkey Kong on a Coleco Adam computer. They were furious since they had computer rights. Supposedly this upset Ray Kasar (Tramiel wasn't around yet) and the deal wasn't inked before he was ousted from Atari. Then new management (which at that point could have been Tramiel and company, but I think it was still Warner) couldn't ink a deal and eventually Nintendo decided to go it alone.

 

I don't think Tramiel was around until about a year later.

 

Just checked Wikipedia (take it for what its worth). They have that CES show I mentioned above as June of 1983. They mention in July of 1983 the famicon had a successful enough launch in Japan that they decided to go it alone in the US and forget about Atari.

 

They list Tramiel as coming in in July of 1984.

 

 

 

It should be noted that this offer was made durring the crash, while Warner had been trying to unload Atari, I think Tramiel had already shown interest, or possibly had already started negotiation on the terms of purchase. (at least this is what I remember reading)

[kool kitty89]

I was off on that (I'd recently read in another discussion, and it threw me off), I checked on it again, and also listened to that interview posed above (which mentions this), but that thing about Coleco I think is a myth. Plus there's no way arround that, the Adam was fully compatible with the Colecovisionm thus it automatically had every game released for that console, plus I beleive the Atari only had the rights to the disk version, hence Coleco could have released a cart (or tape?) version on a computer anyway, and Atari couldn't release the game for their computers in cartridge form.

 

Based on that interview, the deal was basicly finalized, but Atari (Ray Kassar) had decided to go with the 7800 in 1983, but kept this secret and continued negotiations with nintendo, intending to get exclusive distribution rights with Nintendo to lock Nintendo out of the market when Atari switched to the 7800. (to keep them out of competition)

 

However before this could be completed, Kassar got into trouble for illegal stock trading, and left his position as Atari's persident, being replaced by James Morgan. Morgan seems to have been a major contributor to Atari's failure in late '83 through 84 (and possibly a significant factor in the '83 video game crash), as he basicly put all projects at Atari on hold (I think production as well) until he'd reviewed the situation. This ruined their sales for Christmas of 1983 (opening it right up for Commodore), and hampered the release of the 7800.

Edited June 1, 2009 by kool kitty89

[triverse]

For people interested in some of the early stuff concerning the NES and Atari please pick up Game Over, it is a popular and hard to find book that has at least a really good chapter about that debacle. Very interesting. For those that don't know, the book is about Nintendo and how they came to be the way they are.

[carmel_andrews]

Whilst i see that we have the benefit of hindsight (albeit some 16 years after the event) I guess that some of the views expressed here are deeply held views carried over from back in the day when Atari was as we remember it (warts and all)

 

I accept that atari today is a very different company with a totally different business model (software publishing and licencing), however, today's atari company is making the same mistakes (in a different way) that tramiel/warners were making

 

I.E weeding out all the creative/programming talent and replacing them with 'suits' that think they can sell/market an atari product

 

or bringing in a bunch of people to run a company because they have a list of qualifications (i.e MBA this/MBA that) that would make a PhD in Rocket Science blush a greater shade of traffic light red

 

Firstly, the reason why the atari of old failed is because it concentrated all decision making processes in the hands of too fewer people (in the case of warners, probably Gerrard/kasser/Ross and latterly Morgan...In the case of tramiel, well, you can't really look any further then uncle jack and brother sam) and as we all know, you can't run a technology or product based company like that by focusing decision making processes to narrowly as the people who are making those decision are not on the front line and base decisions on their own prejudices and outdated facts and figures

 

After all, look at it this way, if Bushnell ran Atari like warners/tramiel did, based on the competition bushnell has during his period, atari would probably has gone under well before the vcs was being prototyped...i'd say no more then 2-3 years, and as we all know bushnell's business experience was practically non existant, however unlike tramiel, warners and the present atari setup, Bushnell didn't surround himself with harvard/princeton/stanford suit's who have these business qualifications or have been moderately successful at selling cola drinks, mars bars or cigarettes....Bushnell surrounded himself with creative types that understood the technology and the product atari were creating and he just stuck then on the front line and said, here's pong, there's a distributor, go sell pong

 

I guess bushnell understood the real understanding of selling/marketing, i.e you are not selling/marketing a product, you are selling yourself, the product is merely a component of that sale, the reason why bushnell surrounded himself with creative/programming types is because they lived and breathed the product, they essentially became the product, which makes the selling of that product a lot simpler and easier, because you intrinsicly know the product inside out, you know the competition and their technology, you know the pro's and cons and features/benefits of the product etc, so someone designing or programming asteroids, just says to a distributor...hey i'm asteroids...buy me...not, i am mr atari sales rep and we have a hot new game, these are the outdated facts and figures to back up what i am saying

 

There again, looking at it another way....did warner's atari really hire 'sales/marketing people' or did they just hire what the business world calls 'order takers'...especially if you analyse how atari were supposely offloading heaps of vcs units during the warner's period

 

The warner's model being, shower the people (consumer) with glossy advertising then hire suits just out of uni (with the ink trying to run dry on the recently acquired MBA) or someone proficient in fmcg (fast moving consumable/consumer goods) order takinig and saying here's a heap of enquiries/leads, there's a list of local dealer/distributors, go get some orders

 

We all know you can't sell that way, because the order takers were not selling the product, they were merely taking orders, the reason why they were'nt selling the product is because they didn't understand either the product or the technology that brought the product into being, all they could do is say, mr dealer/distributor, here's x 000's of leads from our advertising, here's the vcs, here's a bunch of outdated facts and figures to back up what i am saying.... can i take your order please

 

Atari had found out the hard way that you can't sell like that, also it didn't invest enough in getting more product out there...i.e an updated vcs, an updated atari 8bit, better software, more interesting games etc etc, the original crash didn't happen because the market was swamped with crap atari games, the crash happened because very little innovation was happening in companies like atari...i.e new gaming genre's, new gaming technology, expanding existing hardware technology etc and getting it into the marketplace, what companies like atari were essentially doing is creating larger mousetraps,i.e here's a spring based mouse trap, here's 2 sping based mouse trap, here's a 2 spring based mouse trap with serated teeth etc, if companies like atari had their eye on the ball, they would have moved on from making mere mousetraps....they didn't and they failed

 

And like i said, Atari's present setup is run on pretty much the same premise...i.e taking an existing game and just sticking atari's name on it

 

Now that would work if Atari's name in software publishing and games software manufacture actually meant something...fact is, it doesn't, we all know that, why....because there is nothing intrinsicly 'ATARI' about that game or product, it doesn't have that 'ATARI MAGIC', like say the vcs had or asteroids or star raiders etc

 

The present atari model is run on the premise that people will buy atari because it's an atari...i.e you can take any product and just stick atari's name on it (irrespective and regardless of how good the product is or the components that make up that product)

 

ask yourself this, would you seriously go out an buy a toaster or a dvd recorder just because atari stuck it's name on it, remember there are other manufacturers out there as well selling the same toasters/dvd recorders that atari are making and are of the same quality or better

 

I bet, if you were to do a straw poll of everyone that comes into the AA forums or any other Atari related website as to weather they have purchased an atari inc/infogrammes atari game product in the last 5 years (not hardware) my reckoning is it's way less then half of those that frequent AA and Atari related websites, why....because Atari didn't carry their existing user base with them....and as we all know it costs 5 x as much money to find a new user/customer then to keep your existing user/customer, also, any existing atari user/consumer would have been disappointed with what was on offer, if you take away atari's game IP from the warners/tramiel period and just focus on modern product, there's perhaps 2 or 3 games within that portfolio that are any good, however they are licences bought in from other companies (i.e atari didn't actually develop or create the licence or product/game itself) just like the jaguar, developed by flare2 and atari slapped it's name on it

 

The point i make here is that just because it's got atari's name/logo on it doesn't make it an atari product, because atari didn't physically design or create that product, which means, something is missing (i.e just another product that has atari's name on it), to encapsulate what i mean, take the 2600 version of pacman, atari bought the licence from namco and sold the 2600 version of the back of the back of the coin op version, even though the millions of people that bought the game were disappointed that atari could design and publish rubbish like this and release it under atari's name and on it's flagship system, it doesn't realy engender people to have confidence in anything else atari releases and how well they support the system...yes you can make excuses for limitations in product technology or what technology the consumer can confortably afford...but did you here activision or imagic or any other 3rd party publisher make the same excuses....no, because they were more interested in creating product that the consumer wanted or they were interested in taking the games they were developing on the platforms they supported to new heights of technical excellence

 

After all after Atari got shot of all the creatives/programmers/engineers that got atari to where they were (pre 1983 crash) how many technically advanced vcs games did atari put out, how many new gaming genre's did atari create, or expanding existing technology or introducing new technology product into the market place...and compare that to atari's competition

 

Atari's jaguar failed simply because of the narrow decision making processes atari were incorporating at the time, plus it wasn't really (if you think about it) an atari product, so in that respect, something was missing from the start

 

I am not saying that what i mentioned here is correct, what i will say though is that we have some very intelligent and articule people in this collection of forums (i.e 2600/5200/7800/jaguar/lynx/st A8 etc) that if you combine their relative knowledge, understanding and experience, they would do better at running atari and getting atari succesfull again then the lot that we are putting up with now and have had to put up with in the past, we might not agree on the same things, but we have the advantage that is sadly lacking and missing from the present and previous atari setup's, we have an understanding of what works and what doesn't work, we have an understanding of videogames and what makes a good videogame we have the understanding of selling it to the retailer or dealer and we have the experience of running our own companies...and most importantly we have the passion in what makes an 'ATARI' product

[philipj]

I think the market place tends to become a hard and unemotional task master when trying to fulfill the competitive nature of supply and demand. It seems that usually when a company starts out with that creative momentum at the start, I think the business aspect can quickly become the cruel reality check that can cause that creativity to lose it's momentum for the sake of supply and demand. Most true artist often have to compromise for the sake of time in order to meet the consumers immediate needs; one would have to be totally committed and resolved right from the start to keep as much of that creative edge through out the business aspect that's predominant in the market place. I think that kind of commitment goes beyond just the business aspect of (quote) running a business just for the sake of business as usual... That's more or less an integrity issue then a business issue and sometimes integrity and business doesn't always mix depending on who you're dealing with. The moral of business and the moral of creativity probably need to be balanced out before any real business takes place otherwise I think the bureaucracy of trying to keep a company going might become the difference between selling innovative product that you believe in or just trying to make a dollar. What might be creative opportunities for one person is just a dollar sign for someone else who trying to pay bills... Atari was losing in the market and rushed the Jag 64 out the door trying to make a name for themselves as the "comeback king" in the console market. I think you hit the nail right on the head carmel_andrews.

[Gorf]

I think the market place tends to become a hard and unemotional task master when trying to fulfill the competitive nature of supply and demand. It seems that usually when a company starts out with that creative momentum at the start, I think the business aspect can quickly become the cruel reality check that can cause that creativity to lose it's momentum for the sake of supply and demand. Most true artist often have to compromise for the sake of time in order to meet the consumers immediate needs; one would have to be totally committed and resolved right from the start to keep as much of that creative edge through out the business aspect that's predominant in the market place. I think that kind of commitment goes beyond just the business aspect of (quote) running a business just for the sake of business as usual... That's more or less an integrity issue then a business issue and sometimes integrity and business doesn't always mix depending on who you're dealing with. The moral of business and the moral of creativity probably need to be balanced out before any real business takes place otherwise I think the bureaucracy of trying to keep a company going might become the difference between selling innovative product that you believe in or just trying to make a dollar. What might be creative opportunities for one person is just a dollar sign for someone else who trying to pay bills... Atari was losing in the market and rushed the Jag 64 out the door trying to make a name for themselves as the "comeback king" in the console market. I think you hit the nail right on the head carmel_andrews.

 

 

I've been saying all along. The Jaguar was rushed out the door with buggy hardware that could have been

fixed with a few more months of debuging the chipset and a litle more forward thinking. Thinking period, in

some cases.

 

Even with the system as it is, a proper set of dev tools to deal with the minor shortcomings and at least a few

dozen titles at release. Four titles(including the pack in that is) for close to a year was just ridiculous.

 

Tempest 2000 was a great dry period boost, but then follow it with more 16 bit nonesnes...every few months

you get an Iron soldier or a AvP and you expect to light the gaming world on fire? They had the machine they

needed to do it with but they simply dropped the ball on almost every other account.

 

It was still the superior technology to anything else at its release. Give a monkey a hammer....

[Crazyace]

I've been saying all along. The Jaguar was rushed out the door with buggy hardware that could have been

fixed with a few more months of debuging the chipset and a litle more forward thinking. Thinking period, in

some cases.

 

Even with the system as it is, a proper set of dev tools to deal with the minor shortcomings and at least a few

dozen titles at release. Four titles(including the pack in that is) for close to a year was just ridiculous.

 

Tempest 2000 was a great dry period boost, but then follow it with more 16 bit nonesnes...every few months

you get an Iron soldier or a AvP and you expect to light the gaming world on fire? They had the machine they

needed to do it with but they simply dropped the ball on almost every other account.

 

It was still the superior technology to anything else at its release. Give a monkey a hammer....

 

4 titles in a year is probably what killed the Jaguar - the customers have no ideas about h/w bugs - but they do notice the lack of quality game titles

[Gorf]

I've been saying all along. The Jaguar was rushed out the door with buggy hardware that could have been

fixed with a few more months of debuging the chipset and a litle more forward thinking. Thinking period, in

some cases.

 

Even with the system as it is, a proper set of dev tools to deal with the minor shortcomings and at least a few

dozen titles at release. Four titles(including the pack in that is) for close to a year was just ridiculous.

 

Tempest 2000 was a great dry period boost, but then follow it with more 16 bit nonesnes...every few months

you get an Iron soldier or a AvP and you expect to light the gaming world on fire? They had the machine they

needed to do it with but they simply dropped the ball on almost every other account.

 

It was still the superior technology to anything else at its release. Give a monkey a hammer....

 

4 titles in a year is probably what killed the Jaguar - the customers have no ideas about h/w bugs - but they do notice the lack of quality game titles

 

This was the Jaguars only real problem. Had they overcome this early with more Tempest 2k's and less Bubsy's

(no offense Clu... ) we might be playing Jaguar 4 by this time.

[+CyranoJ]

I think you hit the nail right on the head carmel_andrews.

 

I don't think anyone has ever said that before. Careful, credibility is easy to lose

[philipj]

I think you hit the nail right on the head carmel_andrews.

 

I don't think anyone has ever said that before. Careful, credibility is easy to lose

 

Ooohhh Kaayyy...

[mcjakeqcool]

To tell you the truth, '94 would probally be a better time to launch the Jag then '93, by then the Jaguar's technology would have been finalised, of coarse Atari was in a rush, for pretty much the same reason why the 7800 was rushed to the market, market share, or lack of it.

[kool kitty89]

The 7800, rushed, what the hell are you talking about. Now the 5200, that could be considdered rushed, and makes sense due to the increasing competition from Mattel and the Impending release of the ColecoVision.

 

The 7800 was anything but rushed, it was shelved after a very short release in 1984 and rereleased in '86 by Atari Corp. (under Tramiel)

 

 

I've been thinking about the 64-bit marketing issue, with the over-hype and setting expectations too high. I still don't think emphesizing "32-bit" would be a good idea either though, but possibly avoiding the stupid media branding of "bitness" alltogether might be a good idea, just emphesize it in other ways. Sega started the "bit wars" back in 1990 (Michael Katz I beleive), and it was trickling off by the 6th gen. (the "128-bit" era...) Maybe state how silly some of the comparisons are and how ignorant and rediculous it is to blindly compare "bits" without any other parameters.

 

Of course the media could harass them for this approach as well, sying they're nitpicking or whining (or not branding their "bits" as they would look weak; implying thier "bitness" is no better than the current gen), despite this approach being more honest and less gimicky.

 

 

I defenitely thing the "Do the Math" slogan is a bit weak and annoying, especially the way it was implemented; however some of the early commercials (Cybermorph, though otherwise a mediocre commercial) didn't use "do the math" but rather "Get bit by Jaguar!" which sounds cooler to me. (though they did use the term "64 bits of mega power" which is kind of lame and almost seems like a direct rip-off from Sega)

 

So maybe simply "Get bit by Jaguar" is what they should have used. OTOH, if you do still want to go with the 64-bit angle, you could work with this too: "Get bit by 64-bit" sounds kind of catchy, or "Get 64-bit by Jaguar"

Edited June 5, 2009 by kool kitty89

[Gorf]

To tell you the truth, '94 would probally be a better time to launch the Jag then '93, by then the Jaguar's technology would have been finalised, of coarse Atari was in a rush, for pretty much the same reason why the 7800 was rushed to the market, market share, or lack of it.

 

A simple 020 would have been fine and not held up the systems release...in fact it would have allowed for more

64 bit worthy titles at launch. The 7800 was not rushed. It's also quite a power house that never got put to it's full

potential (until recently with guys like PacManPlus who does excellent arcade perfect conversions.)

[minuS]

I really like the "Do The Math" campaign, and if there'd been anything to back it up software-wise at the time, it totally would've worked... The problem wasn't that the 64-bit branding was misleading or incorrect, it was that the Jaguar's showpieces were nowhere to be found until years later. By the time we were seeing really impressive stuff, the 3DO was already blowing people away and the Saturn and PSX were on the horizon. It's sad that the Jaguar had the muscle to really get a jump on the generation, but ended up joining the party at the same time as everyone else.

[DracIsBack]

4 titles in a year is probably what killed the Jaguar - the customers have no ideas about h/w bugs - but they do notice the lack of quality game titles

 

Yeah, for a "next generation system", there was a little too much of this in 1993 & 4:

 

 

 

and not enough of this:

 

[Crazyace]

If Atari had combined Trevor McFur and Raiden into a single game ( great looking and great gameplay ) it would have made a major impact at launch

 

My perfect launch would be Cybermorph, AVP, Super Burnout, Rayman, and Native(or more playable McFur ) - If Atari had those on day one, then things may have been wildly different.

[minuS]

Yeah, for a "next generation system", there was a little too much of this in 1993 & 4:

 

I don't get the hate for Club Drive... No, it's not the greatest game, but it is a distinct upgrade from what we'd seen on the Genesis and SNES in terms of 3D graphics. The controls are lacking, the gameplay is shallow, and the graphics leave something to be desired, but it did give you a relatively large free-roaming environment and ran way smoother than something like Hard Drivin' or Stunt Race FX. Putting it in context, I liken it to Cybermorph as an early title that didn't take full advantage of the hardware, but still managed to do things that we'd previously only seen in arcades or on more powerful (and much more expensive) home PCs. Edited June 5, 2009 by minuS

[mcjakeqcool]

Well the 7800 was rushed accuatly, I don't now if anyone knows but it had exzactly the same sound chip as the 2600, no joke.

[GroovyBee]

Well the 7800 was rushed accuatly, I don't now if anyone knows but it had exzactly the same sound chip as the 2600, no joke.

No! It doesn't. The 2600 doesn't have a sound chip. It has TIA which is used for sound, video and some pot/trigger inputs). Some 7800 carts also have POKEY on board for improved sound.

 

OT: Is there any particular reason you don't use a spell checker? This forum is international so spelling mistakes might be hard for non native english speakers to understand.

[kool kitty89]

Yeah, I have no idea why they didn't put a pokey in there in the first place though, I doubt it was a time issue, at least that couldn't be the sole reason. Hell they had to take the time to allow additional addressing for a sound chip on the cart. (I think this is seperate form the ROM addressing, though I might be off) Having the POKEY in there would have allowed it to be used as the I/O chip as well, instead of TIA. (I belive accessing the TIA buss puts a big hit on performance) That way, in 7800 mode, the only time you'd use TIA is if you wanted the added 2 sound channels in addition to the POKEY's.

 

This came up in the couple rencen threads on the 7800, but I havent heard a definite answer for it. (it couldn't be cost, as putting the cip on cartridge was more expensive, and even with the planned gumby/mini-gumby chip it would still probably be more effective to have an onboard POKEY)

[atarian63]

Yeah, I have no idea why they didn't put a pokey in there in the first place though, I doubt it was a time issue, at least that couldn't be the sole reason. Hell they had to take the time to allow additional addressing for a sound chip on the cart. (I think this is seperate form the ROM addressing, though I might be off) Having the POKEY in there would have allowed it to be used as the I/O chip as well, instead of TIA. (I belive accessing the TIA buss puts a big hit on performance) That way, in 7800 mode, the only time you'd use TIA is if you wanted the added 2 sound channels in addition to the POKEY's.

 

This came up in the couple rencen threads on the 7800, but I havent heard a definite answer for it. (it couldn't be cost, as putting the cip on cartridge was more expensive, and even with the planned gumby/mini-gumby chip it would still probably be more effective to have an onboard POKEY)

Not to mention they could have sold pokeys to 3rd party developers.

[kool kitty89]

Yeah, but adding chips to carts and pushes the cost of the games up, it's the same reason the Super FX chip wasn't used more, though some other chips on the SNES were pertty cheap (and iirc some were subsidized by Nintendo), and the SA-1 was very popular toward the end of the SNES's life ('95-97) and the simgle most used enhancement chip on the console. (and would have been very expensive to include earlier in the system's lifecycle, or into the original design)

 

But POKEY us a litte different as it was something that was avialable well before the system was developed, and much more practical to include inside the system than on-cart. (even than a cost reduced form on cart; as the additional I/O functions would be useful and allowed the detrimental TIA/RIOT (I/O) accesses to be elimitated, or used to a limited extent for TIA's additional sound)

 

 

This all has nothing to do with the Jag of course...

Edited June 6, 2009 by kool kitty89

[DracIsBack]

Well the 7800 was rushed accuatly, I don't now if anyone knows but it had exzactly the same sound chip as the 2600, no joke.

 

The reason why it has the same sound is because of a design requirement: to make the system backwards compatible with the 2600. None of the systems could "emulate" the 2600 so how the 7800 did it was by literally shipping 2600 hardware along with 7800 hardware on a crowded motherboard. When in 2600 mode, part of the hardware is running. When in 7800, the rest is running. The 7800 actually has two chips that generate graphics ... the TIA (which also does sound) when in 2600 mode, and the MARIA, when in 7800 mode.

 

As a by-product of this design that enabled compatibility, the 7800 had a fairly costly and crowded motherboard where there wasn't space for additional hardware. As such, the base hardware for sound is the TIA, which is the same as the 2600.

 

The original plan was for the 7800 to bolster its sound by included additional sound hardware in the cartridge. Initially POKEY chips (used in the 8-bit and 5200) were intended to provide additional sound capabilities and the 7800's creators had plans for a low cost, high performance successor known as GUMBY. However, when Jack Tramiel took over, he canceled POKEY (along with the 7800 itself and other projects attached to it) and basically refused to release games with any sound chips. Two execptions (of 60 odd games) were BALLBLAZER (largely programmed before he took over) and COMMANDO from 1989.

[DracIsBack]

This came up in the couple rencen threads on the 7800, but I havent heard a definite answer for it. (it couldn't be cost, as putting the cip on cartridge was more expensive, and even with the planned gumby/mini-gumby chip it would still probably be more effective to have an onboard POKEY)

 

It's a combo:

 

the motherboard is fairly packed and there wasn't room for POKEY.

 

plus

 

cost. POKEY in the 7800 itself means every unit gets a POKEY and overall costs go up. POKEY in *specific* games minimizes risk.

[Gorf]

Yeah, for a "next generation system", there was a little too much of this in 1993 & 4:

 

I don't get the hate for Club Drive... No, it's not the greatest game, but it is a distinct upgrade from what we'd seen on the Genesis and SNES in terms of 3D graphics. The controls are lacking, the gameplay is shallow, and the graphics leave something to be desired, but it did give you a relatively large free-roaming environment and ran way smoother than something like Hard Drivin' or Stunt Race FX. Putting it in context, I liken it to Cybermorph as an early title that didn't take full advantage of the hardware, but still managed to do things that we'd previously only seen in arcades or on more powerful (and much more expensive) home PCs.

 

 

Had ClubDrive been released at launch it might have been looked on much more favorably. I really don't like the game much

but the engine might have other, moer exciting uses.....a litte G -shading would have been smart.