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

[kskunk]

Dont even try to tell me the Tramiels did not have personal cash...if they really cared, they'd have done so

and at the same time made it less of a risk and more of a sure thing.

 

You're reminding me of this great quote from Martin Brennan (co-inventor of the Jaguar):

Sony announced that they were going to spend 200 million dollars acquiring software for the Playstation. They'd hired Chicago's rock café and invited software developers to come to it.

 

When you have pockets that deep you're not going to fail. I happen to know that at that time the Atari family had made 60 million dollars cash from the sale of some land in Taiwan that they had judiciously purchased.

 

They must have considered putting their 60 million up against Sony's 200 million dollars - I'm not sure I'd have made any other choice than theirs. You can't compete with that - even if you have a better product or not.

 

He's forgiving about it, but he's saying the same thing. The Tramiels never really bet the farm on the Jaguar.

 

- KS

Edited June 22, 2009 by kskunk

[triverse]

Betting the farm is kind of what I attribute the success of the Genesis for Sega. They put it all on the line with that system. To some extent, they bet it again with the Dreamcast, too bad they burned the crops over the years and salted the ground in key growing areas like EA's front yard. OK, enough with the farm talk.

Had the Tramiels taken a chance on the Jaguar and went with it even with half of that money they made from the sale of land, they might have been able to get things going. There was a short time there that the Saturn and Playstation were pretty much equal, had Atari been able to position themselves in a better light with consumers they may have been able to stave off losing everything and maybe, just maybe been able to last to release another system, or a handheld.

[kool kitty89]

Betting the farm is kind of what I attribute the success of the Genesis for Sega. They put it all on the line with that system. To some extent, they bet it again with the Dreamcast, too bad they burned the crops over the years and salted the ground in key growing areas like EA's front yard. OK, enough with the farm talk.

Had the Tramiels taken a chance on the Jaguar and went with it even with half of that money they made from the sale of land, they might have been able to get things going. There was a short time there that the Saturn and Playstation were pretty much equal, had Atari been able to position themselves in a better light with consumers they may have been able to stave off losing everything and maybe, just maybe been able to last to release another system, or a handheld.

 

Nintendo's move with the NES in the US was rather risky as well, they were rather small and, with as much as the'd invested in it, would have taken quite a hit if it had flopped.

 

Sega's success and the rather extenceive (and risky) moves made that allowed their success with the Genesis were in large part due to decisions made by Tom Kalinske (as well as some things, namely the competitive "in your face" marketing started previously by Michael Katz) that allowed them to break through Nintendo's tight grip on the market.

 

They may have more or less bet Atari's future with it, but that's hardly "the farm" for the Tramiels (plenty of assets to fally back on), of course the successful Sega lawsoits helped thing later on for Atari, allwong them to make out well when they dumped it.

 

I'm not sure the Dreamcast is that clear-cut, sure the issues experienced by consumers through the Saturn era in the US hurt things, but a bigger part of that (contininuing through Dreamcast) was internal problems between SoA and SoJ (starting with some decisiond made on SoJ's side ~late '93, seeminly fuely in part by frustration with the US's success compared to rather mediocre performace of the Genesis in Japan -as well as other complex factors), cutting Dreamcast when they did may very well have hurt them more than following through, at least with SC as the final console, of course SoJ management had been pusing for a move to software fo a while, and success in Japan vs US/EU was again rather like the Genesis era. (given the limited success of Microsoft and Nintendo in this period, who knows how Sega could have compared, they may have hung on aganst these 2 behind Sony, maybe even gotted the lead to 2nd)

Edited June 22, 2009 by kool kitty89

[carmel_andrews]

Gorf, you forgot a couple of point which is why i mentioned the sega/ms tie up

 

sega and atari were sort of in bed together (as a result of the patent infringment case) which made sega a 7.5 percent stakeholder in atari and also both company signed software licensing agreements (a famous quote from atari eurpe's GM was 'the deal stops at sonic'...the guy was a tramiel yes man and didn't have a brain/mind of his own)

 

Also, if you know your ST history, MS were in the running to have supplied the front end or o/s for the ST, unfortunately ms couldn't get a stable version of 68k windows running properly within atari's/tramiels timeframe, which is why they went for DRI instead

[mellis]

Gorf, you forgot a couple of point which is why i mentioned the sega/ms tie up

 

sega and atari were sort of in bed together (as a result of the patent infringment case) which made sega a 7.5 percent stakeholder in atari and also both company signed software licensing agreements (a famous quote from atari eurpe's GM was 'the deal stops at sonic'...the guy was a tramiel yes man and didn't have a brain/mind of his own)

 

Also, if you know your ST history, MS were in the running to have supplied the front end or o/s for the ST, unfortunately ms couldn't get a stable version of 68k windows running properly within atari's/tramiels timeframe, which is why they went for DRI instead

 

I wouldn't call it "unfortunate" that Windows was not deployed on the ST.

 

If you've seen Windows circa 1985 you know that GEM ran circles around it back then. In fact, if Digital Research hadn't lost in the look-and-feel lawsuit brought by Apple, I suspect GEM would be the defacto copycat UI on the PC.

[Gorf]

Gorf, you forgot a couple of point which is why i mentioned the sega/ms tie up

 

sega and atari were sort of in bed together (as a result of the patent infringment case) which made sega a 7.5 percent stakeholder in atari and also both company signed software licensing agreements (a famous quote from atari eurpe's GM was 'the deal stops at sonic'...the guy was a tramiel yes man and didn't have a brain/mind of his own)

 

Also, if you know your ST history, MS were in the running to have supplied the front end or o/s for the ST, unfortunately ms couldn't get a stable version of 68k windows running properly within atari's/tramiels timeframe, which is why they went for DRI instead

 

They were not in bed. They were dealing with lawsuits in the most creative way they could thing of. They were competitors.

They still are as software houses today. You do not see Atari or Sega releasing any of each others games. It did not happen

in the days of the Jaguar either, thought it was suposed to. Sega did this to avoid a major court battle for which Atari was

clearly in the right. It was an escape and Sega rode it out seeing the writings on the wall for Tramiels Atari. DRI and GEM

were superior to anything MS had to offer so I highly doubt That was the reason for going with DRI.

[Gorf]

Gorf, you forgot a couple of point which is why i mentioned the sega/ms tie up

 

sega and atari were sort of in bed together (as a result of the patent infringment case) which made sega a 7.5 percent stakeholder in atari and also both company signed software licensing agreements (a famous quote from atari eurpe's GM was 'the deal stops at sonic'...the guy was a tramiel yes man and didn't have a brain/mind of his own)

 

Also, if you know your ST history, MS were in the running to have supplied the front end or o/s for the ST, unfortunately ms couldn't get a stable version of 68k windows running properly within atari's/tramiels timeframe, which is why they went for DRI instead

 

I wouldn't call it "unfortunate" that Windows was not deployed on the ST.

 

If you've seen Windows circa 1985 you know that GEM ran circles around it back then. In fact, if Digital Research hadn't lost in the look-and-feel lawsuit brought by Apple, I suspect GEM would be the defacto copycat UI on the PC.

 

Yes Apple who stole it from Xerox.

[mellis]

Yes Apple who stole it from Xerox.

 

It is commonly believed that PARC's Alto had a close-to-modern GUI up and running. As you might guess, it was not actually so cut-and-dry.

 

The Alto did offer:

1) a mouse pointer

2) selectable text

3) copy/paste within the current app

4) windows that could not self-repair (dragging one over the other left garbage in the window behind)

5) pop-up menus

 

However, the Alto was command-line driven.

 

 

And the original Mac 128 brought along many important innovations:

1) the standard menu bar with pull-down menus

2) self-repairing, overlapping windows

3) icons representing files/folders on disk

4) inter-application copy/paste

5) drag-and-drop manipulation of files and data

6) Human Interface Guidelines for UI consistency across apps (back then, it was common for every app to have it's own, non-standard UI).

 

I find this topic (that is, the genesis of the modern GUI) to be fascinating.

 

You can read an account of this by Bruce Horn, who worked at PARC during Steve Jobs' visit and later left to join the Mac team, at the following link:

Bruce Horn on PARC and the Mac.

[kool kitty89]

They were not in bed. They were dealing with lawsuits in the most creative way they could thing of. They were competitors.

They still are as software houses today. You do not see Atari or Sega releasing any of each others games. It did not happen

in the days of the Jaguar either, thought it was suposed to. Sega did this to avoid a major court battle for which Atari was

clearly in the right. It was an escape and Sega rode it out seeing the writings on the wall for Tramiels Atari. DRI and GEM

were superior to anything MS had to offer so I highly doubt That was the reason for going with DRI.

 

Weren't there proposed ports of some Sonic games to the Jaguar. (I seem to remember about Sonic CD being proposed for the Jag CD).

[triverse]

They were not in bed. They were dealing with lawsuits in the most creative way they could thing of. They were competitors.

They still are as software houses today. You do not see Atari or Sega releasing any of each others games. It did not happen

in the days of the Jaguar either, thought it was suposed to. Sega did this to avoid a major court battle for which Atari was

clearly in the right. It was an escape and Sega rode it out seeing the writings on the wall for Tramiels Atari. DRI and GEM

were superior to anything MS had to offer so I highly doubt That was the reason for going with DRI.

 

Weren't there proposed ports of some Sonic games to the Jaguar. (I seem to remember about Sonic CD being proposed for the Jag CD).

All I remember about anything concerning Sega ports to Jaguar was in the gossip area of Gamefan where they mentioned something like Sonic being on Jaguar as a reason to be excited for the settlement announcement. Nothing, as far as I know, was officially announced.

[kool kitty89]

There were a couple ports of games on the Sega CD, though these didn't necessarily have anything to do with the Deal, there was the unreleased Soul Star game. Of course there were plenty of game that were originally released for the Sega CD (especially the FMV ones) that got ported over to the 3DO. (not to mention other platforms like PC)

 

It would have been cool to see an enhanced version of something like Silpheed on the Jag CD though. (another non-sega produced game, but in that case an exclusive, inless you count the very different original 1980's home computer versions)

[roland p]

Hmmmm, interesting question...

 

1993, you're in charge... Let's step back to 1991, since that is when the Panther is in development and Flare II is working on the Jaguar...

 

I'd personally say - go with their strengths, utilize the ST product line, the Falcon is in the works... take it to the extreme with the graphics processor and essentially build the Falcon030 as a game platform, you already have a well matured development platform and CD access would have been easy, it had a cartridge port, just needed to beef up the address lines for larger memory handling.

 

The ST could've been a great game console platform with some extreme enhancements to the already excellent graphics being developed for the Falcon series, but geared towards a game platform, it would've been better.

 

This would've opened up a much much larger door for developers to support and write games for the platform and would've brought a larger and stronger selection of launch and followup titles. Modem's and Network card access would've been easy enough for add-ons and a keyboard/mouse option kit could've been made available as well.

 

 

Curt

Wasn't this called 'Mirai'?

 

I would wet my pants if I could get a hold of this.

Edited June 30, 2009 by roland p

[kool kitty89]

Wasn't this called 'Mirai'?

 

I would wet my pants if I could get a hold of this.

 

Doesn't that pre-date the Falcon by a good while? And I've read lot's of speculation, but nothing definitive on what that mock-up was really for.

 

The cartridge slot (if that's what it is) is absolutely massive, leading to speculation that it might have been an Atari branded Neo Geo AES. Except... even for that it's too big. O_O

 

http://www.atarihq.com/museum/miscatari/mirai.html

Edited June 30, 2009 by kool kitty89

[Gorf]

Betting the farm is kind of what I attribute the success of the Genesis for Sega. They put it all on the line with that system. To some extent, they bet it again with the Dreamcast, too bad they burned the crops over the years and salted the ground in key growing areas like EA's front yard. OK, enough with the farm talk.

Had the Tramiels taken a chance on the Jaguar and went with it even with half of that money they made from the sale of land, they might have been able to get things going. There was a short time there that the Saturn and Playstation were pretty much equal, had Atari been able to position themselves in a better light with consumers they may have been able to stave off losing everything and maybe, just maybe been able to last to release another system, or a handheld.

 

Both you and Kskunk are dead on. This was nothing more than the Tramiels trying to be on both sides of the fence. Either

you are inside the gate or your not. Nobody ever went anywhere standing in the door way of opportunity. Fact is Atari got

trampled standing there by the real go-getters, Sony and Nintendo.

Edited June 30, 2009 by Gorf

[82-T/A]

So I've started this on other forums with other systems that didnt a get a chance and got some pretty intersting responses on how some people would've handled them. So any here it goes:

 

 

What would YOU have done differently when it came to Marketing/promoting/developing for the Atari Jaguar when it was first released?

 

 

A couple of problems we know about now (in hind-sight) is:

 

1 - Graphics were good, but 3D acceleration was fairly poor. This would definitely needed to be rectified.

2 - Pay your software suppliers, so they continue to release games.

3 - Sign better contracts with bigger names (also goes back to #2)

 

They did a lot of things right, but the timing was "interesting" to say the least, and once the PlayStation and Saturn came out, it really just knocked them out of the water. I think perhaps selling the system with a built in CD drive would have helped too.

 

 

All of that would have needed to be done, AND keep the costs down, and I think the system would ahve been a success. The Nintendo 64 was for the most part a failure.

[kool kitty89]

The Nintendo 64 was for the most part a failure.

 

How so?

 

The Saturn (outside of Japan), would be the biggest failure of the mainstream consoles in that period. (and had it not been for the previous success and popularity of the Genesis/MD in US/EU that it drew on, it probably would have done a lot worse -assuming the same mistakes were made)

 

Now, as a compeditor to the Jaguar, not too much of an issue, it coming out nearly 3 years later and (had the Jag done well) the Jag 2 would be on the horizon, probably out by '97. Plus the N64 was relatively weak in 2D, granted this wan't "in" at the time, but there are many arcade games (fighters particularly) that were still 2D, which the Jag could handel masterfully, and the N64 was weakest at.

[82-T/A]

The Nintendo 64 was for the most part a failure.

 

How so?

 

The Saturn (outside of Japan), would be the biggest failure of the mainstream consoles in that period. (and had it not been for the previous success and popularity of the Genesis/MD in US/EU that it drew on, it probably would have done a lot worse -assuming the same mistakes were made)

 

Now, as a compeditor to the Jaguar, not too much of an issue, it coming out nearly 3 years later and (had the Jag done well) the Jag 2 would be on the horizon, probably out by '97. Plus the N64 was relatively weak in 2D, granted this wan't "in" at the time, but there are many arcade games (fighters particularly) that were still 2D, which the Jag could handel masterfully, and the N64 was weakest at.

 

 

In terms of competition, etc, at least in the US market.

 

I remember when it was brand new. I think I was a Junior or Senior in HS (graduated in 1996). A few people got them, but most of my friends didn't play games anymore at that point. There were some good games, but it didn't really compare to the other systems of the time, like the PlayStation. The PlayStation pretty much beat all of them. Yeah, the Saturn was a failure too in that respect.

 

I guess in terms of competition, the Playstation pretty much ruled the 3D/32-Bit era (which includes the 64).

 

The Playstation 2 was pretty popular also, and totally destroyed everything else that I can see during that time (especially the Game Cube).

 

I guess the Wii is Nintendo's big comeback... it's certainly doing well.... but it reminds me a lot of the N64 simply because the graphics are clean, but they're not all that great. Every game I've seen on the system (I've played it breifly) seems to have no texturing at all...

[kool kitty89]

The N64 was biggest as afamily friendly/"kiddie" system, though there were some great "hardcore" games too. (quite a few FPS's, including the system's top seller -Goldeneye), best for that userbase plus many past nintendo fans (particularly for the exclusives), and finally for party games. (large number of 4-player titles, including most of the FPS's)

 

No arguing that Sony beat the crap out of the market in the US, and it was about the same in Japan. (N64 was significantly less popular than in the US, but Saturn did fairly well, so it kind of balanced things out) Something repeted and then some by the PS2. (same for game libraries in both cases)

 

I was about 7 when it launched and we'd only gotten our Super NES a few months before (or it might have been that chrismas, I can't remember if it was in '95 or '96), anyway, we didn't end up getting one until christmas of '99, but all my friends who had newer consoles had an N64 (several had gotten them within a year of launch), but this may be the case for me. (of course I was in the prime age group for Nintendo's US market durring the N64's lifecycle)

 

Strangely enough, I remember more people owning Saturns in the ~'95-99 period than PS's, usually teens or young adults (freinds of parents or siblings of my friends), wasn't until arround 2000 that I really heard talk about the playstation, maybe just a coinsidence, or the Saturn was more memorable (expecially the 3D controller). I remember several people who'd gotten into the newer systems even later than my family who'd gone with the PSone as a budget console. I do remember plenty of Playstation commercials in the late '90s/early 2000s, as well as the N64 ones, but the Dreamcast ones from around 2000 really seem to stick out in my memory. (I can't remember seeing any Saturn ones)

 

Comparing sales figures, it did relatively well, in the top 10 best selling of all time (granted, #10 if you include handhelds) ahead of the Genesis/Mega Drive, Atari 2600, and so far the Xbox 360 as well.

Edited July 15, 2009 by kool kitty89

[carmel_andrews]

Only thing that has always surprised me is that the jaguar which sold less then the st/ste series gets a cd device and little is released on it, yet the st/e which was somewhat more successful then the jaguar, didn't officlally get a cd device (i don't count the cdar thing as that never entered into full production, i.e only very limited numbers were made)

Edited July 15, 2009 by carmel_andrews

[82-T/A]

The N64 was biggest as afamily friendly/"kiddie" system, though there were some great "hardcore" games too. (quite a few FPS's, including the system's top seller -Goldeneye), best for that userbase plus many past nintendo fans (particularly for the exclusives), and finally for party games. (large number of 4-player titles, including most of the FPS's)

 

No arguing that Sony beat the crap out of the market in the US, and it was about the same in Japan. (N64 was significantly less popular than in the US, but Saturn did fairly well, so it kind of balanced things out) Something repeted and then some by the PS2. (same for game libraries in both cases)

 

I was about 7 when it launched and we'd only gotten our Super NES a few months before (or it might have been that chrismas, I can't remember if it was in '95 or '96), anyway, we didn't end up getting one until christmas of '99, but all my friends who had newer consoles had an N64 (several had gotten them within a year of launch), but this may be the case for me. (of course I was in the prime age group for Nintendo's US market durring the N64's lifecycle)

 

Strangely enough, I remember more people owning Saturns in the ~'95-99 period than PS's, usually teens or young adults (freinds of parents or siblings of my friends), wasn't until arround 2000 that I really heard talk about the playstation, maybe just a coinsidence, or the Saturn was more memorable (expecially the 3D controller). I remember several people who'd gotten into the newer systems even later than my family who'd gone with the PSone as a budget console. I do remember plenty of Playstation commercials in the late '90s/early 2000s, as well as the N64 ones, but the Dreamcast ones from around 2000 really seem to stick out in my memory. (I can't remember seeing any Saturn ones)

 

Comparing sales figures, it did relatively well, in the top 10 best selling of all time (granted, #10 if you include handhelds) ahead of the Genesis/Mega Drive, Atari 2600, and so far the Xbox 360 as well.

 

 

I actually really like the Saturn. I vividly remember the Saturn commercials, but by that time I was completely off playing games. I was in college, worked, didn't have much time really. But I ended up getting one much later. I find the games on the Saturn to be very much like... well... it's very Jaguar-Ish as far as I'm concerned. Or actually... if I had to compare it to a system, I would say it's VERY MUCH like the Atari 7800, at least in the types of games. It was unique for it's time, and many of the games are ported computer games. I definitely like the Saturn. Not as much as my Jag, but I like it. Are you saying though that the N64 outsold the Genesis? I don't own a Genesis, but I was always under the impression that it was really popular?

 

I have a Dreamcast too, (only played it once) I bought it much much later for $100 bucks with a bunch of games. One of those left-over NIB ones. It's pretty decent I have to say, but I guess that was all she wrote for Sega?

[Gorf]

Yeah, but guys...come on....

 

JAGUAR RULES!!!!!

 

 

 

[philipj]

Only thing that has always surprised me is that the jaguar which sold less then the st/ste series gets a cd device and little is released on it, yet the st/e which was somewhat more successful then the jaguar, didn't officlally get a cd device (i don't count the cdar thing as that never entered into full production, i.e only very limited numbers were made)

 

The CD had got a bad rep for looking like a commode... Atari was working on another Jaguar with a CD unit added to the device as damage control. Man if only the had released that Jag 2; that would've been awsome.

[wmt029]

I would've made it CD-ROM based, improved the processor a bit, used a better sound chip (is it just me or did the Super Nintendo sound better?), and improved the build quality of the unit.

 

In reality though, this system never had a chance. It was really somewhere in between the SNES/Genesis ERA and the N64/Playstation era. You could really see how much better the Playstation was immediately when the it hit the store shelves with titles like Twisted Metal. It came out at a time when people were clamoring for 3d graphics and its 3d capabilities were decent for its time but not great. I simply couldn't see it handling a game like Tomb Raider. Maybe it could but nothing on that level was ever attempted for it. You had the feeling that it could barely handle Doom. 2d gaming-wise it had absolutely nothing to compete with the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis gigantic lineups (nor did it have a chance of taking market-share from them).

 

Also, I may be the only one here but the Jag just felt cheaply built to me. My system would creak a little bit when I would jam a cartridge into it, not the satisfying solid 'thunk' that would would get from the N64's cartridge slot (the N64 was built like a tank). I'd also have to wiggle the cartridge to get it to seat properly.

 

Despite the fact that the system had little chance of success I bought one in the hopes that Atari would make a comeback. I LOVED Tempest 2000 and actually had some fun with Trevor McFur (probably one of the only people ) but it wasn't long before I was primarily gaming on Sony's system.

[kool kitty89]

In reality though, this system never had a chance. It was really somewhere in between the SNES/Genesis ERA and the N64/Playstation era. You could really see how much better the Playstation was immediately when the it hit the store shelves with titles like Twisted Metal. It came out at a time when people were clamoring for 3d graphics and its 3d capabilities were decent for its time but not great. I simply couldn't see it handling a game like Tomb Raider. Maybe it could but nothing on that level was ever attempted for it. You had the feeling that it could barely handle Doom. 2d gaming-wise it had absolutely nothing to compete with the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis gigantic lineups (nor did it have a chance of taking market-share from them).

 

 

"stronger processor" perhaps, if you mean in the sence of the 68000, definitely, that's been a key peice of this discussion, though it didn't necessarily need an additional processor, the original plan for the system was to have no generalpurpose CPU at all, but Atari management pressed the engineers to add a familiar chip to make development easier (and probably allow it to be released sooner), unsing the 68k cloged the system though. The main (and simplest/most practical) alternative is replacing the 68000 with a 68EC020, though had they gone with the originally planned layout (no CPU, just Tom and Jerry and a unified cache iirc) and made some decent tools (they don't even have to be amazing, just something more useful than what they historically released), and make the tools readily available to developers.

 

As for the "sound chip" tha't not as valid a statement. The Jaguar's sound system was comprised of 2 16-bit DACs for outputting the sound and Jerry, the sound processor (actually multipurpose, not dedicated to sound alone). A very flexible arrangement but limited by what the programmers do with it, I think a lot was done in the Amiga's MOD format, there are a couple exaples of FM synthesis as well (similar to what a Sound Blaster or Sega Genesis does), but it could do a lot more. I think Gorf has some music/sound demos that show this.

[The_Laird]

I simply couldn't see it handling a game like Tomb Raider. Maybe it could but nothing on that level was ever attempted for it. You had the feeling that it could barely handle Doom. 2d gaming-wise it had absolutely nothing to compete with the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis gigantic lineups (nor did it have a chance of taking market-share from them).

 

Tomb Raider was announced for the Jag first and in fact Edge magazine even printed some early screens of this version.