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

[carmel_andrews]

What was the development time for jaguar games anyway

 

I seem to remember reading somewhere that it took something like 24 months for a saturn game to come through and some n64 games took nearly 20 months, playstation was more like 6 months

 

lets see if we can keep this thread going for as long as the atari v commodore thread on the a8 channel

[kool kitty89]

Though honestly, mid-late '97 would seem a good time for the Jag II, good period after the Jag's release, relatively soon after the N64 (but time for some initial hype to dissipate), and a big jump over the Dreamcast. (and not getting anywhere near DVD's being a factor)

 

 

A jump over the DC in the market you mean, right? The DC was much more than a Jaguar II.

300MHZ SH4 with a smoking graphics chips set. Now clock the Jaguar at half that, give each RISC

its own space in memory and a nice 400mhz Coldfire type chip and then you'd have something.

 

Yes, in terms of release dates (specifically in the US market), and it's a 200 MHz SH4 btw.

 

And to clarify on the DVD comment (you didn't mention it, but reading my comment, it's rather vague), I meant the Jag II not having DVD support wouldn't be a major factor if it came out in '97. (lack of DVD support being one of the things that hurt the Dreamcast agains the PS2)

 

I also seem to remember you mentioning that the Jag II would still hold some advantages in terms of 2D performance over the Dreamcast. (on some other old topic I was looking at a while back; correct me if I'm wrong)

 

 

 

Would adding the CD-ROM support be the least important thing then? (less than a 25 MHz 020 over a 13.3 MHz one)

I know adding a CD drive (even a 1x speed one) would probably cost much more than a 25 MHz EC020 in '93, and even a slower 020 would still be adding cost over the current 68k as well, but including a CD drive would mean cutting as much else as possible. (keeping the 68k still wouldn't be a good option inless Atari managed to get good tools out to developers)

Having CD's should have a significant effect on the console's life span as well, and allow it to have games ported to it that would otherwise be imposible. (like Myst) More importantly, and as mentioned many times before, CD's are much more attractive to developers (3rd parties especially) due to the flexibility and low cost (larger profits on cheaper games).

Then again there are some advantages to cartridges too. (namely being able to use ROM where you'd otherwise need to have more RAM)

 

Then again, if they focused on correcting the biggest issues with the cartridge based Jag (25 MHz 020 and maybe double buffered blitter if they had time), and it had a good launch (decent advertizing and launch lineup, and better negotiations with developers), there's always the Jag CD to introduce later on, along with the Duo. Getting a high adoption rate would be necessary to really switch over though. (the main advantages is the original base unit's cost is kept down, and with the CD unit added later, the cost will have fallen, and a 2x speed drive is possible) Perhaps if the released the Duo simultaneously with the add-on, and cut hardware prices as low as possible, it would have helped. (good advertizing is important of course)

They could deal with the price cutting by that time due to the money from the Sega settlement and from 3rd party licencing fees. (do what many others did by this time, sell the hardware at cost, or even take a loss, and make all your money through software -something CD's were again advantageous for) That's the thing the 3DO really screwed up on...

 

 

In terms of the Jag CD, if thinking ahead, they probably could have elliminated the need for a seperate power supply as well, put the power lines on the cart slot for the CD unit to connect to and pack the standard Jag with an AC adaptor powerful enough to support the CD unit as well, you could then even standardize the power supply for the Duo as well. (not really a technical matter, but in terms of convience for the consumer)

On this side of things though, you start to get into other non-technical related things like the look of the CD unit itsself (though I personally don't really mind it), the cartridge design (the weird handel), and the controllers. In terms of controllers, the shape and layout is good, but having the pro controllers standard would have been preferred (or at least have them standard by the time the Duo is released). I'd keep the keypad though as it does add some flexifility other consoles lacked, particularly for ports of PC games that required numerous keyboard functions. (on a game like Doom, it's easy anough to set the weapons to cycle through instead of numbered, but something complex like X-Wing would be impossible to properly convert to most consoles simply for all the multitasking you have to do- throttle controll, cycling through targets, switching targeting modes, relaying commands, energy management, etc)

Edited July 30, 2009 by kool kitty89

[Gorf]

Yes, in terms of release dates (specifically in the US market), and it's a 200 MHz SH4 btw.

 

Yes, still plenty enough against a 66 mhz Jag II. DC also allows vertex shading as well as g-shade and rgb.

 

And to clarify on the DVD comment (you didn't mention it, but reading my comment, it's rather vague), I meant the Jag II not having DVD support wouldn't be a major factor if it came out in '97. (lack of DVD support being one of the things that hurt the Dreamcast agains the PS2)

 

Too expensive in 1997.

 

I also seem to remember you mentioning that the Jag II would still hold some advantages in terms of 2D performance over the Dreamcast. (on some other old topic I was looking at a while back; correct me if I'm wrong)

 

The only advantage is the OPL and Blitter but they are big advantages in 2D. Especially the blitter of Jag II.

The DC could certianly throw a bunch of textures polies around and do similar. It would be more 'natural'

for the Jaguar, but not necessarily better. The Jag will do more flashy effects as it would be much more efficient

in line draws and pixels such as the Tempest 2K pixelshatter and blitter score explosions. The DC is a monster

that should have owned but it is basically geared to be a 3D machine.

 

 

Would adding the CD-ROM support be the least important thing then? (less than a 25 MHz 020 over a 13.3 MHz one)

I know adding a CD drive (even a 1x speed one) would probably cost much more than a 25 MHz EC020 in '93, and even a slower 020 would still be adding cost over the current 68k as well, but including a CD drive would mean cutting as much else as possible. (keeping the 68k still wouldn't be a good option inless Atari managed to get good tools out to developers)

Having CD's should have a significant effect on the console's life span as well, and allow it to have games ported to it that would otherwise be imposible. (like Myst) More importantly, and as mentioned many times before, CD's are much more attractive to developers (3rd parties especially) due to the flexibility and low cost (larger profits on cheaper games).

Then again there are some advantages to cartridges too. (namely being able to use ROM where you'd otherwise need to have more RAM)

 

Then again, if they focused on correcting the biggest issues with the cartridge based Jag (25 MHz 020 and maybe double buffered blitter if they had time), and it had a good launch (decent advertizing and launch lineup, and better negotiations with developers), there's always the Jag CD to introduce later on, along with the Duo. Getting a high adoption rate would be necessary to really switch over though. (the main advantages is the original base unit's cost is kept down, and with the CD unit added later, the cost will have fallen, and a 2x speed drive is possible) Perhaps if the released the Duo simultaneously with the add-on, and cut hardware prices as low as possible, it would have helped. (good advertizing is important of course)

They could deal with the price cutting by that time due to the money from the Sega settlement and from 3rd party licencing fees. (do what many others did by this time, sell the hardware at cost, or even take a loss, and make all your money through software -something CD's were again advantageous for) That's the thing the 3DO really screwed up on...

 

 

 

Here it is all in a nutshell. If they REALLY wanted to compete with 3DO and completely blow away the comp,

 

 

020

CD ROM

 

fix:

RISC write backs

normal main ram code execution

OPL interrupts.

DSP communications bug.

 

add:

Double buffered blitter regs

 

2 megs RAM, 1 meg TOM private, 768k Jerry private, 256k 020 private. Blitter moves logic SFX and GFX info

and commands between processors.

 

$350 vs $699

 

Still half the price and much more powerful. A breeze to code high caliper games that would be ready

or close to realease along side the Jag.

 

Again if all they wanted to do is port 16 bit titles they should have done all that at release time. or near after it.

At least there would have been a larger variety while every one was waiting for the good stuff.

Edited July 30, 2009 by Gorf

[kool kitty89]

Yes, in terms of release dates (specifically in the US market), and it's a 200 MHz SH4 btw.

 

Yes, still plenty enough against a 66 mhz Jag II. DC also allows vertex shading as well as g-shade and rgb.

 

Yeah, got that just pointing out that little discrepancy. (didn't change the argument though)

 

And to clarify on the DVD comment (you didn't mention it, but reading my comment, it's rather vague), I meant the Jag II not having DVD support wouldn't be a major factor if it came out in '97. (lack of DVD support being one of the things that hurt the Dreamcast agains the PS2)

 

Too expensive in 1997.

 

Woha, the Jag II would have been too expensive in '97?

Sorry if I wasn't clear again, but I wasn't suggesting that the Jag II (or Dreamcast for that matter) should have been DVD based, but rather, that by launching in 1997, they'd be early enough to not really have to worry about competition from the DVD based consoles for a good while. (especially PS2) By that time they could have the JagIII (or whatever they'd have named it) a good way along in development. As to the Jag II, I'd expect something alike a normal 4x speed CD Drive.

[triverse]

All of this talk about replacing the 68000 with a 68020 got me to checking on a few things (apparently Area 51 runs on a slightly modified Jaguar, one running a 68020 with more ram and some other upgrades.  Anyone know more about it?

[Crazyace]

Wasn't the JagII going to be 33MHz? ( That's the only numbers I heard at the time )

 

The big problem with a seperate CD(or DVD) drive is that you've split the userbase. In my opinion having a single speed drive on the original Jaguar in 1993 is the most important change that could be made. It changes the whole cost of goods for the games in a way that helps Atari make money, and the risk of inventory ( a bane of Nintendo licensees ) is removed.

( Fixing the Tom/Jerry bugs would be wonderful though , but changing the CPU isn't important - at the end of the day the strength of the Jag is in Tom/Jerry - and the best games leverage them and minimise the 68k use anyway )

[kool kitty89]

The big problem with a seperate CD(or DVD) drive is that you've split the userbase. In my opinion having a single speed drive on the original Jaguar in 1993 is the most important change that could be made. It changes the whole cost of goods for the games in a way that helps Atari make money, and the risk of inventory ( a bane of Nintendo licensees ) is removed.

( Fixing the Tom/Jerry bugs would be wonderful though , but changing the CPU isn't important - at the end of the day the strength of the Jag is in Tom/Jerry - and the best games leverage them and minimise the 68k use anyway )

Anyway it's probably a lot more reliable than Wikipedia's page (which doesn't even have clock speeds), oddly I don't see any mention of the additional J-RISC "RCPU" that Wiki lists as well as has been brought up several times on this boards...

 

 

Anyway, a big part of swapping the CPU is a quick fix for the problems, building proper tools would take time they didn't have, though I suppose the initial launch could be of 68k dependent CD based games with proper J-RISC tools being developed with high priorety. But an 020 would be more fool proof. (even if they put the tools on high priorety there could be significant delays, particularly making workarounds for all the bugs -though as Gorf has mentioned, some are surprisingly simple, like hardly any work had been attempted for creating a software workaround)

 

With the bug fixes, added buffering to the blitter, and dedicated memory banks for CPU, Tom, and Jerry, you wouldn't have the 68k bogging down the system either (an 020 would still be more powerful of course, an 010 could be slightly helpful as well), it would be working on its own bus, as would Tom and Jerry, though from what kskunk already mentioned on this, adding multiple, dedicated busses could significantly impact cost.

 

I tend to agree about the advantages of CD's and the issues of add-ons/upgrades for game consoles. (though Sega's examples have other issues tied to them) If anything, provisions for RAM expansion would have been nice (for a CD based console) This was handled fairly succesfuly on the N64 (granted it's choice of RAM facilitated this) and to a lesser extent on the Saturn. (which expanded it via a cartridge bus)

 

Wasn't the JagII going to be 33MHz? ( That's the only numbers I heard at the time )

http://www.atarimuseum.com/videogames/cons.../jag2specs.html (Jag II Specs)

 

http://www.atarimuseum.com/videogames/cons...aguar/jag2.html

(Jag II)

 

There are some odd things in those specs that don't seem quite right though... 68EC020 at 26.59 MHz (that seems like it's pushing it into the overclocked range as I'm pretty sure the EC020 only went up to 25 MHz) Another being the RAM IC size, 1024 kB... The standard RAM IC sizes go in multiples of 4 (starting at 1 kbit and going upward), the Jag has 4x 512 kB DRAM chips (4 Mbit or 1x4^6 kbits), the next size up being 2 MB (16 Mbit), which it would be perfectly logical for the Jag II to use as it could have the same layout as the Jag with 4x 16-bit 2 MB DRAMs on a 64-bit data bus.

 

The CoJag had a 33 MHz R3000. (all except the 25 MHz EC020 powered Area 51)

 

Also, I think the Jag I chipset was intended to run at 40 MHz. (though at that speed RAM gets expeisive, kskunk mentioned that an increase to ~32/33 MHz could have been reasonable in this regard, and have the added bonus of allowing a 16 MHz 68k/010/020 to be run at full speed instead of 13.3 MHz)

Edited July 31, 2009 by kool kitty89

[Gorf]

Woha, the Jag II would have been too expensive in '97?

 

The DVD drive would have been.

[Gorf]

Wasn't the JagII going to be 33MHz? ( That's the only numbers I heard at the time )

 

I've heard 33mhz, 66 mhz and even that the Oberon was safely clockable to 75 mhz.

Perhaps the 33mhz was to make the sysetm less of a hassle and cost needed to

handle the necesary faster logic at those speeds.

 

The big problem with a seperate CD(or DVD) drive is that you've split the userbase. In my opinion having a single speed drive on the original Jaguar in 1993 is the most important change that could be made. It changes the whole cost of goods for the games in a way that helps Atari make money, and the risk of inventory ( a bane of Nintendo licensees ) is removed.

 

The piracy factor of a CD drive could have cost them as it did with Sega's Dreamcast.

That was a custom format and folks cracked it with in hours of the units release.

Yes, if folks were honest and paid for the games as one would hope it could have been

lucrative but we know that is unfortunately not how things work.

 

( Fixing the Tom/Jerry bugs would be wonderful though , but changing the CPU isn't important - at the end of the day the strength of the Jag is in Tom/Jerry - and the best games leverage them and minimise the 68k use anyway )

 

Yes with a 68k in the system you aer correct...it's a bus killer. An 020 or even an 010 would have been much better since both have internal caching.

Even the small one in the 010 would have been helpful. It goes to your point and the one i've been stressing: T&J are all you erally need but if you

keep them off the bus because of a highly in efficient host processor, you are not doing any one any good. the 020 would have made the JAgur hit

PS1 like quality...less facets probably but still impressive and able to hold its own till Jag II

[Crazyace]

The big problem with a seperate CD(or DVD) drive is that you've split the userbase. In my opinion having a single speed drive on the original Jaguar in 1993 is the most important change that could be made. It changes the whole cost of goods for the games in a way that helps Atari make money, and the risk of inventory ( a bane of Nintendo licensees ) is removed.

 

The piracy factor of a CD drive could have cost them as it did with Sega's Dreamcast.

That was a custom format and folks cracked it with in hours of the units release.

Yes, if folks were honest and paid for the games as one would hope it could have been

lucrative but we know that is unfortunately not how things work.

 

Piracy didn't kill of the Dreamcast - PS1 games were pirated almost as much ( if not more )

 

CD games are way cheaper to manufacture than cartridges, and they hold way more - look at the way Atari reduced cybermorph from 2M to 1M to pack it in. With a CD machine they could have supplied a 'sampler' or demo CD instead, with no size restrictions.

Also CD games could be manufactured in smaller quantities , useful for less popular titles.

 

 

 

( Fixing the Tom/Jerry bugs would be wonderful though , but changing the CPU isn't important - at the end of the day the strength of the Jag is in Tom/Jerry - and the best games leverage them and minimise the 68k use anyway )

 

Yes with a 68k in the system you aer correct...it's a bus killer. An 020 or even an 010 would have been much better since both have internal caching.

Even the small one in the 010 would have been helpful. It goes to your point and the one i've been stressing: T&J are all you erally need but if you

keep them off the bus because of a highly in efficient host processor, you are not doing any one any good. the 020 would have made the JAgur hit

PS1 like quality...less facets probably but still impressive and able to hold its own till Jag II

 

still not sure how much a 020 would help - it only has the i-cache after all. Also - I very much doubt that anything ( even a 26MHz 68060 ) would give the Jag PS1 like quality, everything is still fighting for the same bus after all

[Ransom]

If they could have held on to 1997, they could have done a tie-in with the hot movie of that year, starring Nicholas Cage and John Travolta.

 

Who wouldn't want to buy a game called Jag/Off?

[Gorf]

still not sure how much a 020 would help - it only has the i-cache after all. Also - I very much doubt that anything ( even a 26MHz 68060 ) would give the Jag PS1 like quality, everything is still fighting for the same bus after all

 

It's quite simple how it would help. Why I have to keep repeating it I dont understand. It's really not that complex...

 

A ) The 020 would only hit the bus enough to reload the icache, running code OFF the

bus allowing the GPU/DSP more bus time as the 020 is OFF the bus

 

B ) The 020 would also read TWICE as much data at a much more efficient rate

allowing the GPU/DSP more bus time as the 020 lays OFF the bus faster

 

 

C ) it would read that data at TWICE the current clock running the chips at 25 mhz, which is the 020 max

so now host is also faster at finishing tasks and thanks to the cache it can do most of its work OFF the bus

most of the time.

 

So when you allow more bus time in three different areas you're allowing Tom and Jerry to do much more work

and much less waiting. The performance of the Jaguar is killed a lot by the J-RISC's waiting for everything.

 

The only way to allow more time for the RISC's in a 68k jag is to not use it. With an 020 you not only have a

much more efficient bus access setup, you now have a host processor that can actually do real work with out

being a detriment.

Edited July 31, 2009 by Gorf

[Gorf]

If they could have held on to 1997, they could have done a tie-in with the hot movie of that year, starring Nicholas Cage and John Travolta.

 

Who wouldn't want to buy a game called Jag/Off?

 

Oh boy! More hand job humor!

 

[Crazyace]

If most of the heavy work is running on the GPU / DSP / Blitter , then a 68020 isn't going to make too much of a difference. It's the lowest priority device on the bus after all.

 

... It's not really relevant to the point about 1993 etc though - I think that a lot of the Jag games are technically pretty good, and Atari's success required better software support more than more chips inside Having a CD drive would have made the machine a lot more futureproof as well. ( Maybe Atari could save the money from making the JagCD peripheral, and use it to make a proper GPU gcc with main code support )

[kool kitty89]

Woha, the Jag II would have been too expensive in '97?

 

The DVD drive would have been.

 

Yeah, sorry, I obviously wasn't clear in my original DVD comment, I think I finally fixed that in the rest of that quoted post though:

Woha, the Jag II would have been too expensive in '97?

Sorry if I wasn't clear again, but I wasn't suggesting that the Jag II (or Dreamcast for that matter) should have been DVD based, but rather, that by launching in 1997, they'd be early enough to not really have to worry about competition from the DVD based consoles for a good while. (especially PS2) By that time they could have the JagIII (or whatever they'd have named it) a good way along in development. As to the Jag II, I'd expect something alike a normal 4x speed CD Drive.

 

 

The piracy factor of a CD drive could have cost them as it did with Sega's Dreamcast.

That was a custom format and folks cracked it with in hours of the units release.

Yes, if folks were honest and paid for the games as one would hope it could have been

lucrative but we know that is unfortunately not how things work.

 

But how common were CD burners in the mid '90s? On top of that, there's no way you'd be downloading from online sharing. So the biggerst issue would be Piracy in the same form th PSX had in its life. (probably not as bad due to the Jag being earlier, so probably more like the 3DO or Sega CD, at least until the late '90s, by which time you'd be moving on to the Jag II which could feature a proper lockout mechanism. Sega really blew that with the Dreamcast, even late model Playstations had some decent protection)

 

The main problem with the DC was more of a perceived piracy threat turning off developers than an actual problem, again, online sharing would be virtually impossible with the common connection speeds at the time. (and Sega did eventually add lockout, but that was a bit late) Granted, piracy wasn't as big a problem as their damaged rep from the debacles of the previous generation and the looming Playstation 2, with loyal PS1 owners and DVD capabilities.

 

As to "breaking" the propritary format, standard CD's worked fine, the only problem would be with games that exceeded a CD's data capacity (taking advantage of the GD-ROM format), so those games had to be hacked to fit on a 700 MB CD.

 

If most of the heavy work is running on the GPU / DSP / Blitter , then a 68020 isn't going to make too much of a difference. It's the lowest priority device on the bus after all.

 

... It's not really relevant to the point about 1993 etc though - I think that a lot of the Jag games are technically pretty good, and Atari's success required better software support more than more chips inside Having a CD drive would have made the machine a lot more futureproof as well. ( Maybe Atari could save the money from making the JagCD peripheral, and use it to make a proper GPU gcc with main code support )

 

Yes, but that assumes Atari buckled down and put out some nice tools for Tom and Jerry. The only other reasons for having the 020 is more resourse if you're going to have it handling all the game logic and AI, and (important even with the 020 idle), it's Jerry's host, and thus opens it up to a 32-bit data bus rather than the 16-bit one it's currently stuck on. (an 010 would still have that problem as well, not an issue at all if Jerry didn't require a host and the system had dedicated blocks of memory, but that's a significant redesign)

 

 

Also, Gorf, I'm not exactly positive on the EC020 being limited to 25 MHz (the full 68020 definitely went up to 33 MHz though), Atarimuseum's specs for the Jag II list it with a 26.59 MHz 68EC020, but several refrences specifically mentioning the EC020 on the past search I did claimed that version was only available up to 25 MHz. (having Area 51 with a 25 MHz EC020 would point to this as well)

So I don't know what's up with the Jag II... (it would be easy to tell by looking at the chip on the board, but the pics on the atarimuseum article don't show it) If it's a 25 MHz EC020, pushing it to 26.59 MHz seems a bit odd.

http://www.atarimuseum.com/videogames/cons...aguar/jag2.html

 

Actually, this site: http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/68020/ (see bottom of page) only lists 16 MHz and 25 MHz in the EC020 models listed, so maybe there wasn't even a 12.5 MHz model either. (just 4 models, 16 MHz and 25 MHz in QFP, and another 16 and 25 MHz available in PGA)

 

Then again, Jagcube's example has a 16 MHz rated 68000 onboard, so who knows what the Jad II actually would have had?

http://jagcube.atari.org/jaguartwo.html (their example also seems to have a 32 MHz master clock generator, along with a Jaguar I daughterboard for compatibility -possibly also used for Jerry II's clock as it apears to be 2x Jerry I's clock speed, while Tom II is at about 64 MHz according to atarimuseum, which is 2x the 32 MHz system clock)

And the chip in the pic on atarimuseum looks more like it's a 68k, even in the limited perspective of that picture. (too few pins and from what I've seen in searches, the EC020 was in a rectangular package, not square like the 68k or full 68020, of course only refering to the QFP versions, in the EC020's case, a 100 pin package, 2 rows of 30 pins and 2 rows of 20)

Edited July 31, 2009 by kool kitty89

[Gorf]

searches, the EC020 was in a rectangular package, not square like the 68k or full 68020, of course only refering to the QFP versions, in the EC020's case, a 100 pin package, 2 rows of 30 pins and 2 rows of 20)

 

Jag II proto types still used the 68k. The 020 was not actually going to happen. The RGPU

was going to be the AI and game logic processor as well as the transformation engine.

There would have been no need for an 020 and the 68k was to remain for backward compatibility.

Edited August 1, 2009 by Gorf

[Yongary]

I'm not a programmer, so I can't comment much on the technical side of things, but as a gamer I have some ways that I think the Jaguar could have improved it's fate.

 

1) Make it easier to develop for, work out the bugs, and try to court developers.

I know that 80% of the thread has already been about this subject, but it still is worth repeating. A delay of 3-6 months would have allowed Atari to work out some of the more serious bugs with their system. Also, whoever suggested free dev kits was probably on the right track.

 

2) Make it CD based to begin with.

I know that the remaining 20% of the thread has been about this, but it's also worth repeating. In addition to the added storage space for FMV (which really DID sell consoles back then, as bizzare as it seems now), CDs had the added cachet of being "futuristic"--cartridges were so last-gen, but CDs represented the shiny new future of gaming. The problems with low drive-speeds could have been worked out in future revisions of the console, or by partnering with another company--say, one that produced CD drives. Which leads us to the next idea...

 

3) Team up!

Admittedly, by the time the Jaguar was in development, Atari didn't have many friends, especially in the US. Overseas, however, they hadn't made nearly as many enemies. Making an alliance with another company would have been a good choice for Atari; depending on the company, they could have gotten either titles, financial support, or hardware support for the Jaguar. What companies might have been willing to work with Atari? Well...

 

3a) Team up with Phillips

Philips is remembered (in the gaming world, at least) for producing a console that was even more poorly regarded than the Jaguar: The CD-i. What isn't nearly as well remembered is that at the time, Philips was the world's largest producer of CD drives. If Atari had partnered with Philips to have a console that used Philips' CD drives and Atari's architecture, we could have gotten a CD based console for the same launch price that the Jaguar already had, plus support from a European company for overseas sales (in territories where the ST was still relatively popular).

 

On the other hand, we could have gotten the Atari CD-i. This sort of thinking cuts both ways

 

3b) Team up with SNK

At the same time that Atari was developing the Jaguar, SNK was developing the Neo-Geo CD. The Neo-Geo CD had an incredible library, but was weighed down by it's slooooooooow 1x CD drive and a complete lack of any sort of advertising. But what if they'd teamed up with Atari? The two companies teaming up is almost probable; the corporate headquarters of Atari and the US branch of SNK were, IIRC, across the street from one another, and they were presumably on friendly terms. I remember reading somewhere in this thread that the Jaguar was approximately as powerful as the Neo Geo, so there shouldn't have be many problems porting Neo Geo games (or at least the ones that existed ca. 1994) to the Jaguar, and teaming up with SNK would have ensured a steady supply of third-party titles for Atari. The Jaguar's 2x CD drive would have made most of the Neo Geo CD games much less tedious by cutting out the ridiculous load times between levels/fights. Imagine if our hypothetical CD-based Jaguar had launched with, say, The Art of Fighting (as well as Cybermorph) as a pack-in and had an arcade controller available at launch. The fate of the console might have been very, very different... (see 4b)

 

3c) Team up with NEC

By the time the Jaguar was released, NEC had already released--and canceled--their own CD-based system: the TurboGrafx-CD/PC Engine CD. This left them with a huge stockpile of games (since the system had been quite successful in Japan) and no mechanism to distribute them overseas. Compared the Jaguar, the PCE-CD was extremely underpowered--indeed, the TurboGrafx-16 was only 16-bit in the same sense that the Jaguar was 64-bit--but that should have made it much easier to port games to the exponentially more powerful Jaguar. The biggest problem with the idea is that almost all PCE-CD games looked the same as their Hu-card counterparts (and indeed, most WERE the same save the addition of Red-book audio or a FMV into), which wouldn't have looked very good for showing off their "next generation" system. However, if a way were found to easily port games and NEC could be convinced to release their games as "budget" titles, the hypothetical CD-Jaguar could have had access to a library of over 50 titles...not counting the hundreds of third-party titles that NEC released for the PCE-CD in Japan. If nothing else, they could have considerably expanded their anemic launch library.

 

3d) Team up with Taito

Around the time the Jaguar was being developed, Taito was also developing it's own console, the WOWOW. In addition to having a wacky name, it was intended to use CDs, download games through a Satellite connection (like the Sega Channel), and was presumably based off Taito's F3 system--a system that was based off the 68020--just like the CoJag. It was cancelled, presumably due to lack of support. But imagine if they'd teamed up with Atari; we could have gotten a 68020-based Jaguar, and Atari could have become the official distributor of the Bubble Bobble and Bust-a-Move series in the US, instead of Acclaim!

 

Okay, that last team-up suggestion was pretty weak

 

4) Focus on it's strengths

Although it might not be obvious given all the hate it gets on the internet, the Jaguar was pretty good at some things. Unfortunately, none of those things involved polygonal graphics, which is what most of the games focused on and suffered for. There were two main areas that the Jaguar was good at that Atari should have picked up and focused on:

 

4a) First Person Shooters

The Jaguar was good at FPSs. Even detractors admit that Alien vs Predator was a good game. The Jaguar had the best console version of Wolfenstein 3D, and even Doom, while not great in retrospect, was the best console version available at the time (and was the basis for the GBA port). In the years of the Jaguar's existence, a whole slew of well-regarded FPS came out--Heretic, Rise of the Triad, Duke Nukem 3D, Zero Tolerance, Marathon--all of which the Jaguar was powerful enough to handle (I mean, they ported Duke Nukem 3D to the Genesis, fer godsakes). Were I Atari, I would be buying up the rights left and right and starting work on (preferably exclusive) Jaguar ports for all these games. If the original Xbox taught us anything, it's that you can support a console primarily on FPSs.

 

4b) 2D Games

Let's go back to 3b. Suppose that the CD-Jaguar came out with a reasonably arcade-perfect port of Art of Fighting, and received a steady stream of Neo Geo ports. The console attracts a lot of attention from fighting game fans and people who like Neo Geo games but not enough to pay $200 apiece for them. Atari manages to snag some other licenses too; a good looking port of Mortal Kombat II, some more Raiden games, Tyrian, etc.--in addition to the polygonal shooters that seemed to comprise a significant portion of their library.

 

Then, The PlayStation and the Saturn are released.

 

The CD-Jaguar obviously can't compete with these two juggernauts on the 3D front, so they decide to compete with them in an area that they can win, an area that, luckily for Atari, both companies are actively avoiding going into in the American market: 2D

 

Both Sega and Sony's American branches had anti-2D policies for their consoles, but both consoles had huge libraries of 2D games that were released in Japan. The Jaguar was at least as powerful as the Playstation 2D-wise (I have no idea if it was more powerful than the Saturn; help, anyone?) so it could tap into a huge library of titles to port* that were being actively withheld from American distribution. While Sega and Sony battle it out over the mainstream, Atari manages keep afloat by tapping into the niche market of hardcore fighter and shmup fans who've been abandoned by the major companies, never making waves but remaining a constant presence until [GLORIOUS ATARI REVIVAL THAT EVERYONE HERE DREAMS ABOUT]

 

This probably sounds like a pipe dream; and there's no way to tell if a dedicated 2D console would ever make it in the mark--Oh wait, there is. The Neo Geo CD lasted nearly six years despite being arguably less successful than even the Jaguar. Hardcore shmup and fighting game fans are an obsessed breed; if a company were willing to cater to them they could enjoy some measure of success. Eventually, companies that wanted market exposure for their 2D titles in the US might start developing for the Jaguar as well as the Playstation and Saturn; can you imagine the Jaguar getting, say, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night? It could have happened.

 

5) Klax

How do you release a console and not port your flagship franchise to it?

 

 

 

* How hard would porting from the Playstation to the Jaguar be, if said game was strictly 2D?

[Ransom]

If they could have held on to 1997, they could have done a tie-in with the hot movie of that year, starring Nicholas Cage and John Travolta.

 

Who wouldn't want to buy a game called Jag/Off?

 

Oh boy! More hand job humor!

 

 

I have my stick in my hand as often as possible.

 

Fortunately, my wife likes to play with my Wii.

Edited August 1, 2009 by Ransom

[superjudge3]

I would have waited until 1994 to release it so the developers could have extra time to work on the Jaguar, tools, and games. Also, more advertising. Then I'd release AvP, Iron Soldier, and Tempest 2000 as the launch titles. With the extra time maybe Cybermorph could have been a killer app and games like Checkered Flag etc, could be made much better. Also, get some sports titles going and better deals with 3rd parties so you could get games like Mortal Kombat II etc. Also, get rid of the key pad on the controller and go from 3 to 6 buttons and maybe L and R too. But 6-buttons would be much better than 3.

 

These changes would all be within Atari's grasp and realistic to do. Very simple actually!

Edited August 1, 2009 by superjudge3

[Gorf]

If they could have held on to 1997, they could have done a tie-in with the hot movie of that year, starring Nicholas Cage and John Travolta.

 

Who wouldn't want to buy a game called Jag/Off?

 

Oh boy! More hand job humor!

 

 

I have my stick in my hand as often as possible.

 

Fortunately, my wife likes to play with my Wii.

 

You mean the joystick of course...

[kool kitty89]

3a) Team up with Phillips

Philips is remembered (in the gaming world, at least) for producing a console that was even more poorly regarded than the Jaguar: The CD-i. What isn't nearly as well remembered is that at the time, Philips was the world's largest producer of CD drives. If Atari had partnered with Philips to have a console that used Philips' CD drives and Atari's architecture, we could have gotten a CD based console for the same launch price that the Jaguar already had, plus support from a European company for overseas sales (in territories where the ST was still relatively popular).

 

On the other hand, we could have gotten the Atari CD-i. This sort of thinking cuts both ways

 

The thing about the CD-i was it wasn't intended as a game console, rather a multimedia system, playing audio and video CD's (with optional MPEG decoder), with gaming as more of an afterthought. (kind of like the reverse of the 3DO, primarily a game system that also emphasized its multimeda capabilities -also featuring an MPEG module)

 

Anyway, by 1993, Phillips had been in bed with Nintendo for a couple years already (with the eventually canceled CD add-on), so I'd have to say no to this idea.

 

3b) Team up with SNK

At the same time that Atari was developing the Jaguar, SNK was developing the Neo-Geo CD. The Neo-Geo CD had an incredible library, but was weighed down by it's slooooooooow 1x CD drive and a complete lack of any sort of advertising. But what if they'd teamed up with Atari? The two companies teaming up is almost probable; the corporate headquarters of Atari and the US branch of SNK were, IIRC, across the street from one another, and they were presumably on friendly terms. I remember reading somewhere in this thread that the Jaguar was approximately as powerful as the Neo Geo, so there shouldn't have be many problems porting Neo Geo games (or at least the ones that existed ca. 1994) to the Jaguar, and teaming up with SNK would have ensured a steady supply of third-party titles for Atari. The Jaguar's 2x CD drive would have made most of the Neo Geo CD games much less tedious by cutting out the ridiculous load times between levels/fights. Imagine if our hypothetical CD-based Jaguar had launched with, say, The Art of Fighting (as well as Cybermorph) as a pack-in and had an arcade controller available at launch. The fate of the console might have been very, very different... (see 4b)

 

Neo Geo was a sprite moster and ROM monster, while the Jag is powerful, the arcitecture is quite different and conversions would no tbe "simple" particularly with the Jag's limited RAM and CD's (with cartridges, perhaps, and the Jag could store data compressed and have one of the RISC's decompress it and stream it in real time). Remember that the Neo Geo CD had upwards of 7 MB of RAM. Hence why the Saturn required the RAM cart for proper conversions of some arcade games (which were lacking on the contemporary PSX), especially the all the sprite animations necessary for 2D fighters SNK had so many of.

 

3c) Team up with NEC

By the time the Jaguar was released, NEC had already released--and canceled--their own CD-based system: the TurboGrafx-CD/PC Engine CD. This left them with a huge stockpile of games (since the system had been quite successful in Japan) and no mechanism to distribute them overseas. Compared the Jaguar, the PCE-CD was extremely underpowered--indeed, the TurboGrafx-16 was only 16-bit in the same sense that the Jaguar was 64-bit--but that should have made it much easier to port games to the exponentially more powerful Jaguar. The biggest problem with the idea is that almost all PCE-CD games looked the same as their Hu-card counterparts (and indeed, most WERE the same save the addition of Red-book audio or a FMV into), which wouldn't have looked very good for showing off their "next generation" system. However, if a way were found to easily port games and NEC could be convinced to release their games as "budget" titles, the hypothetical CD-Jaguar could have had access to a library of over 50 titles...not counting the hundreds of third-party titles that NEC released for the PCE-CD in Japan. If nothing else, they could have considerably expanded their anemic launch library.

 

In Japan the CD unit, and standalone duo had fully succeeded the card based PC Engine and greatly exceeded its popularity (with a massive CD software library), becoming the 2nd most popular 4th gen console in Japan (behind the Super Famicom and well ahead of the Mega Drive).

Still, by 1993 it was aging, and perhaps there could have been some negotiation, but it would be tricky. It was mentioned before that Atari did try to find a partner for the system (particularly for licenced production iirc), but failed to get intrest. (I don't know if they really tried Japanese companies though)

 

The Jaguar had the best console version of Wolfenstein 3D, and even Doom, while not great in retrospect, was the best console version available at the time (and was the basis for the GBA port).

Actually I think it was the basis of most console ports at the time, notable exception being the SNES, with the 3DO, 32x, PlayStation (and releated Saturn version) being derived at least in part from the Jag version. (though I think the GBA's was the most direct port, all of these versions have distinct changes from the PC version that they share, notably the textures, and some level changes, like the pillars missing next to the staircase with armor at the begining of E1M1 -something that the SNES version included oddly enough)

 

 

A delay of 3-6 months would have allowed Atari to work out some of the more serious bugs with their system. Also, whoever suggested free dev kits was probably on the right track.

As to this, some delay could be necessary, but some of the simplest (though still significant) changes could be done with virtually no delay, notably swapping the 68k for a 68EC020, and a CD drive probably wouldn't add to things if it was off the shelf. (though a custom one would be cheaper in the long run, perhaps upgrade to a custom 2x speed drive in later units, starting with a cheaper, slower 1x speed drive)

 

Other changes like modifying Jerry, fixing the MMU bugs, and double buffering the blitter would take more time, but could be worth it in the long run. (in any case, defnitely have many more launch titles, which in itsself may necessitate a later release depending on how you dealt with developers, particularly with changes to hardware -but I suppose you could send out a simple, preliminary dev kit that could be compatible regardless of hardware changes)

 

 

 

And as for 2D, yes, defintely allow the Jag to shine (unlike Sega did in the US, with some of the best 2D games only released in Japan), but as far as advantages over the competition, the Saturn was a pretty heavy hitter here (though the Jag did have advantages), and was also know for being "weaker" in 3D (at least on average, but in large part due to the difficulty of really pushing the hardware, a little like the Jag). The Jag wouldn't be pushing as many polygons (at least textured), but it had some flexibility with textures the PSX lacked (PSX having a fixed texture cache limiting number and resolution of textures, and no perspective correction, hence the warping seen in many PSX games -though tricks could be used to minimize this problem)

Also having 3D games using plain, gouraud shaded polygon environments would mean much higher polygon counts than with textures, or balance things, use g-shading where perfectly acceptable and textures where necessary, as well as scaled 2D objects (lik trees, fire, explosions, and others depending on context) in place of polygon models where appropriate. (like in Phase Zero)

 

Also, the Jag seems to have done voxel type environments particularly well, again, see Phase Zero.

Edited August 1, 2009 by kool kitty89

[Gorf]

Also, the Jag seems to have done voxel type environments particularly well, again, see Phase Zero.

 

This is due to the blitter. The blitter is so flexible and fast with the right code that voxels are a natural

for it. It also outshines PS1 and Saturn and N64 in pixel and line based effects as is the blitters strong

points. To draw pixels and lines on a PS1, its either in software or waste a face for the geometry engine

to do it. Ther are no software controllable blitters or OPL's on Saturn, PS1 or N64 that I know of. They have

specific purpose 'blitting' devices but they do one thing and one thing only: draw trips.....quads on the Saturn.

 

The Jaguar blitter is hardware assitance and can be changed quickly and in the middle of a polygon, or line.

Drawing the required vertical lines to build the scene in a voxel based environment would hurt the other systems.

 

Phase Zero also makes very good use of the OPL which you wont find ont he other systems as far as I remember.

Edited August 2, 2009 by Gorf

[sd32]

Kinda off topic, but another mid 90s console was the Atmark Pippin (now that was a failure Jaguar haters!), where did it rank hardware-wise along with the 3DO, Jaguar, Saturn, Playstation and Nintendo 64?

It got ports of the 3DO game Shockwave and great ports of Marathon 1 and 2 (in the Super Marathon compilation), but i have never seen one in action, so i have no idea where it stands among the contemporary system.

[triverse]

Having never seen one either, I have seen some specs for the Pippon, it was, I believe a 32-Bit system, didn't it run OS8 or something similar to what MS has done with Windows on their Xbox's?

[Gorf]

Kinda off topic, but another mid 90s console was the Atmark Pippin (now that was a failure Jaguar haters!), where did it rank hardware-wise along with the 3DO, Jaguar, Saturn, Playstation and Nintendo 64?

It got ports of the 3DO game Shockwave and great ports of Marathon 1 and 2 (in the Super Marathon compilation), but i have never seen one in action, so i have no idea where it stands among the contemporary system.

 

The problem with the Pippin is it had a really nice Power PC CPU with

only frame buffer support. No blitter, no OPL, no sprites, no nothing.

 

Even with a 66 MHZ PPC you're doing everything in software and probably

hammering the performance. IT did have a PCI slot tho. That could have

been good.

 

It was rather disappointing and is apparent that Apple did not do their homework

in video game console design class 101.

Edited August 2, 2009 by Gorf