How is the Jaguar scarce?

[Flojomojo]

Atari Jaguar, Atari Jaguar

How can you be so rare?

Look in your closets, garages, and dump heaps

You'll find 64 bits of power there.

[DrMalba]

Wow, Best's NIB console prices have gone up over the last two years or so. I think I nabbed mine while it was still $230-ish before shipping, and even I thought that was crazy. He wants $300 now before shipping. Yikes, his inventory must be low. Jag CD units are completely out, even the refurbished ones.

 

I'm quite happy they are still in business, but i'd really wish they'd hire someone to clean up the website to make pertinent info easier to find.

It looks like some old tripod or angelfire page became sentient and handled its own updates after a crack binge.

[+madman]

Wow, Best's NIB console prices have gone up over the last two years or so. I think I nabbed mine while it was still $230-ish before shipping, and even I thought that was crazy. He wants $300 now before shipping. Yikes, his inventory must be low. Jag CD units are completely out, even the refurbished ones.

Yeah and 18 years ago NIB consoles were $20. Supply and demand.

[Clint Thompson]

 

I'm quite happy they are still in business, but i'd really wish they'd hire someone to clean up the website to make pertinent info easier to find.

It looks like some old tripod or angelfire page became sentient and handled its own updates after a crack binge.

 

Kind of hard to put a price on an authentically (hopefully) NIB Atari Jaguar for someone wanting the brand new experience - and then there's collectors. It was just $250 a month ago and I was about to snag one but that changed quickly. Oh well..

 

Doesn't B&C still have new JagCD units for $500?

[jdollatari]

if the numbers are true there are not many consoles and though the number of people who care is also low you have to consider even just from owners with more than one console who have posted here that the hardware is not reliable and so units get tossed or left unrepaired and of course many are likely sitting around unknown. either way i miss the good ol days when they were affordable when i bought mine with the cd add on back in 2007 i want back in but can not afford it and its driving me nuts

[yrly]

Well I'm back at it after a long hiatus. I used to be quite active in the Jaguar community back on usenet years ago. I got a little irritated over something I don't wish to discuss and stopped participating but that's the past.

 

That being said I occasionally hit up eBay to snag a few holes in my collection. The prices have gotten ridiculously expensive.

 

The Jaguar console itself probably isn't that uncommon. When I was rounding this stuff up at KayBee toys they had tons of sealed consoles at multiple locations that I visited. Virtually every game out of the original release set had more than enough copies.

 

The three least common games I recall were Power Drive Rally, Ultra Vortek and Fight For Life. Everything else released during the console's lifetime should be fairly plentiful.

 

The console was $25-35 depending if it had the pack in game or not. The games were $10-12. They were probably purchased up by a lot of parents as a cheap system for kids, there are probably dozens upon dozens floating around in closets, basements and garages. I would bet at least 100 just in my local market yet there are none anywhere. Outside of a few collectors, it's just forgotten until someone stumbles across it while cleaning, then they check eBay, see the inflated prices list theirs at a similar price and that has created this.

 

The Jaguar CD on the other hand is probably rare due to unreliability and fewer being sold.

 

Most of the reliability problems likely stem from the capacitors and lack of use with the consoles. I'd be willing to bet a large number of the CD units have problems because they were never used enough when new and the lubricant on the transport dried up.

[Rick Dangerous]

I'd be willing to bet a large number of the CD units have problems because they were never used enough when new and the lubricant on the transport dried up.

 

Interesting theory.

[yrly]

Interesting theory.

 

I collect Laserdiscs and it happens to laserdisc players, they don't track correctly as a result and you get crosstalk and herringbone patterns, sometimes they won't work at all. My guess is a similar thing happens with the Jag CD and might have some thing to do with how they encoded the data as well. They probably were seldom used or never used and probably possibly be fixed with a lube job as opposed to a total laser replacement. If I come across a cheap broken one I'm going to buy it and attempt to lubricate the laser slide mechanism the same way I do in a bum laserdisc player and see what happens.

[phoenixdownita]

... They probably were seldom used or never used and probably possibly be fixed with a lube job as opposed to a total laser replacement. If I come across a cheap broken one I'm going to buy it and attempt to lubricate the laser slide mechanism the same way I do in a bum laserdisc player and see what happens.

You do realize they allegedly only made 20K, that alone makes it way scarcer than a lot of other stuff even if each and every one of them was still intact and finely lubed

[yrly]

 

I'm quite happy they are still in business, but i'd really wish they'd hire someone to clean up the website to make pertinent info easier to find.

It looks like some old tripod or angelfire page became sentient and handled its own updates after a crack binge.

If serial numbers are sequential I think they actually made 30k Jag CDs. Even so that's not many. I still might try and fix one though I'm curious. Edited July 28, 2016 by yrly

[Professor Gull]

If serial numbers are sequential I think they actually made 30k Jag CDs. Even so that's not many. I still might try and fix one though I'm curious.

It would be worth the risk if the unit does not work then why not. Whats the going rate on broken ones now a days anyhow anyone know?

[TDIRunner]

I think the fact that the Jaguar only sold approx. 250k units should tell you all you need to know. I mean, even the 3DO sold 2 million units. When you look at the number of consoles sold for the popular game systems, you start to realize how many people out there actually play video games. Now I'm not saying that all of these people also want a Jaguar, but I think the number of buyers out there is greater than you think. They may not be die hard Atari fans or even active collectors, but I wouldn't be surprised to find out that there are enough buyers to exceed the supply.

 

And don't forget that many of those units are probably no longer in existence. I know that a lot us are into fixing old game systems, but how many people throw away old consoles if they think they are broken? It's even worse for the CD unit since there were only 20k to 30k made and they were tremendously unreliable.

 

Luckily for me I have a Jaguar and CD unit and just about every game that I really want to own for it. I'm hoping that we can eventually have some type of decent SD card flash cart for it to cover the remaining games for the system. At this point I have no real desire to buy any more Jaguar games, so the price doesn't really bother me. So that's at least one less buyer out there (although, since I have no intensions to sell, that's also one less unit on the market........ so I guess I'm not really helping )

[metzger130]

I think we can all agree on 1 thing. the internet is killing the prices. People put up a system for a ridiculous price and people think it is worth that much and thus put one up at that price. Wish I could go back in time and get one before this price hike happened. It is the last of the major consoles I am looking for, and I even own a turbo grafx and PCE duo system.

[+Gemintronic]

The Jaguar is scarce because I just moved in. Give me a week and Club Drive will be making elephant fart noises for a soundtrack again.

[Clint Thompson]

I've seen a lot of decent prices recently (considering) for Jaguars in the $150ish price range complete on eBay.

[NeoGeoNinja]

I've seen a lot of decent prices recently (considering) for Jaguars in the $150ish price range complete on eBay.

 

Consoles used to be £20 - £40 not all that long ago, boxed.

 

For whatever reason, over the past 2/3 years, Jag prices have gone "full retard".

 

$150 is insane, regardless of what the 'market' supposedly tells us...

[Professor Gull]

I've seen a lot of decent prices recently (considering) for Jaguars in the $150ish price range complete on eBay.

I still boggle at this. I actually consider the Jaguar more a niche collector thing than a mainstream but the pricing on stuff is just getting a little out of hand I would say. At some point all the people that want one will have one i would guess assuming that is only what 200K people?

 

Anyone know average game cost at this point as well? I have not actively sought out anything new since I have been focusing elsewhere but are the game prices also climbing comparatively?

[TheDevil'sCompass]

I'm one of those guys whose Jaguar has been sitting in a closet for the last 15 years. With the recent resurgence in retro-gaming I've had the urge to set it back up so I've been lurking here to see where the scene is. Based on Ebay prices I'd say on average the majority of games are fetching full retail prices when they're complete. Rare titles are a whole different story and are priced insanely in my opinion. I'm excited for the ST conversions CJ is doing, just hoping I'll be able to afford them.

[AtariORdead]

Its purely down to how popular retro gaming is at the moment. A lot of people start and once they have the usual popular stuff they start to look at the stuff that was less popular.

 

Many of them may not be big into the Jaguar itself, but consider it a desirable item to have in a collection.

 

Considering just how popular retro gaming is becoming its not unlikely that demand is starting to outweigh the amount of consoles available.

 

Forums like these are not the best indicator of how many people are after a jaguar or have one, as most people here are into the Jag in a big way, but a large amount of people who are after a Jag are simply doing it to add to a larger collection and are never likely to become a member on Atari or Jaguar dedicated forums.