did the jaguar have the ability to be a commercial success?

[pacman000]

Funny, I always thought the Jaguar had a lot of developers interested in it, but few completed games due to poor support/sales.

[Hwlngmad]

Funny, I always thought the Jaguar had a lot of developers interested in it, but few completed games due to poor support/sales.

 

I believe that there was a lot of interest (initially) by developers and that there was a pretty good line up at the start. However, the mustard quickly came off the hot dog and developers jumped ship in droves, especially when the PS1 caught fire.

[+GoldLeader]

If we are speaking hypothetically, then yes it could have been successful.

 

I haven't read this whole thread, but my thoughts are (probably the same as everyone else, but here goes They needed more employees, a bigger ad budget, better relationships with devs, More Games,...More Good games...More AAA Titles and "Must Haves"...

 

I personally think a few highly recognizable Arcade ports (Mortal Kombats 2 and 3 instantly spring to mind), plus maybe some other good games that didn't seem so "blah" might have put them on the map.

 

It also seems like they often set themselves up for failure for no apparent reason. There were probably reasons behind the scenes (usually they're monetary reasons). For example, I heard they had only 12 employees to handle All of Europe, and yet, come Launch time, those employees had done their job so well that there could have been a virtual frenzy of buying in Europe, except that Atari in America was so sure they would fail, they only sent over a handful of consoles (the number 25,000 comes to mind but I don't know if I read that or am thinking of something else). At any rate, those employees had their spirits crushed by the lack of support. Things like that tell me that the Jag could have been successful. Also if the VR had actually made it to market, it might have pushed sales.

[Osgeld]

 

I believe that there was a lot of interest (initially) by developers and that there was a pretty good line up at the start. However, the mustard quickly came off the hot dog and developers jumped ship in droves, especially when the PS1 caught fire.

 

the hag had a lot of hype, it had a rather large marketing campaign, it had the top 5 if not 10 publishers on board, what it didnt have was support for the developers that worked for the publishers, what it didnt have was a bunch of bad ass new in your face style games ... and yes the playstation would have wiped the floor with it, if it had not already fallen into its own open grave

[JagChris]

Currently playing Bard's Tale on the NES. I remember when this came out for the c64 but not the 800xl. I was crushed. Having burned out my disc drive on Phantasy 1 and 2 I loved these types of games.

 

Another ball drop by Atari. They didn't even go after anything like this for their consoles. They could have went after Alternate Reality series for their 7800. I mean they were just clueless.

Edited November 21, 2017 by JagChris

[Osgeld]

yea that has a lot to lead up to it, by the time I was buying consoles by saving up chore money and mowing lawns, what did I think of atari

 

pac man, pole position, and lame invaders, not cutting edge games with cutting edge technology

 

what happened when the jag came out, I had jumped ship from genesis to PC, and they were selling me 2 cheap mortal kombat rip-off's, 16 bit games, and 2 fps's I had already beat like a red-headed step child 100x before .... and AvP, which within a couple years got a 100000x better fully 3d, not raycast, PC reboot anyway

Edited November 21, 2017 by Osgeld

[ZylonBane]

AvP, which within a couple years got a 100000x better fully 3d, not raycast, PC reboot anyway

 

This is a truly dumb post. Jag AvP and PC AvP are drastically different games. The PC version is a hyperactive twitch shooter, while the Jag version is more of an action-adventure. What anyone considers better depends on which kind of gameplay they prefer.

[Lost Dragon]

If we are speaking hypothetically, then yes it could have been successful.

 

I haven't read this whole thread, but my thoughts are (probably the same as everyone else, but here goes They needed more employees, a bigger ad budget, better relationships with devs, More Games,...More Good games...More AAA Titles and "Must Haves"...

 

I personally think a few highly recognizable Arcade ports (Mortal Kombats 2 and 3 instantly spring to mind), plus maybe some other good games that didn't seem so "blah" might have put them on the map.

 

It also seems like they often set themselves up for failure for no apparent reason. There were probably reasons behind the scenes (usually they're monetary reasons). For example, I heard they had only 12 employees to handle All of Europe, and yet, come Launch time, those employees had done their job so well that there could have been a virtual frenzy of buying in Europe, except that Atari in America was so sure they would fail, they only sent over a handful of consoles (the number 25,000 comes to mind but I don't know if I read that or am thinking of something else). At any rate, those employees had their spirits crushed by the lack of support. Things like that tell me that the Jag could have been successful. Also if the VR had actually made it to market, it might have pushed sales.

The comments about Atari could of sold far more units at launch, had they been available.. come from Darryl Still:

 

 

Source:http://www.arcadeattack.co.uk/darryl-still/

 

 

 

"By the time we got to Jaguar, the company was in some financial difficulty and needed a smooth, trouble free launch. We did a great job bringing amazing titles to the console, and with very limited budget made it the must have machine that Christmas, and then due to a catastrophic failure at the plant producing a key chip of the console, failed to deliver even 10% of the demand.

 

When I left the company for Electronic Arts in 1996, there were only 7 people left in the UK office."

 

I assume he refers to the UK only here,not all of Europe..

 

Whilst i don't have any doubts at lot of pre-orders went unfulfilled and there were dissapointed parents etc, the issue of the Jaguar being the must have machine is debatable..

 

A lot of kids were happy to stick with existing hardware and wait it out till the Next Generation hardware from Sega,Sony and Nintendo arrived,as these were seen as the true Next Generation of machines.

 

Things like Jaguar, 3DO, CD32 and CD-i, along with the 32X seen more as stop gap machines.

 

Dreamcast suffered a similar fate, described by 1 UK journalist, turned games developer, Gary Penn, as the Milky Way of the console world..the sweet snack of consoles..between Playstation's.

 

 

 

 

 

Back to Darryl :

 

"You mentioned the Jaguar a few times there, and the limited budget to help promote and market it. Do you feel this was the main reason the Jag never really caught on?

 

Yes. The budget was limited but we used it very well and had a huge demand. It was the failure to supply the orders for the first Christmas that killed the machine. Parents went for their kids second choice console and we could never get that customer back."

 

I personally feel he is a bit off here..once the hype machine was in full effect for PS1 and Saturn.. 3DO and Jaguar were seen as yesterday's news..old hat..Atari were never going to compete with newer,more exciting hardware with what the Jaguar had on offer.

Edited November 21, 2017 by Lost Dragon

[Lost Dragon]

Currently playing Bard's Tale on the NES. I remember when this came out for the c64 but not the 800xl. I was crushed. Having burned out my disc drive on Phantasy 1 and 2 I loved these types of games.

Another ball drop by Atari. They didn't even go after anything like this for their consoles. They could have went after Alternate Reality series for their 7800. I mean they were just clueless.

Regarding Bard's Tale:

 

That would be more E.A's decision than Atari's.. The ST had The Bard's Tale but not it's sequels.

 

As for Atari not going after that type of game on it's consoles..if you mean RPG/Adventure type games..

 

Look at the Lynx:

 

Eye Of The Beholder.

Daemonsgate.

Guardians:Storm Over Doria.

 

Atari were looking to fill that gap, but Imagitec Design had a history of promising far more than they could deliver..Daemonsgate was also annouced for the Sega Game Gear, supposed to be a Trilogy of games..

 

Having read through the 30+ zip files of documents Scott Stilphen passed onto me and now in the hands of Atarimania.. it's little wonder Eye Of The Beholder never appeared on Lynx..

 

Rebellion's Legions Of The Undead could of been the Jaguar's flagship RPG..

 

We did see Towers II..

 

Ishar was annouced..

 

So Atari were trying to get RPG/Adventure games covered on console.

Edited November 21, 2017 by Lost Dragon

[Lost Dragon]

yea that has a lot to lead up to it, by the time I was buying consoles by saving up chore money and mowing lawns, what did I think of atari

 

pac man, pole position, and lame invaders, not cutting edge games with cutting edge technology

 

what happened when the jag came out, I had jumped ship from genesis to PC, and they were selling me 2 cheap mortal kombat rip-off's, 16 bit games, and 2 fps's I had already beat like a red-headed step child 100x before .... and AvP, which within a couple years got a 100000x better fully 3d, not raycast, PC reboot anyway

Ultra Vortex, Kasumi Ninja, Double Dragon 5 and Dragon:Bruce Lee story were never going to make up for lack of titles like Street Fighter 2 or MK 2 or 3.

 

There are claims Bill Rehbock was having talks with Capcom..but how far they went i have no idea.

 

MK2 and 3 been discussed by likes of Fatal Thompson..we have documents from Fergus McGovern of Probe,thanks to Scott Stilphen etc detailing plans for MK3..

 

Even Primal Rage wasn't that great on Jaguar..

 

The SNES ports..Darryl Still has commented that kids wanted same games their SNES owning mates had..plus we know whilst Atari wanted Virgin to bring titles like Aladdin to Jaguar, Virgin had no faith in Atari's ability to make a go of the Jaguar..so that was never going to happen..instead we got titles like Dragon..

 

Imagitec Design were conversion city..ideal for Atari..cheap..able to deliver ports..so Atari had product on shelves,they just struggled to produce original titles like Space Junk and Freelancer..

 

As for PC AVP..

 

Bear in mind this revamp was originally planned for PS1,Saturn and PC..

 

Designed to take full advantage of new,far more powerful hardware and implement ideas not possible or included in the Jaguar gane and had a good few ideas of it's own dropped along the way..pheromones for example.

 

Totally different game to that of the Jaguar version.

 

Would of been interested in seeing what Beyond Games came up with for AVP 2 on Jaguar..

 

Storyboards etc done but so little is still known about what they planned for actual game..

Edited November 21, 2017 by Lost Dragon

[Major Havoc 2049]

Currently playing Bard's Tale on the NES. I remember when this came out for the c64 but not the 800xl. I was crushed. Having burned out my disc drive on Phantasy 1 and 2 I loved these types of games.

 

Another ball drop by Atari. They didn't even go after anything like this for their consoles. They could have went after Alternate Reality series for their 7800. I mean they were just clueless.

 

You should have moved on to an Atari ST and played the best version of The Bard's Tale, along with the best versions of the complete Phantasie Trilogy. ;-p

 

Atari put everything they had behind the ST line. Everything else was a side project. Once the ST sales started to tank and Lynx didn't take off, Atari already had one foot in the grave when the Jaguar came out.

 

Atari did have a small window for possibly having a semi successful system in the Jaguar, but the slow trickle of software in 1994 just killed them. Tempest 2000, AVP and Iron Soldier were great games, but they all needed to be released in the late 1993 and early 1994 launch window for the Jag to have a fighting chance. I bought a Jag in early December of 1993 and it felt like I was playing Cybermorph and Raiden forever before Tempest 2000 and Wolfenstein 3D finally showed up in like March of 1994.

Edited November 21, 2017 by Major Havoc 2049

[Lost Dragon]

The thing to be careful of, even qhen taking into account internal documents, interviews,sound bites, press quotes from the time etc..

 

We are still only seeing pieces of the much bigger picture.

 

Gremlin's Ian Stewart will happily telly you Strider II sold poorly on the Lynx so they never developed any more titles on it.

 

Mev Dinc was offered the Panther..turned it down due to Atari’s track record.

 

Audiogenic approached Atari with aim of developing on Jaguar, apparently turned down as Atari wanted bigger name publishers..

 

Ringler Studio's mail exchanges paint an unpleasant picture..

 

Hand Made Software lost a lot of money thanks to Atari..

 

ATD late getting into PS1 development due to contractual obligations with Atari..

 

Everyone has a story to tell..

 

Atari staff the sane be it Darryl Still or Leonard Tramiel...

 

I've read Zero 5 coder Matthew Gosling wax lyrical about getting roped off by Atari and Telegames..but has anyone spoken to Chris Caspar..head of Caspian Software for his version of events?

 

No..it's always Matthew..

 

Bill Rehbock has some..interesting quotes..would of loved to ask him if he was quoted in context..

[Lost Dragon]

You should have moved on to an Atari ST and played the best version of The Bard's Tale, along with the best versions of the complete Phantasie Trilogy. ;-p

 

Atari put everything they had behind the ST line. Everything else was a side project. Once the ST sales started to tank and Lynx didn't take off, Atari already had one foot in the grave when the Jaguar came out.

 

Atari did have a small window for possibly having a semi successful system in the Jaguar, but the slow trickle of software in 1994 just killed them. Tempest 2000, AVP and Iron Soldier were great games, but they all needed to be released in the late 1993 and early 1994 launch window for the Jag to have a fighting chance. I bought a Jag in early December of 1993 and it felt like I was playing Cybermorph and Raiden forever before Tempest 2000 and Wolfenstein 3D finally showed up in like March of 1994.

 

I'd also add that given Atari were trying to push the XE GS around the same time as the 7800..they probably didn't feel the need to go after conversions of things like Alternative Reality,Phantasie, Ultimately etc as they already had a console on which these could be played on.

[pacman000]

Hmmmm.... What of this? http://articles.latimes.com/1992-05-02/business/fi-1361_1_video-game-market

 

 

Atari, which once dominated the video game business, had alleged in a $160-million antitrust lawsuit that a Nintendo policy prohibiting independent game vendors from producing versions of Nintendo games for other companies' game-playing machines was a violation of antitrust laws.

 

 

Friday's verdict dealt primarily with the exclusive licensing policy--since abandoned by Nintendo--that requires third-party game makers with licenses from Nintendo to refrain for two years from making versions of its games for other game systems.

[Lost Dragon]

Sorry, but the statement that Atari didn't go after RPG/Adventure games for their consoles.. doesn't really hold water..

 

The 7800 was designed around offering arcade type games and it's launch line up put the focus on coin op conversions etc and as i said earlier the XE GS offered enough 8 bit adventure games if that was what you were after on an Atari console of that era..

 

The Lynx had numerous titles in development..

 

1 of the few Panther games actually in development was an RPG..The Crypt.

 

Jaguar had Towers II, likes of Ishar III,Legions Of The Undead, Age Of Darkness, The Assassin etc annouced/started in cases..

 

Atari Magic 1 team had a special RPG planned for Jaguar CD.

 

Atari were keen to cover this area.

 

A key area Atari failed to address was the expectation of what 64 bit gaming was supposed to deliver.

 

You can see it in early press coverage of the machine..journalist's were expecting a lot of polygon 3D games and titles far more diverse than Mario/Sonic style platformer,MK clones..Lemmings clones,Mario Kart clones..

 

Yet Atari served them all up..from the 16 bit ports to original titles like Atari Karts..

 

Titles like Toki, Thea Realm Fighters etc were better off unfinished..they looked awful.

 

Atari couldn't even update established Lynx titles well:

 

ATD had no clue what they were doing with Blue Lightning...

 

Beyond Games struggled to get anywhere with Battlewheels..

 

Just laughable looking back at the situation now, but far from funny when you've paid bloody good money for the machine at launch..

[Clint Thompson]

Sorry, but the statement that Atari didn't go after RPG/Adventure games for their consoles.. doesn't really hold water..

 

The 7800 was designed around offering arcade type games and it's launch line up put the focus on coin op conversions etc and as i said earlier the XE GS offered enough 8 bit adventure games if that was what you were after on an Atari console of that era..

 

The Lynx had numerous titles in development..

 

1 of the few Panther games actually in development was an RPG..The Crypt.

 

Jaguar had Towers II, likes of Ishar III,Legions Of The Undead, Age Of Darkness, The Assassin etc annouced/started in cases..

 

Atari Magic 1 team had a special RPG planned for Jaguar CD.

 

Atari were keen to cover this area.

 

A key area Atari failed to address was the expectation of what 64 bit gaming was supposed to deliver.

 

You can see it in early press coverage of the machine..journalist's were expecting a lot of polygon 3D games and titles far more diverse than Mario/Sonic style platformer,MK clones..Lemmings clones,Mario Kart clones..

 

Yet Atari served them all up..from the 16 bit ports to original titles like Atari Karts..

 

Titles like Toki, Thea Realm Fighters etc were better off unfinished..they looked awful.

 

Atari couldn't even update established Lynx titles well:

 

ATD had no clue what they were doing with Blue Lightning...

 

Beyond Games struggled to get anywhere with Battlewheels..

 

Just laughable looking back at the situation now, but far from funny when you've paid bloody good money for the machine at launch..

 

I actually felt that the later versions of Thea Realm Fighters looked pretty good for what it was but played slow and ultimately was no Mortal Kombat in the end, no matter how hard they tried. I think Blue Lightning, while no AAA title game, also gets unfairly viewed for being a freebie pack-in and while it certainly has aged poorly, it was kind of fun back in the day with good music but didn't hold a candle to what was on the PSX in terms of graphics. Beyond Games proved itself more than worthy with Ultra Vortek, that game is gorgeous but still not a fast-paced enough arcade fighter like MK3 clearly was.

 

Was looking into SuperCross3D last night and it's interesting to note SC3D was the programmers first game for any system. Same with a lot of early games on the Jag. I mean no disrespect to the guys who created these games as you clearly have to start somewhere but that somewhere and lack of experience/talent really hurt Atari.

Edited November 21, 2017 by Clint Thompson

[Tempest]

Gremlin's Ian Stewart will happily telly you Strider II sold poorly on the Lynx so they never developed any more titles on it.

 

Wait what? Strider II for the Lynx? Switchblade II maybe?

[Lost Dragon]

Wait what? Strider II for the Lynx? Switchblade II maybe?

:-)) That's the one.

 

Schoolboy error by myself there.

 

Strider II whilst finished by Tiertex was never released.

 

Hell..if Switchblade II didn't sell..Strider II would of bombed.

[+Stephen]

What nobody mentions, that could have helped the Jag do much better initially, would have been a decent set of developer tools which did not run on arcane Falcon / TT030 hardware. A decent C compiler for the RISC chips, etc. Besides the Sony PSX being revolutionary in the hardware, it had one killer SDK from the start.

[Lost Dragon]

I actually felt that the later versions of Thea Realm Fighters looked pretty good for what it was but played slow and ultimately was no Mortal Kombat in the end, no matter how hard they tried. I think Blue Lightning, while no AAA title game, also gets unfairly viewed for being a freebie pack-in and while it certainly has aged poorly, it was kind of fun back in the day with good music but didn't hold a candle to what was on the PSX in terms of graphics. Beyond Games proved itself more than worthy with Ultra Vortek, that game is gorgeous but still not a fast-paced enough arcade fighter like MK3 clearly was.

 

Was looking into SuperCross3D last night and it's interesting to note SC3D was the programmers first game for any system. Same with a lot of early games on the Jag. I mean no disrespect to the guys who created these games as you clearly have to start somewhere but that somewhere and lack of experience/talent really hurt Atari.

Personal tastes and all that

 

But always felt the only half decent MK clone was Sega's Eternal Champions on cart and CD.

 

I can appreciate what Beyond did with Jaguar hardware for use of high definition backdrops and good use of colour, but never been a fan of Ultra Vortek..

 

I would much rather they had cracked on with Jaguar Battlewheels..

 

Or got somewhere with AVP II or the proposed Major Havoc 2000.

 

:-)) Why doesn't that surprise me? Tiertex assign SuperCross3D to an inexperienced coder..

 

But that still doesn't let Atari off the hook for asking them to fully texture map it,knowing damn well it'd cripple the frame rate.

 

I wouldn't say Blue Lightning gets unfairly viewed..even those who worked on it openly admit it was a disaster.

Edited November 21, 2017 by Lost Dragon

[Otto1980]

Was looking into SuperCross3D last night and it's interesting to note SC3D was the programmers first game for any system. Same with a lot of early games on the Jag. I mean no disrespect to the guys who created these games as you clearly have to start somewhere but that somewhere and lack of experience/talent really hurt Atari.

 

That tells me, a more experienced Programmer would be able to provide much smoother framerate.

Also more experienced on Jag Hardware in Detail would be an aditional benefit.

 

The game itselfe is good but the framerate is a bad heavy impact overall.

[Bill Loguidice]

 

That tells me, a more experienced Programmer would be able to provide much smoother framerate.

Also more experienced on Jag Hardware in Detail would be an aditional benefit.

 

The game itselfe is good but the framerate is a bad heavy impact overall.

 

The frame rate in this case is not off by a little bit, but by a monumental amount. It can't be more than single digits at any one time. That's inexcusable in just about any game, let alone a racing game that depends on the illusion of speed. It's just so fundamental to SuperCross 3D's experience that it's difficult to think anything else is good about the game, since who knows what else would have to be sacrificed that's "good" to get a playable frame rate.

[Clint Thompson]

 

That tells me, a more experienced Programmer would be able to provide much smoother framerate.

Also more experienced on Jag Hardware in Detail would be an aditional benefit.

 

The game itselfe is good but the framerate is a bad heavy impact overall.

 

Same applies to Checkered Flag. That was the programmers very first game and it painfully shows. Highlander was his second game, and it also sadly shows. No offense to him, as it has been pointed out many times before the dev system surely did them no favors.

 

 

The frame rate in this case is not off by a little bit, but by a monumental amount. It can't be more than single digits at any one time. That's inexcusable in just about any game, let alone a racing game that depends on the illusion of speed. It's just so fundamental to SuperCross 3D's experience that it's difficult to think anything else is good about the game, since who knows what else would have to be sacrificed that's "good" to get a playable frame rate.

 

This is especially true when you compare it to Dirt Trax FX on the SNES. It almost appears to be identical without the textures but unlike SC3D, it's actually playable.

[swapd0]

That is the problem, you need a top programmer to get a decent frame rate in a 3D game for the Jaguar.

[zzip]

Currently playing Bard's Tale on the NES. I remember when this came out for the c64 but not the 800xl. I was crushed. Having burned out my disc drive on Phantasy 1 and 2 I loved these types of games.

Lol, I was big into RPGs at that time, and I used to get more disappointed in the RPGs we didn't get and failed to appreciate all the great ones we did: Ultima, AR, the SSI games, etc. When I finally played Bard's Tale on ST, I couldn't really get into it.