Jag CD Stats, Facts & Views - Future Pod Discussion

[Adriano Arcade]

Dear all

 

I now have a Jag CD!!! I am so happy with it! So far I have Battlemorph and Myst.

 

 

I wanted to do a follow up podcast for Arcade Attack about my initial thoughts and few other bits and bobs.

 

I was wondering if anyone had any good stats, facts, trivia and personal views on the Jag CD? I would then use some of these in the podcast.

 

I would love to know:

 

1. how many jag cd's were made and sold

2. best / worst selling games

3. best / worst games on the system

4. key stats on the console

5. key trivia and fun facts

6. reasons why it was delayed, reasons why it wasn't successful

7. personal views / stories on the Jag CD

8. views on current ebay prices, what may happen in the future?

 

Thank you so much for your help.

 

FYI Below is my first podcast on the Jag CD, way before I owned one - which I now know I made a number of errors. Feel free to check it out:

 

http://www.arcadeattack.co.uk/podcast-july-2-2017/

 

Kind regards

 

Adrian

[+CyranoJ]

They are either '100% reliable' or 'slabs of shitty plastic' depending on who you ask.

Best to make up your own mind.

[Zerosquare]

They're 100% reliable if you never take them out of the box and plug them in. Otherwise, all bets are off.

 

Trivia: JagCD discs can store 735 MB, instead of the standard 650 MB for a CD-ROM. That's because Atari was cheap and chose a mode with fewer error correction bits than usual, at the expense of reliability.

 

Trivia: Atari made JagCD discs out of chocolate. I'm not even kidding.

Edited June 6, 2018 by Zerosquare

[sirlynxalot]

Lol never heard of the chocolate cd before!

[Gummy Bear]

Battlemorph, IS2 and Hoverstrike are all you need for the Jag CD from the official lineup.

The chocolate disc looks pretty good as well

(it's probably gone a bit white by now though...)

[evisu]

Dear all

 

I now have a Jag CD!!! I am so happy with it! So far I have Battlemorph and Myst.

 

 

I wanted to do a follow up podcast for Arcade Attack about my initial thoughts and few other bits and bobs.

 

I was wondering if anyone had any good stats, facts, trivia and personal views on the Jag CD? I would then use some of these in the podcast.

 

I would love to know:

 

1. how many jag cd's were made and sold

2. best / worst selling games

3. best / worst games on the system

4. key stats on the console

5. key trivia and fun facts

6. reasons why it was delayed, reasons why it wasn't successful

7. personal views / stories on the Jag CD

8. views on current ebay prices, what may happen in the future?

 

Thank you so much for your help.

 

FYI Below is my first podcast on the Jag CD, way before I owned one - which I now know I made a number of errors. Feel free to check it out:

 

http://www.arcadeattack.co.uk/podcast-july-2-2017/

 

Kind regards

 

Adrian

 

1. how many jag cd's were made and sold / around 20.000 as far as I know

2. best / worst selling games / Best selling: Blue Lightning and Vid Grid most probably ... because was for free in the box

3. best / worst games on the system / Best maybe IS2 / Worst quite sure Highlander

4. key stats on the console / ---

5. key trivia and fun facts / There´s no fun fact about this add-on.

6. reasons why it was delayed, reasons why it wasn't successful / Maybe because the Jag itself wasn´t so successful ...

7. personal views / stories on the Jag CD / Had one years ago. But exept a few homebrews and Battlemorph (IS2 is available on cart as well) there´s no reason to have one. And for the homebrews you can use a Skunkboard. (Of course, collectors really NEED a Jag-CD.)

8. views on current ebay prices, what may happen in the future? / The prices at ebay will never stop increasing. In approximately 2 or 3 years the last working Jag-CD will break the 1mUSD mark. Followed by the ProPad for 725.000USD and the Chocolate CD for 716.000USD.

Edited June 6, 2018 by evisu

[sh3-rg]

JagChris is the go-to guy when you want the Jaguar CD truthfacts. I'd ignore everyone else and hit him up.

 

Also...

 

 

MMMmmmmmmmm...mmmmmm.... scabby 25 year old chocolate discs. Interesting factoid: BITD, every April Sam Tramiel would close down K-Spread 4, step away from his Atari TT, and relax after another gargantuan effort pushing back the boundaries of hypermathematics on Atari's accounts. He'd pour himself a Remy Martin Louis XIII into a Jag-Ware heat-reactive mug, and bite down hard with purpose and determination on that Atari logo. Some people just ooze class. Jag4Lyf.

[Zerosquare]

By the way:

reasons why it wasn't successful

The usual: too little, too late. At the time of the JagCD release, the Jaguar (and Atari itself) were already dying. Not to mention the paucity of JagCD games and their so-so quality.

[+madman]

By the way:The usual: too little, too late. At the time of the JagCD release, the Jaguar (and Atari itself) were already dying. Not to mention the paucity of JagCD games and their so-so quality.

Yeah, not much mystery there. I'm surprised they even bothered to release it, though at that time Atari wasn't known for making the best decisions.

 

I can't imagine being a kid back then having dumped money into the Jag CD when it was released at full price. The Sega CD has an infamous reputation for having had mostly junk FMV games, but there were a lot of excellent games for that add-on. The Jag CD? Not so much.

[Schmudde]

Yeah, not much mystery there. I'm surprised they even bothered to release it, though at that time Atari wasn't known for making the best decisions.

 

I can't imagine being a kid back then having dumped money into the Jag CD when it was released at full price. The Sega CD has an infamous reputation for having had mostly junk FMV games, but there were a lot of excellent games for that add-on. The Jag CD? Not so much.

 

I mean, there is a reason much has been written around sunk costs in economic theory. It's widely established (not without exception) that sunk costs should not affect the rational decision maker's next move, but it often does.

 

I can easily imagine being in an Atari Corp. board room in 1995 and making the decision to release the unit. Most marketing around the Jaguar was based on the perception of power, and I believe the Jaguar CD offered the Jaguar a "790 Meg Tune-Up." Seems in line with the entirety of the product's conception. Hell, even the controller made sure to have more buttons (i.e. "more power") than any competitor.

 

Classic sunk cost fallacy. Rather than alter a failed game plan (which would seemingly waste all investment to this point), you feel compelled to stay the course to its bitter end.

 

I enjoyed my Jag CD, BattleMorph, and the VLM in 1995, but I'm obviously in the tiny minority.

Edited June 8, 2018 by Schmudde

[+madman]

The real mystery is why they released the Jag CD when it offered nothing other than increased storage over carts. No additional RAM, no extra sound chips, no extra processing power, nothing. I think CJ said it slightly reduced the amount of RAM available on the Jag. The PCE CD released in the 80's offered more of an improvement than the Jag CD. The pack-in was Blue Lightning which without the FMV clips likely could've fit on a cart. People trash the 32X, but it was a far better add-on than the Jag CD. And it has better games, too.

[Schmudde]

The real mystery is why they released the Jag CD when it offered nothing other than increased storage over carts. No additional RAM, no extra sound chips, no extra processing power, nothing. I think CJ said it slightly reduced the amount of RAM available on the Jag. The PCE CD released in the 80's offered more of an improvement than the Jag CD. The pack-in was Blue Lightning which without the FMV clips likely could've fit on a cart. People trash the 32X, but it was a far better add-on than the Jag CD. And it has better games, too.

 

For sure. The Jaguar CD strategy felt like the dawn of PC CD-ROM for me. Pretty unimaginative.

 

But I think the Jag CD was more well conceived than the ST CD-ROM.

[Major Havoc 2049]

I thought the Jag CD with Blue Lightning, Vid Grid, Myst Demo and the VLM was a pretty good deal at $150 back in '95. I was heavily invested in the Jaguar platform at the time, so I was happy the Jag CD was released. Battlemorph, Hover Strike: Unconquered Lands, World Tour Racing and Iron Soldier 2 are also some of the better games on the Jaguar IMO and in my Top 10 Jag games.

[Austin]

I thought the Jag CD with Blue Lightning, Vid Grid, Myst Demo and the VLM was a pretty good deal at $150 back in '95. I was heavily invested in the Jaguar platform at the time, so I was happy the Jag CD was released. Battlemorph, Hover Strike: Unconquered Lands, World Tour Racing and Iron Soldier 2 are also some of the better games on the Jaguar IMO and in my Top 10 Jag games.

Yeah, back at $100 (what I paid) or $150, along with the bundled software, I think it was worth it. These days though.. ugh. It's a very expensive curiosity now.

[evisu]

I paid 150€, if I remember correctly ... but this was back in 2010 maybe, 4 years before I sold my third Jag-collection (and the CD).

I remember, I was absolutely disappointed. Not only by the games ... but this part feels cheap. The button to open the lid, the feeling if you push it in the cartridge slot ...

 

For hardcore Jag fans and collectors the CD might be a useful addition. If you´re a Hover Strike Fan, you get some additional levels in Unconquered Land, you get the better Iron Soldier 2, RPG fans can have Robinsons Requiem, shooter fans get (fingers crossed) Soulstar and Battlemorph.But well ... yeah .. that´s it. The rest are more collector items than good games.

 

There´s no need for an average player to spend this money. Better buy some good carts.

 

And I believe, we are on the top with the prices ... I can´t imagine that the prices for Jag CD´s are going that much higher ... but on the other hand I believe too, that the prices will stay high and flat for a while.

[evisu]

Does the CD ROM have any additional chips or hardware to support the console?

Why I am asking is ... if the CD add on is simply a CD drive ... would it be possible to convert an old external PC double speed CD ROM into a Jag CD ROM?

Of course a adapter cable (cartridge slot to CD ROM) would be needed ... but if this would be possible, it could be a chance for everybody to play CD games.

[Gummy Bear]

Does the CD ROM have any additional chips or hardware to support the console?

No. Nothing.

It's just a cd drive.

 

In fact it hamstrings the console in certain respects. Can't remember exactly but it chops into the system's resources somehow.

[+CyranoJ]

No. Nothing.

It's just a cd drive.

 

In fact it hamstrings the console in certain respects. Can't remember exactly but it chops into the system's resources somehow.

 

And the Butch controller, the CD Bios and the VLM...

[Gummy Bear]

 

And the Butch controller, the CD Bios and the VLM...

And some resistors and caps and stuff

 

I think he means like the Mega cd with it's additional cpu and scaling hardware.

 

Ahh... the VLM though...

I still miss that.

Edited June 11, 2018 by Gummy Bear

[evisu]

Ok, got it ... seem to be a little bit more complicated.

[UHATEIT]

I agree with one of the comments, wondering as to WHY they even bothered to release a unit like this, since it didn't really have much else to offer and that some of the games aside from the FMV could have probably fit onto a cart instead.

 

I think with carts kind of on the way out and the rise of CDs, that was probably the reason for it. CD media is likely a lot cheaper to produce and print on than to produce carts.

 

I enjoy my Jag CD, definitely for the homebrew aspects of it. Many of the ports are available in rom format for a skunkboard and then also in iso format for CD burns. I figure if I can play them on the skunk then I don't need to burn them onto a CD and use the CD unit for the extra wear and tear if it will likely look just as good on the skunk. I have noticed there is basically no difference as far as graphics wise when it comes to that as well (ST ports flashed to a skunk vs burning some to a CD and using on the Jag CD unit).

 

With the prices they go for now, it's absurd honestly to buy them. But retro everything is popular right now so everyone wants to snatch up these random systems that never really got big. Hold onto your units while you can.

[VladR]

wondering as to WHY they even bothered to release a unit like this, since it didn't really have much else to offer and that some of the games aside from the FMV could have probably fit onto a cart instead.

Can you notice the difference in the content quantity between 30-50 GB games on PS4 (say, Wolfenstein) vs some 0.1 GB downloadable game ?

 

For large, content-heavy, AAA titles, you NEED hundreds of MBs on jag. Just 3 CDs will give you around ~2 GB (compare that to ~0.004 GB on cart).

 

 

Yes, jag didn't really get a chance to benefit from those 2 GB for content-heavy games (and this topic has been [and will be, yet again, again, and -who would've though- then again] beaten to death at least hundred times).

 

 

But it doesn't mean that option shouldn't be there. It's an option, and yet it came late, but if a developer has means to get hundreds of megabytes of content, then it's great this option is there.

 

 

 

You guys would be bitching at "lame Atari" if it never released CD unit.

 

 

SMFH

[+madman]

You guys would be bitching at "lame Atari" if it never released CD unit.

I'd be bitching at "lame Atari" if they spent years trash talking other hardware manufacturers who actually put out hardware that people enjoyed and spent even more years talking up how great of a development team they have while never actually releasing anything other than empty promises.

[Gummy Bear]

Shots fired

[VladR]

Shots fired

Nah, not really. Maybe couple years ago, when I was still under illusion that it's not a waste of breath, to try to reason with that particular personality&temperament combo. Ignorance is bliss...

 

He's cute, though - for trying, you know

 

It definitely made my day, for sure

 

 

Offtopic aside, certain game genres don't require an army of artists, to fill the CD with meaningful art assets. With today's tools like WorldMachine, one artist is enough to create massive outdoorsy worlds for a topdown action game focused on exploration. You can,quite literally, generate 16 square mile terrain in an afternoon, if you know the program.

 

No chance fitting that to cart.