Unreleased Jaguar Games.

[Lost Dragon]

1 hour ago, PeterG said:

Well from what I remember it was the verdict of some focus group testing, so it would not be so much the eyes of Atari but whoever came to play those games.

 

In any case as zero 5 is quite a different game albeit set in space I'd somehow rather think the compared games would be SW2000 and BS as two space shooters with dogfights etc.

That was how it had been presented by the Battlesphere individual, Atari had been play testing Space War 2000 (which it itself some claim had started life as Star Raiders 2000) and once Atari saw Battlesphere,  Space War was terminated as Atari wanted to push Battlesphere instead.

 

Matthew Gosling had seen this claim and chimed in that this had a ring of familarity to it as that was what they had been told themselves.

 

Maybe both titles had caused Space War to be canned was the suggestion Matthew put forward. 

 

 

All I remember is Zero 5 was talked of by Darryl Still at the time as being 1 of the fruits of the new European Software Development group Atari had set up to combat the lack of Killer software for the Jaguar and it and Attack Of The Mutant Penguins would be worth waiting for.

Edited October 23, 2019 by Lost Dragon

[Lost Dragon]

Found the exchange in my old files. .

 

Battlesphere individual :

 

"After showing little or no interest
in us, Atari suddenly asked for a demo two days or so after I got the
AI up and running.  It turned out they secretly put it to a focus
group against one of their own completed titles, Space War 2000, and
when we clobbered them in comparison tests, they canned theirs."

 

 

 

Reply by Matthew Gosling:

"I am getting a sense of deja vu here, we were told that Space War 2000
was canned because of Zero 5 ... =)"

 

 

 

And then...

 

Battlesphere individual:

 

"Oh that's rich :-)...  Did they do the mystery focus group thing
to you, too?"

 

 

Gosling:

 

"Not sure about a focus group.  We did get a 'you're making waves at
Atari US, Leonard Tramiel was really pissed' thing I think."

 

But again here no actual source named by Gosling...

 

The only Atari documentation i have seen is a play testers report for Space War 2000 (thanks to Scott Stilphen for sharing that) and it just detailed fixes the game itself needed.

 

I've seen and shared a few Jeff Minter soundbites on Space War 2000...

 

But without any such Atari documentation that proves Space War 2000 was canned so Atari could focus on any other titles., the claims are just anecdotal. 

Edited October 23, 2019 by Lost Dragon

[Lost Dragon]

Minter talking Space War 2000:

 

(Jeff Minter) talking about Spacewar 2000:

 

" I was at Atari and I saw a near-final
Space War 2000. When you see this title you’ll notice that Mr. Zdybel
has been borrowing rather heavily from Yak’s Little Book of Melt-O-Vision Tricks and Spells! There’s a cool bit at the end of a round where Lance Chromedome appears in a field of melting with a third
eye and grins at you! Hoots of laughter were heard around the test dept. when that came on…"

"All I know is it’s gonna have some killer poly graphics (explosions which look like someone sneezed into a pile of confetti, so many polygons blowing away) and a splitscreen (vertically!) 2 player mode…"

\
(:-)
/

[Zerosquare]

To be fair, it could also be a case of Atari saying different things to different persons. It wouldn't be the first time.

Edited October 23, 2019 by Zerosquare

[Lost Dragon]

50 minutes ago, Zerosquare said:

To be fair, it could also be a case of Atari saying different things to different persons. It wouldn't be the first time.

Totally agree, especially given Atari's track record,  but because none of the parties give any names just vague references to focus groups and Leonard Tramiel being pissed off, there is no paper trail to start looking into.

 

Even a department would of been a start.

 

If it was a marketing department decision you could get some idea of what happened and why...

 

If a producer was named, there is a starting point..

 

 

Scott Hunter was the playtester for Space War 2000 has he ever been found/interviewed/asked about the title?

 

What about Rob Zdybel? 

Edited October 23, 2019 by Lost Dragon

[Lost Dragon]

Found Scott and asked him about play testing Space War 2000.

 

He was kind enough to admit he has no recollection of play testing it, but has given me contact details of someone whom might be able to assist.

 

Very grateful for his time.

[Lost Dragon]

Second play tester replied already.

 

Sadly unable to help regarding Space War 2000 as by that time he had left Atari for Sony.

 

Looking like a dead end for further information from myself.

 

 

Worth asking though.

[Lost Dragon]

On 1/20/2019 at 9:58 PM, jenovi said:

I just released the first part of my Unreleased Jaguar series and thought you might enjoy it. It's going to be lengthy as I'm covering every game planned for the system during its active years, but not released. Part one details seldom if ever discussed sales figures and statistics before getting into the games. It runs in mostly alphabetic order, and at this point, I've covered A-AR. Some games will be held back as I try to verify information or get in touch with people involved, so don't fret if a game gets passed over.

 

Anyways, I've done a massive amount of research to verify and dismiss a long list of games. If you want to check out the series, I wholeheartedly welcome you to.

 

If you were involved in the creation of unreleased/canceled Jaguar games or If you've been involved in preserving Jaguar history relating to games and would like to contribute your story, please reach out to me. I would love to chat. -Jenovi

 

Unreleased Atari Jaguar

https://youtu.be/3A4P_oDB0TY

 

Sorry Jenovi, but those 2.5 Million European Preorder numbers are just utterly whack.

 

If Atari had them, it would of been an amazing P.R scoop for them and they were riding on some fantastic preliminary UK media coverage as was outside of the Gaming Press..BBC news reports, newspaper articles in The Guardian etc.

 

When you have likes of HMV in Oxford and Reading telling people they are preorder number 18 and once they reach 25 preorders, allocated stocks will all of been accounted for...

 

The maths just doesn't add up.

 

UK preorders per store alone would of had to of been in the thousands, not double digits. 

 

Sure there were dissapointed customers and Atari soured relations with the highstreet chains, at 1 point having to admit they themselves had no idea where the initial Jaguar shipments were (held up in customs). 

 

But a botched launch and very,very limited initial shipments are very different to the preorder numbers quoted.

[jenovi]

21 hours ago, Lost Dragon said:

Sorry Jenovi, but those 2.5 Million European Preorder numbers are just utterly whack.

 

If Atari had them, it would of been an amazing P.R scoop for them and they were riding on some fantastic preliminary UK media coverage as was outside of the Gaming Press..BBC news reports, newspaper articles in The Guardian etc.

 

When you have likes of HMV in Oxford and Reading telling people they are preorder number 18 and once they reach 25 preorders, allocated stocks will all of been accounted for...

 

The maths just doesn't add up.

 

UK preorders per store alone would of had to of been in the thousands, not double digits. 

 

Sure there were dissapointed customers and Atari soured relations with the highstreet chains, at 1 point having to admit they themselves had no idea where the initial Jaguar shipments were (held up in customs). 

 

But a botched launch and very,very limited initial shipments are very different to the preorder numbers quoted.

   Wow, I've really missed out in the last couple of weeks. Truth be told, I don't feel the source who supplied this tidbit to be reliable, though I did at the time. I don't want to though anyone under the bus, so I'll leave it at that. I do however feel as I continue down this course of documenting Jag games that the UK was the premier market for Atari's system. In fact, it continues to show to this day. Considering how few consoles shipped in that region, it's incredible that it by far has the largest number of supporters. So what's the true number of preorders? Well, we just don't know, and honestly, at this point, we likely never will unless depending on a 25-year-old memory for data is acceptable. I wouldn't be surprised if the number is related to the 2.5 million and the decimal was misplaced... say 25,000 or 250,000, but I'm just spitballing here.  So yes, a correction needs to be added to the comments or in the description explaining this. 

 

   Not to get too far into the weeds, but the Saturn met a similar fate in the US with a terrible launch and not enough consoles to meet demand. By the time Sega fixed the supply issue, distributers and consumers were no longer interested. So it's not in any way an indicator of preorder demand. 

 

BTW, I really appreciate the support you've given and in the way it's been done. The Jag seems to have a rather seedy underbelly attached to it, making verification of facts incredibly difficult. Just look at the Jane W. situation. I know you're familiar with it, so I won't recount it here. 

 

[Lost Dragon]

I'm trying to cast my mind back to when I bought my Jaguar on Day 1 here in the UK with regards to just which High Street Stores were stocking it and what the level of hype was..

 

I'd previously bought a Sega Mega CD and you couldn't move for the pre-launch hype for that with Sega pushing it a lot in magazines and stores,it was the Mean Machines Video tape that convinced me to get one.

 

I have no recollection of anything like the anticipation for the Jaguar.

 

Magazines like C+VG were hyping the Jaguar up,but at same time the 3DO.

 

Atari had used television shows like Gameamaster and Bad Influence to promote the system and on launch day it was covered by likes of The Guardian Newspaper and various BBC news reports including Newsround (aimed at younger viewers). 

 

I remember the likes of:

 

Silica Shop (where i bought mine)

 

Virgin Megastore 

Calculus

Game 

HMV 

Daniels Of Windsor

Telegames 

Etc

 

Stocking it.

 

Think it took a few months for Atari to secure a deal with Dixons and even then i couldn't tell you if it was stocked in all it's stores in the UK (and by UK i include Northern Ireland). 

 

Both Rumbelows and Calculus went bankrupt and Rumbelows shifted a lot of Jaguar's at clearance prices.

 

But the only reason the likes of Virgin and HMV spoke to the press about the Jaguar was to express frustration about how few machines per store Atari had allocated them (anything between 6 and 25 machines)  which of course was going to mean demand out stripped supply, but not that they had been overwhelmed by people wanting a Jaguar on Day 1.

 

Also how hard it was to get information from Atari.

 

Atari seemed unable to track shipments into UK ports,provide details on shipments of games,controllers etc.

 

Atari was a mere shadow of what it had been here in the UK when the VCS was so strong.

 

The likes of the 400/800 XL/XE had been niche systems..

 

The XEGS and 7800 even more so.

 

The ST had seen off the Sinclair QL and it's low price and MIDI ports had made it attractive to gamers and musicians in it's early years,but once Commodore dropped the price of the A500...

 

Lynx had been decimated by both the Game Gear and Gameboy 

 

Falcon absolute non-starter, Commodore with the A1200 killed it and PC market starting to really take off over here at this point.

 

CD32 was doing well, Gallop put it at around 55% of the UK CD games market at one point 

 

So many people though content to stay with existing hardware and see what the likes of the Saturn and PlayStation offered and what Nintendo had up their sleeve with Project Reality. 

 

The ST name was very dead indeed by the time Jaguar was announced and Atari having previously hyped the Panther over here,only to kill it, meant people were very sceptical about Atari and Super Consoles. 

 

 

Your source really needs to provide credible and sourced information to back up any figures, especially ones as high as that.

 

A correction added to the comments, explaining the European marketplace and Atari's standing and total lack of reliable data would be most welcome. 

 

[Lost Dragon]

Regarding the seedy underbelly of the commercial development side of the Jaguar:

 

When you have RetroGamer magazine allowing Jane Whittaker to tell lie after lie and the staff writer who did the interview telling Whittaker he only wished he could of had more pages for the interview.. 

 

That allows Imagitec Design's serial bullshitter, Martin Hooley to twice blame Leonard Tramiel for the failure of projects like Space Junk and Freelancer 2120 (Atari having nothing to do with the PC CD version of the latter), rather than admit company had serious staffing and money issues to say the very least and Atari itself had serious doubts about Imagitec since it failed to deliver several 7800 titles..

 

What can you do?

 

Handmade Software just as bad..

 

Jim Gregory spun such a web of lies to myself when i interviewed him, blaming Atari for everything, Peter Wiseman does the same,yet you speak to others from there and you hear how they were told to create fake screens and demos purely to fool press and investors, money coming in going to pay off debts from the Mr Micro era,not current staff.

 

Had to pull Gregory interview as it had zero credibility once new research was done.

 

Rebellion say they did not have the time to work on AVP as were focused at the time on Skyhammer,  Legions Of The Undead (Jaguar, PC CD and PlayStation)  and various PC titles,but enjoyed working with Atari..

 

Then you find them putting blame for Checkered Flag failings on Atari not wanting link up,rushing project out etc.

 

Sure you stumble across coder accounts from the time, which I posted up a few days ago or sources come forward  with more info on Whittakers actual role at Rebellion.. 

 

But when others like Mike Beaton refuse to answer Qs..

 

Your never going to get full accounts.

 

 

As long as you put quotes in context and explain issues surrounding the info you receive, rather than state them as expert claims,you'll do great.

 

If i find anything new of any use,it gets forwarded to likes of yourself,Unseen 64 etc.

 

It shouldn't be too long now before we learn of the Jaguar title GTW looked into.

 

Your doing fantastic work and it's a pleasure to assist.

Edited November 8, 2019 by Lost Dragon

[Lost Dragon]

6 hours ago, jenovi said:

   Wow, I've really missed out in the last couple of weeks. Truth be told, I don't feel the source who supplied this tidbit to be reliable, though I did at the time. I don't want to though anyone under the bus, so I'll leave it at that. I do however feel as I continue down this course of documenting Jag games that the UK was the premier market for Atari's system. In fact, it continues to show to this day. Considering how few consoles shipped in that region, it's incredible that it by far has the largest number of supporters. So what's the true number of preorders? Well, we just don't know, and honestly, at this point, we likely never will unless depending on a 25-year-old memory for data is acceptable. I wouldn't be surprised if the number is related to the 2.5 million and the decimal was misplaced... say 25,000 or 250,000, but I'm just spitballing here.  So yes, a correction needs to be added to the comments or in the description explaining this. 

 

   Not to get too far into the weeds, but the Saturn met a similar fate in the US with a terrible launch and not enough consoles to meet demand. By the time Sega fixed the supply issue, distributers and consumers were no longer interested. So it's not in any way an indicator of preorder demand. 

 

BTW, I really appreciate the support you've given and in the way it's been done. The Jag seems to have a rather seedy underbelly attached to it, making verification of facts incredibly difficult. Just look at the Jane W. situation. I know you're familiar with it, so I won't recount it here. 

 

I'd really love to see your source put forward his/her evidence for the 2.5 Million European Preorders :-)) 

 

I'm now convinced Atari didn't get Dixons on-board until after the Jaguar had launched and even then only in selected stores. 

 

Seen reports Northern Ireland stores were pushing the Sega Saturn instead.

 

Rumbelows did have a preorder scheme,but again not sure if this was Nationwide or selected stores.

 

HMV i can find claims saying selected stores ran a low key promotion on Jaguar Preorders up until Nov 27th and staff telling Preorder customers to expect a machine on Dec 3rd in some UK stores Dec 10th in Scotland and stores would have a demonstration machine from that date onwards,but proper launch would not be until spring the following year.

 

 

 

Preorder price for the console £199 

 

Atari at this point were still in the process of sorting out the UK distribution network. 

 

HMV received a mere 300 machines in it's initial delivery from Atari, but even then some stores taking over a week to sell 2 machines..others selling out of the handful of machines they had in under 4 days..

 

 

HMV stores were limiting preorders as whilst Atari had promised say 25-30 machines per store,it was becoming apparent stores were not going to receive as many..

 

HMV London apparently had 80 of the 300 machines they were given for nationwide use in stores.

 

People ringing Atari UK to find a Jaguar before Xmas were basically told to go away :-)) 

 

 

People asking about Jaguar CD were given vague release dates, what would come with it, prices (anything from £100-£200 quoted)

 

I'm looking at reports here from Plymouth, York, Glasgow, Reading, Belfast, Oxford,Brighton,London etc

 

When news broke Jaguar's were held up in UK customs (issues with shipping documents it seems) HMV offered a full refund to anyone who had preordered. 

 

 

Some HMV stores were selling Raiden and Crescent Galaxy even before they were able to sell actual Jaguar consoles :-))  £44.95 each..

 

HMV Oxford was later telling people they had all of 4 copies of titles like Wolfenstien 3D.

 

 

Some indie shops in Swindon had a few Jaguar consoles,  single digit numbers..

 

Other indie stores quoting preorder prices of £250 blaming exchange rates for the higher than expected prices..

 

Sam Tramiel at the time was in full P.R mode saying Atari was working hard to resolve production and supply issues and expected Atari to ship 20,000 Jaguar's in Quarter 4 not the 50,000 Atari had initially promised 

 

 

Virgin Megastores didn't take the Jaguar until AFTER Rumbelows collapsed, so it seems Pre-launch the only major chain stocking Jaguar's was HMV and they kept preorder hype low as they knew machines would be scarce.

 

 

You could do a great video on the European launch farce of the Jaguar based on what really went down, without needing farcical claims of 2.5 Million Preorders :-)) 

 

Stores couldn't give customers a guaranteed release date,price or reassure them they would even get a machine they had paid for.

 

 

Dixons and Currys weren't interested in the Jaguar at start of 1994 as so few games had been released for it,Atari had to work hard to get Dixons on-board. 

 

 

Even as late as Summer 1995 when asked about distribution of the Jaguar, Darryl Still openly admitted the biggest Atari had were Virgin and HMV 

 

How on earth was there ever going to be consumer confidence based on any of the above? 

[Lost Dragon]

22 hours ago, jenovi said:

   Wow, I've really missed out in the last couple of weeks. Truth be told, I don't feel the source who supplied this tidbit to be reliable, though I did at the time. I don't want to though anyone under the bus, so I'll leave it at that. I do however feel as I continue down this course of documenting Jag games that the UK was the premier market for Atari's system. In fact, it continues to show to this day. Considering how few consoles shipped in that region, it's incredible that it by far has the largest number of supporters. So what's the true number of preorders? Well, we just don't know, and honestly, at this point, we likely never will unless depending on a 25-year-old memory for data is acceptable. I wouldn't be surprised if the number is related to the 2.5 million and the decimal was misplaced... say 25,000 or 250,000, but I'm just spitballing here.  So yes, a correction needs to be added to the comments or in the description explaining this. 

 

   Not to get too far into the weeds, but the Saturn met a similar fate in the US with a terrible launch and not enough consoles to meet demand. By the time Sega fixed the supply issue, distributers and consumers were no longer interested. So it's not in any way an indicator of preorder demand. 

 

BTW, I really appreciate the support you've given and in the way it's been done. The Jag seems to have a rather seedy underbelly attached to it, making verification of facts incredibly difficult. Just look at the Jane W. situation. I know you're familiar with it, so I won't recount it here. 

 

OK,so in the greater interest of updating existing videos and planning future ones,emailed over details of the European situation as best as i knew it for the Jaguar,Pre and Post Launch.

 

Which stores stocked it and when here in UK and how quickly prices were cut and stocks cleared.

 

Who the main European retailers and distributors were and just how much research would of been needed to try and find and speak to key people from Atari UK..Netherlands,  Benelux etc, let alone distribution chains, heads of purchasing for major retailers. 

 

Your source would also need to explain the difference in preorders made by customers and retailers (expected Vs actual demand) 

 

How major retailers in France were taking on average 10 preorders a day, not much different here in the UK

 

Stores expecting at best 300 machines in initial shipments.. 

 

How little interest there was in the Jaguar in likes of Holland and Sweden. 

 

I don't think your source had any real idea of what he or she was talking about to be honest.

 

I would love to see credible evidence backing their claims up, but from everything i have seen, it's a total nonsense figure.

[Lost Dragon]

So..

 

 

The AEO Summer CES is the video where Atari showed off early footage of Battlezone 2000 then.

 

No enemies, just rolling footage of a texture mapped landscape,texture mapped planet in background and view from inside the vehicle.. radar screen and various gauges etc.

 

Slow frame rate.

 

So it was what became Hoverstrike. 

 

That's that one sorted.

[Lost Dragon]

@Jenovi:

 

Updated your existing videos and a few other folks ones as well, with extra info best i can and sent info direct to you via email.

 

Not sure if you plan to return to some of the titles you've already covered , with updated info?

 

 

GTW has now officially annouced it's book:

 

https://mailchi.mp/6f0f8bd57e2e/bitmap-books-crpg-1703525?fbclid=IwAR2MjfMZqmIE0GP1Ea6nygOryTX3fDT0UawaoK2VLqF5No9xM_kxeLDWEmU

 

Whilst i assisted with Lynx:Rolling Thunder and Vindicators, plus misc Anstrad GX4000 and Playstation titles.

 

I am still none the wiser as to WHICH Lost Jaguar title Frank has covered.

 

But thought the book might be of interest to you and others.. 

[Lost Dragon]

On 1/20/2019 at 9:58 PM, jenovi said:

I just released the first part of my Unreleased Jaguar series and thought you might enjoy it. It's going to be lengthy as I'm covering every game planned for the system during its active years, but not released. Part one details seldom if ever discussed sales figures and statistics before getting into the games. It runs in mostly alphabetic order, and at this point, I've covered A-AR. Some games will be held back as I try to verify information or get in touch with people involved, so don't fret if a game gets passed over.

 

Anyways, I've done a massive amount of research to verify and dismiss a long list of games. If you want to check out the series, I wholeheartedly welcome you to.

 

If you were involved in the creation of unreleased/canceled Jaguar games or If you've been involved in preserving Jaguar history relating to games and would like to contribute your story, please reach out to me. I would love to chat. -Jenovi

 

Unreleased Atari Jaguar

https://youtu.be/3A4P_oDB0TY

 

Not sure if you have seen these, will put them up on your YT vids as well as here:

 

 

Jeff Braun at Maxis said he is
"noodling around" with a Jaguar development kit, but won't commit his
company to the expense of writing a game until more machines are sold.

"You can assume a machine is viable once it sells about 500,000
units," Braun said, a goal Atari must hit in Christmas 1994, before
competing machines get established.

Braun's assessment was echoed by Alam Miller, CEO of Accolade Inc. in
San Jose.  Accolade has licensed five popular sports games to Atari.
But the cost of adapting those games to the Jaguar hardware will be
borne by Atari, and Accolade will not write new software for the
Jaguar until sales climb.

"You have to weigh the estimates for success against the amount to be
invested," Miller said.

[Lost Dragon]

On 11/8/2019 at 9:09 AM, jenovi said:

   Wow, I've really missed out in the last couple of weeks. Truth be told, I don't feel the source who supplied this tidbit to be reliable, though I did at the time. I don't want to though anyone under the bus, so I'll leave it at that. I do however feel as I continue down this course of documenting Jag games that the UK was the premier market for Atari's system. In fact, it continues to show to this day. Considering how few consoles shipped in that region, it's incredible that it by far has the largest number of supporters. So what's the true number of preorders? Well, we just don't know, and honestly, at this point, we likely never will unless depending on a 25-year-old memory for data is acceptable. I wouldn't be surprised if the number is related to the 2.5 million and the decimal was misplaced... say 25,000 or 250,000, but I'm just spitballing here.  So yes, a correction needs to be added to the comments or in the description explaining this. 

 

   

 

From my own perspective,  if it was myself trying to get some idea of just how strong European Preorders for the Jaguar were, Darryl Still would play a role, but it would be a minor one at best.

 

 

I would need to try and find and talk with people like:

 

 

Jean Rechin Atari European Marketing Director), plus key figures from Atari France, Atari Netherlands, Atari Germany etc

 

Sources from NASCR (National Association of Specialist Computer Retailers) 

 

Sources from UK and European Distributors (SDL in case of the UK, ABC Spieispass/Rushware in case of Germany?) 

 

I would of needed to of enlisted the help of the much greater European Atari community and it would take months of painstaking research and cross checking.

 

 

Tried to reach heads of purchasing for likes of:Rumbelows,HMV, Calculus, GAME,Woolworths,Virgin etc in UK, Retour (France), Quelle (Germany) 

 

Even if I just considered looking at the UK, I would need to have sources like Bob Gleadow and Peter Staddon confirm what Darryl was supposedly claiming.

 

I'm simply flabbergasted such a figure can be thrown out for such a wide catchment area, by a single source.

[Lost Dragon]

Anywho..

 

In terms of what 2020 might bring via your channel and new videos...

 

Any chance of you digging deeper into the likes of:

 

Battlechess:When Bill Rehbock annouced it was being worked on, Interplay denied it.

 

Return To Zork, similar to the above,but this time Activision doing the denying, Bill Rehbock and Darryl Still both apparently blaming a communications problem between US and UK arms of Activision.

 

 

Kick Off 3:Anco allegedly telling UK press game was mere weeks away from being finished, but was being held back as Atari had yet to finalise Jaguar launch plans.

 

Atari saying work on the game had hardly started,so no blame should be attached to them.

 

So many stories yet to be properly investigated yet.

 

[swapd0]

It would be nice if the source code of all unreleased games could be found and released to the scene.

[Lost Dragon]

A few helpful pointers for you Jenovi and i will put some of this on the comments section of your videos.

 

Millenium made clear at the time they would be watching Brutal Sports Football sales on Jaguar very closely, before deciding to convert titles like Wild Cup Soccer and James Pond 3.

 

Battlechess was supposed to make good use of the Jaguar colour range and sprite scaling,  but it was still a creaky old ST title at heart..

 

Other titles you might want to look into would be things like:

 

Wayfarer (Black Scorpion Software)  a texture-mapped Dungeon Master affair, dropped in favour of Live Wire.

 

Other people worth tracking Down:

 

Peter Walker Atari UK P.R manager before Darryl Still..

 

Anil Gupta Anco could of given the real story on Jaguar Kick Off 3,but sadly died back in 2003 (RIP)

 

Regarding the absurd 2.5 Million European Preorders :-)) 

 

 

The most basic of research whilst sat in the dentists waiting room this morning,threw up a claim that test marketing experiments by Atari suggested they would need around 30,000 machines for a European launch, they were only expecting around 10,000 due to supply issues and that left HMV and Virgin in the embarrassing situation of having taken deposits on orders for far more machines than they could deliver..

 

 

Atari could only guess UK Grey Import firms were selling around 1,000 machines a month before the official UK launch.

 

Nowhere is there any suggestion of 2.5 Million Preorders. 

 

Alone In The Dark heading to Jaguar was an ST Format Magazine claim,due mid 1994 they said whilst using PC screens :-)) 

 

Try reaching Thornley Distribution sources and ask why they were no longer the UK distribution chain for the Jaguar..

 

Did Atari drop them or did they pull out of the contract once it became clear Atari were unable to supply anything like enough machines? 

Edited December 16, 2019 by Lost Dragon

[PikoInteractive]

Anybody know how far into development was Virtuoso cancelled?

 

Got a lead for a Proto including game rights for the Jag version, but don't want to get into it if it was less than Alpha.

[+CyranoJ]

18 minutes ago, PikoInteractive said:

Anybody know how far into development was Virtuoso cancelled?

 

Got a lead for a Proto including game rights for the Jag version, but don't want to get into it if it was less than Alpha.

@Retrolaird probably has a finished copy. Just ask his good friend <insert someone who never heard of him here>

[JagChris]

6 hours ago, PikoInteractive said:

Anybody know how far into development was Virtuoso cancelled?

 

Got a lead for a Proto including game rights for the Jag version, but don't want to get into it if it was less than Alpha.

Reported to be 100% completed

[JagChris]

5 hours ago, CyranoJ said:

@Retrolaird probably has a finished copy. Just ask his good friend <insert someone who never heard of him here>

Brief thread derail:

 

How close to the fires are you? Is everything ok where you're at?

[+CyranoJ]

44 minutes ago, JagChris said:

Brief thread derail:

 

How close to the fires are you? Is everything ok where you're at?

If the wind had done a 180 we'd have been in trouble. Luckily for us it was 10km away and headed away. No so lucky for others though

The smell of burning is everywhere in the area today.