Press from 1995: "Despite Hype from Sega and Sony, Atari has the only 64-bit machine and is the most powerful console on the market"

[Leeroy ST]

Bangor Daily December 1995:

 

 

I though people here may get a laugh out of this article.

 

I would figure the 3DO alone would have caused pause before writing this article but after the Sega and PSX demos this is prety hilarious. I'm assuming either this is someone completely disconnected from the industry and though bits meant something and only saw the specs on paper, or Atari paid a nice sum for good press, maybe both.

 

"Despite" the hype wow.

 

"Only weakeness is the limited software and lack of a show-stopping signature game" yeah that's two of the problems sure lol. 

 

Also obligatory "are video games dead" on the left side, because of course.

 

Edited August 30, 2020 by Leeroy ST

[mbd30]

"Has Mortal Kombat fought its final match?" Ugh. This is definitely someone who knows nothing about the industry and is only praising the Jaguar based on the purported number of bits.

 

 

 

[Leeroy ST]

4 minutes ago, mbd30 said:

"Has Mortal Kombat fought its final match?" Ugh. This is definitely someone who knows nothing about the industry and is only praising the Jaguar based on the purported number of bits.

 

 

 

"This time the video game industry will receive it's final fatality"

 

 

[empsolo]

My parents loved me, that’s why they didn’t buy me a Jaguar.

[0078265317]

58 minutes ago, empsolo said:

My parents loved me, that’s why they didn’t buy me a Jaguar.

Mine too.

[MrMaddog]

Was the Atari Jaguar actually a 64-bit system?  Yes...and no.

 

The theory was that the Jag had a 64-bit graphical processor that could be used as a CPU in hog mode (Jag homebrew coders would more more about this than I) and only needed the 68000 chip to initialize it.

 

But many game designers at the time were only familuar with using the 68000 as a main CPU so they basically ported titles from other 16-bit systems.  The best games from Atari used the 64-bit "Tom" chip for 3D graphics and 32-bit DSP for sound while using the 16-bit CPU for everything else like game logic and reading controllers.

 

The 90's gaming industry was so full of marketing hype and Atari had the most hype of all companies...which did them no good in the end.

[Leeroy ST]

25 minutes ago, MrMaddog said:

Was the Atari Jaguar actually a 64-bit system?  Yes...and no.

 

The theory was that the Jag had a 64-bit graphical processor that could be used as a CPU in hog mode (Jag homebrew coders would more more about this than I) and only needed the 68000 chip to initialize it.

 

But many game designers at the time were only familuar with using the 68000 as a main CPU so they basically ported titles from other 16-bit systems.  The best games from Atari used the 64-bit "Tom" chip for 3D graphics and 32-bit DSP for sound while using the 16-bit CPU for everything else like game logic and reading controllers.

 

The 90's gaming industry was so full of marketing hype and Atari had the most hype of all companies...which did them no good in the end.

I feel like this is copy and pasted all over lol. It's still a 64-bit system even with Atari/IBMS design incompetence and developer effort.

 

As much as people make fun of the Jaguar it was a step up, just all it's competiors were obviously better. It never hada 3DO moment where it looked like PSX and Saturn games for a time.

 

 

[Torr]

I wanted a Jaguar SOO bad.

Magazines at the time with their screenshots and all, plus the 64 BIT hype.

I was like... "What about 32 bit??? Or are we just skipping that because 3D0 and CDi are doing so bad?? The fact it used carts even led me to believe that CDROM was a fad, mainly for Computers and Music... not gaming. Sega and NECs CD units weren't exactly flying of shelves either!!!

 

Then Jaguar came out with a CD Unit with like a year!!!

 

Thank god I grew up in nowheresville where this wasn't available.

I KNOW I would have wasted MY money!!!

[CatPix]

2 hours ago, Leeroy ST said:

I feel like this is copy and pasted all over lol. It's still a 64-bit system even with Atari/IBMS design incompetence and developer effort.

Depends how you define video games systems bits? Is it by the highest or lowest able part of the machine?

 

Internally, the 68K (or variants) were able to work in 32 bits mode. It's even why the Atari ST is called ST : For SixtenThirthy-two. Yet, most medias of the time and now always considered the ST and Amiga as 16 bits machines.

 

Is the PC-Engine (TG-16) a 8 or 16 bits system? Is the Intellivision 8, 10 or 16 bits?

 

I do agree that design incompetence and developpers lack of familiarity/effort shouldn't be accounted for (unless we're talkign about the "feel" of the machine and not having a technical point of view), but this doesn't solve the fact that the Jaguar is a mismatch of processors and parts that use different word lenghts.

 

Though, in my personal opinion, one of the critical part in a video game console is the RAM bus width, and in the Jaguar, the RAM bus is indeed 64 bits.

(It's stilll not the ultimate solution : the PC-Engine have separate RAM and VRAM and to my understanding, the bus width of the CPU is 8 bits, but the bus width of the VRAM is 16 bits - the same issue arise but in reverse with the Intellivision which get 16 bits RAM for the CPU and 8 bits VRAM )

[bluejay]

I think I'd have waited for the N64. Atari's good with arcade games and stuff, but by 90s the gaming industry had moved on; more towards games that give you more than 15 minutes of entertainment. Nintendo was good with that stuff. I don't much like Sega stuff, mostly because I think they were re-doing what Nintendo had done before; and when they ventured on their own they failed miserably. To this day I think Nintendo made the best game cartridge/game card based systems in every generation(so no Gamecube, Wii, Wii U, or TV Game). Atari just isn't to be trusted in non-arcade type games or anything more advanced than the 2600.

[mr_me]

11 hours ago, CatPix said:

Though, in my personal opinion, one of the critical part in a video game console is the RAM bus width, and in the Jaguar, the RAM bus is indeed 64 bits.

(It's stilll not the ultimate solution : the PC-Engine have separate RAM and VRAM and to my understanding, the bus width of the CPU is 8 bits, but the bus width of the VRAM is 16 bits - the same issue arise but in reverse with the Intellivision which get 16 bits RAM for the CPU and 8 bits VRAM

The intellivision graphics bus is 14 bit.  The graphics chip has 14-bit registers for sprite attributes.  The 16-bit ram is mostly used for the graphics tile map; 14 bits per tile.  Only the graphic patterns are 8-bit.  And the cpu of course had 16-bit registers, and a 16 bit data bus.  The system supports 16-bit cartridge rom, although at the time they used 10-bit cartridges to save cost.

 

The graphics system is really what defines a video game system, more so than the cpu.  The number of bits it handles determines advanced sprite features, number of colours, and advanced animations.  It's what makes the turbografx a 16 bit system despite having an 8-bit cpu.  Having said that bits don't define everything about graphics data transfer e.g. genesis blast processing superfast graphics memory bandwidth.

 

The jaguar is 64-bit but as has been noted, developers didn't take advantage of it's capability.   It's a chicken and egg situation for developers.  They don't want to invest the time in something that doesn't have the install base and the system won't get the install base without the best games.  A video game company really needs first party development or a lot of money to have those games that sells the system.

 

At the time it first came out, what did people think of the sony playstation.  Did they know it would be a runaway success?

 

When he says "early sales of new hardware is less than previous years"; isn't it always the case, that the first year of sales isn't the best for a new console.

 

Edited August 31, 2020 by mr_me

[Leeroy ST]

11 hours ago, bluejay said:

I think I'd have waited for the N64. Atari's good with arcade games and stuff, but by 90s the gaming industry had moved on; more towards games that give you more than 15 minutes of entertainment. Nintendo was good with that stuff. I don't much like Sega stuff, mostly because I think they were re-doing what Nintendo had done before; and when they ventured on their own they failed miserably. To this day I think Nintendo made the best game cartridge/game card based systems in every generation(so no Gamecube, Wii, Wii U, or TV Game). Atari just isn't to be trusted in non-arcade type games or anything more advanced than the 2600.

Atari had tons of "more than 15 minute games" by the end of the 80's on consoles and before that on computers.

[zzip]

19 hours ago, empsolo said:

My parents loved me, that’s why they didn’t buy me a Jaguar.

I bought my own Jaguar because I loved myself (plus it was on clearance) 

[Lost Dragon]

Without going over very familiar ground,too heavily :

 

Jaguar could be marketed as 64-bit as it has 64-bit Architecture. 

 

Parallel Processing was a very new field to many developers and they struggled with the Saturn hardware as well. 

 

Developers like Rob Nicholson said the Jaguar chipsets needed another 2 revisions to work all the bugs out. 

 

The Jaguar development libraries were pretty rubbish. 

 

 

If your a publisher and it's clear the Jaguar has failed at retail, would you have your teams waste resources coding specifically for it.. or just have them use the 68000 as it's a familiar chip and you can get something out and then have your teams working on Playstation and Saturn titles?. 

Edited August 31, 2020 by Lost Dragon

[BydoEmpire]

Hah, the "only" weakness is lack of games and no 'system seller' games.  Minor problem.  Just fix that little thing and boom, all set!

 

Personally, I always wanted a Jag.  I kick myself for not buying one from a discount electronics catalog in the late 90s or early 00s.

Edited August 31, 2020 by BydoEmpire

[Leeroy ST]

36 minutes ago, BydoEmpire said:

Hah, the "only" weakness is lack of games and no 'system seller' games.  Minor problem.  Just fix that little thing and boom, all set!

 

Personally, I always wanted a Jag.  I kick myself for not buying one from a discount electronics catalog in the late 90s or early 00s.

What's funny is the Atari did have a system selling game, AVP, but couldn't manufacture enough cartridges or you know.... enough JAGAURS for it to actually change anything. Of course, lack of games was still an issue regardless.

[BydoEmpire]

40 minutes ago, Leeroy ST said:

What's funny is the Atari did have a system selling game, AVP, but couldn't manufacture enough cartridges or you know.... enough JAGAURS for it to actually change anything. Of course, lack of games was still an issue regardless.

That's true, I did drool over the AvP screenshots.