Was not releasing with CD at launch the biggest mistake Atari made with the Jaguar?

[Lostdragon]

9 hours ago, Leeroy ST said:

Regarding camelot dont know how on point Sega 16 is but I looked into it and found this:

https://www.sega-16.com/2004/09/history-of-shining-games/

While helpful there's no discussion about the trade show sadly. I also scanned the forums and can't find more details

 

Do you remember where you heard about Sega moving Camelot's stand in an inconvenient place at Trade Show?

Honestly wouldn't even know where to start now, it's been so many years. 

 

I remember how it came about, there was talk among a group of us of someone pitching an article to the likes of Retrogamer Magazine on giving a much more reasoned case for why the Dreamcast failed, as everyone kept saying the Playstation 2 hype had killed it and the situation was a lot more complex than that and a lot of the blame lay with Sega and in part how it was treating it's third party developers. 

 

 

 

Looking back at what i have learnt over the years, the Camelot quote could of simply been yet another classic disgruntled employee affair, would of needed to get both sides of the story. 

 

All I can remember is the individual saying after being forced to use a stand positioned well off the beaten track as it were at a major trade show ((Sega appearing to want to keep them out of sight in effect), Sega only localizing part one of the latest Shinning Force title, the individual claimed Sega told them they no longer needed Camelot. 

[Leeroy ST]

4 hours ago, Lostdragon said:

I remember how it came about, there was talk among a group of us of someone pitching an article to the likes of Retrogamer Magazine on giving a much more reasoned case for why the Dreamcast failed, as everyone kept saying the Playstation 2 hype had killed it and the situation was a lot more complex than that and a lot of the blame lay with Sega and in part how it was treating it's third party developers. 

People still believe this now, and with US being Dreamcast strongest market it doesn't even make sense. DC was strong (in US).after PS2 even released for a bit. Issue was bad Third party relations and not having games that appealed to buyers outside 2K sports.

 

Shame we can't get more information on the trade show issue, but on the flip side we already know that Sega had a bad relationship with camelot on the Saturn, and they expressed it in one of their games, so that would just be icing in the cake anyway.

[Lostdragon]

Wish I had kept the issue now, but some years back, Edge magazine did a really solid article on why the Dreamcast failed and how it wasn't until after it's commercial death a lot of people came to realize just what an amazing little machine it was. 

 

 

Nice range of industry people views and the line about the Dreamcast being the Milky Way of consoles, the snack console inbetween Playstation consoles, always stood out for me. 

[Lostdragon]

2 Atari sources, Ron Beltramo and Darryl Still making clear how far behind Jag CD titles were. 

 

We know from the internal Atari documents Argonaut were missing milestones with Creature Shock and what was being delivered was of poor quality, so Sam killed the title, nice of Jez San to claim in an interview Argonaut never did any Jaguar projects as Argonaut knew when not to take risks.. another industry bullshitter.. 

 

Judging by Ron's comments, it wasn't until new manufacturering methods and the Jag Duo boards, that Atari could of produced a CD-based Jaguar that could be sold even slightly cheaper than the Saturn or Playstation, but the Duo is more Clint Thompsons area of expertise, so i won't speculate any further.. 

 

 

Domark's Colin Boswell and VIE's Julian Rignall statements also highlight why a lack of being CD-based from the start, were the least of Atari's problems. 

 

 

 

Atari simply couldn't convince enough people that they could make the Jaguar a success, as everything post 2600 had fallen way short. 

 

Moving Defender 2000 from CD to cart... 

 

Loved the line about Dragon's Lair being another Heavy-lightwieght, grand-daddy of all CD games, even the ST had recieved a laser disc version of that, if you had the money. 

 

 

There's also U. F. G questioning the value of the VLM, asking if it was little more than a novelty... 

[Leeroy ST]

They probably would have had a bit better luck betting on the VR set than the CD addon.

 

13 hours ago, Lostdragon said:

simply couldn't convince enough people that they could make the Jaguar a success, as everything post 2600 had fallen way short.

I always laughed at the news press saying Atari had wowed investment in the Jaguar because they sold 20,000 units in a market run. Which was done to "impress" people.

 

13 hours ago, Lostdragon said:

We know from the internal Atari documents Argonaut were missing milestones with Creature Shock and what was being delivered was of poor quality, so Sam killed the title, nice of Jez San to claim in an interview Argonaut never did any Jaguar projects as Argonaut knew when not to take risks.. another industry bullshitter.. 

 

Speaking of, I dont know if you looked into this or not.

 

But what's the validity of the claim that Nintendo broke up with Argonaut without paying them, and taking their technology to create Mario 64? And that Croc was made with the same technology but was delayed a year because they didn't have a backer?

 

A lot of people were shocked at that story, but no one else from Argonaut at the time seems to have corroborated it.

Edited August 29, 2021 by Leeroy ST

[Lostdragon]

9 hours ago, Leeroy ST said:

They probably would have had a bit better luck betting on the VR set than the CD addon.

 

I always laughed at the news press saying Atari had wowed investment in the Jaguar because they sold 20,000 units in a market run. Which was done to "impress" people.

 

 

Speaking of, I dont know if you looked into this or not.

 

But what's the validity of the claim that Nintendo broke up with Argonaut without paying them, and taking their technology to create Mario 64? And that Croc was made with the same technology but was delayed a year because they didn't have a backer?

 

A lot of people were shocked at that story, but no one else from Argonaut at the time seems to have corroborated it.

From whom did the Nintendo and Argonaut breaking up and Croc being delayed etc claim come from? 

 

 

If it was Jez San, file it the drawer marked bullshit until confirmed by other Argonaut sources... 

 

 

Most of Jez Sans interviews over the years have been proven to be absolute fluff pieces. 

 

Michael Wong-Powell shot Jez down over claims SNES Vortex and the planned SNES Transformers game were 2 seperate titles in development, sounds better than Argonaut lost the Transformers license. 

 

 

Jez claimed to of got a much higher polygon performance out of the Dreamcast hardware than even Sega thought possible, but nobody ever saw said engine running and Jez turned on Sega after Red Dog bombed at retail after being pulled and reworked after initial mediocre reviews. 

 

 

Jez wants people to think he came up with the concept for Croc before Nintendo came up. With Mario 64.

 

 

Myself and others over the years found that if you wanted to know the real story behind Argonaut titles, you went to the teams who worked on them, you ignored Jez completely. 

 

 

As for Sam Tramiel and his Jaguar claims... 

 

 

Well the  Commodore UK boss was mocking him when Atari annouced the Jaguar, pointing out it wasn't a true 64 bit machine (it used 64 bit architecture) and there was no way Atari could bring the CD-Unit out at $100

 

 

Sam and Jack loved to use the press, but it so often backfired on them. 

 

[Pete5125]

12 hours ago, Leeroy ST said:

They probably would have had a bit better luck betting on the VR set than the CD addon.

 

I always laughed at the news press saying Atari had wowed investment in the Jaguar because they sold 20,000 units in a market run. Which was done to "impress" people.

 

 

Speaking of, I dont know if you looked into this or not.

 

But what's the validity of the claim that Nintendo broke up with Argonaut without paying them, and taking their technology to create Mario 64? And that Croc was made with the same technology but was delayed a year because they didn't have a backer?

 

A lot of people were shocked at that story, but no one else from Argonaut at the time seems to have corroborated it.

They sold out what they produce in a 2 or 3 state test mkt. This was relatively impressive, pre playstation/ Saturn most, new systems rolled out a test run to show demand then got production into high gear.

 

ATARI had a lot to prove to get back into consumers minds, the lynx helped, but 7800 killed their image as anything other than a budget machine, with dated games.

 

Atari had to convince retail that they should be carried when all evidence showed snes/genesis was a better way to spend their money to get return on investment.  Just seeing the sad, jaguar display on the end of a middle island In electronic boutique.

 

I always wondered why Atari didn't pay the bucks to get a merchandiser to give them a good sales presentation at the few stores they were in....but at that time I wasn't aware how bad their financials were either.

[Leeroy ST]

2 hours ago, Pete5125 said:

I always wondered why Atari didn't pay the bucks to get a merchandiser to give them a good sales presentation at the few stores they were in....but at that time I wasn't aware how bad their financials were either.

They did a good job in interviews and in the press coverage spinning their financial situations true status.

 

But it became too obvious for investors and some retailers about a year in. Maybe less.

 

2 hours ago, Pete5125 said:

They sold out what they produce in a 2 or 3 state test mkt. This was relatively impressive, pre playstation/ Saturn most, new systems rolled out a test run to show demand then got production into high gear.

But for "affordable" electronics 20k is low, especially for the distance covered.

[Leeroy ST]

5 hours ago, Lostdragon said:

From whom did the Nintendo and Argonaut breaking up and Croc being delayed etc claim come from? 

It was Jez San reported across multiple outlets. But it seems that it was only him and no one else seems to have confirmed it from Argonaut. Theres one reference to "the team" but no names.

 

5 hours ago, Lostdragon said:

Jez wants people to think he came up with the concept for Croc before Nintendo came up. With Mario 64.

There's another part of the story where they showed a 3D Yoshi prototype to Nintendo which they used for designing Mario 64.

 

But the story surrounding that contradicts the stolen tech and Croc claims. 

 

If Nintendo rejected the Yoshi game but planned to use the tech for another idea, and it was BEFORE they split up, then theres no way Nintendo stole the technology. They were just going to use the tech for something else.

 

So Croc, maybe the year delay thing was true since they no longer had Nintendo's backing and eventually went to Fox iirc. But Croc influencing or Mario 64 stealing ideas from Croc doesn't make sense.

 

They would have had to show a demo to Nintendo of Croc BEFORE they split up, for them to know about Croc in order to steal ideas. 

 

The most you can say is Argonaut shows Nintendo Yoshi and they accepted the tech but not the game. No Croc involved, no stealing technology.

 

The only thing about Croc that may be so, is that it was made with the same tech from the Yoshi prototype, and the year delay maybe 

 

[Lostdragon]

1 hour ago, Leeroy ST said:

It was Jez San reported across multiple outlets. But it seems that it was only him and no one else seems to have confirmed it from Argonaut. Theres one reference to "the team" but no names.

 

There's another part of the story where they showed a 3D Yoshi prototype to Nintendo which they used for designing Mario 64.

 

But the story surrounding that contradicts the stolen tech and Croc claims. 

 

If Nintendo rejected the Yoshi game but planned to use the tech for another idea, and it was BEFORE they split up, then theres no way Nintendo stole the technology. They were just going to use the tech for something else.

 

So Croc, maybe the year delay thing was true since they no longer had Nintendo's backing and eventually went to Fox iirc. But Croc influencing or Mario 64 stealing ideas from Croc doesn't make sense.

 

They would have had to show a demo to Nintendo of Croc BEFORE they split up, for them to know about Croc in order to steal ideas. 

 

The most you can say is Argonaut shows Nintendo Yoshi and they accepted the tech but not the game. No Croc involved, no stealing technology.

 

The only thing about Croc that may be so, is that it was made with the same tech from the Yoshi prototype, and the year delay maybe 

 

Personally, I wouldn't put any faith in anything Jez says. 

 

He's never repeated the reverse engineering the SNES, doing a souped up version of Battlezone to try and get into 3D on the SNES, story outside of one interview with the Nintendo press, now it's the NES GLIDER story leading to the SFX chip development. 

 

 

Mev Dinc might even of beat Jez to the punch even if Jez's claim is true about him and Nintendo. 

 

 

Mev:Mev: Well, I really cannot remember the exact dates as to when Mario 64 and Croc came out but it must be after 1994-95.
We started the development of our super ambitious, all singing, all dancing 3D Hodja in 1994, at the same we started our excellent Street Racer. This should be a valid claim unless Croc came out in 1994-95!

Jez was a great developer and did some clever 3D stuff so I wouldn’t mind loosing out to him, he’s also a good friend. :))

Great days.

 

And Mev is far more humble than Jez turned out to be. 

 

Jez seemed to take the failure of widespread adoption of the SFX chip very badly, started turning of Sega, then Sony at the time and now Nintendo it seems. 

 

I've never heard any of the ST Starglider II team back up Jez's claim he originally put sampled sound in, but it killed the frame rate. 

 

I've just seen enough of Jez's claims shot down by recovered documentation, his own people and his own interviews. 

 

He's an unreliable source in my eyes. 

[Leeroy ST]

9 hours ago, Lostdragon said:

Mev Dinc might even of beat Jez to the punch even if Jez's claim is true about him and Nintendo. 

 

 

Mev:Mev: Well, I really cannot remember the exact dates as to when Mario 64 and Croc came out but it must be after 1994-95.
We started the development of our super ambitious, all singing, all dancing 3D Hodja in 1994, at the same we started our excellent Street Racer. This should be a valid claim unless Croc came out in 1994-95!

 

What question was Mev answering in this interview?

[Lostdragon]

6 hours ago, Leeroy ST said:

What question was Mev answering in this interview?

Who came up with the very first 3D Platformer. 

 

Jez likes to say he and Argonaut were working on Croc before Nintendo were designing Mario64, but he conviently ignores the fact Mev Dinc and his team might well of been working on such a title earlier still. 

 

Jez liked to be seen on the cutting edge of gaming. 

 

There was also the briefvspat between him and D. I. D at the time, over who had the most advanced polygon 3D Engine running on PC... 

[IntelliMission]

Alpha Waves (1990) was the first 3D platformer. Even for 32 bit consoles, Jumping Flash was released in 1995.

 

So sorry Mario, and sorry Croc (good game with good music that I recommend, a "Tomb Raider for kids").

[Leeroy ST]

49 minutes ago, IntelliMission said:

Alpha Waves (1990) was the first 3D platformer. Even for 32 bit consoles, Jumping Flash was released in 1995.

 

So sorry Mario, and sorry Croc (good game with good music that I recommend, a "Tomb Raider for kids").

Dark Wood on Acorn (1995) as well.

 

And there were like 5 other games that launched the same year as Mario 64 even ignoring that. The Croc thing just seems strange. 

 

7 hours ago, Lostdragon said:

Jez likes to say he and Argonaut were working on Croc before Nintendo were designing Mario64, but he conviently ignores the fact Mev Dinc and his team might well of been working on such a title earlier still. 

But that would imply Croc started production in 94 or close. Why wouldn't they have shown Nintendo that instead of, or in addition to the Yoshi prototype?

 

His interviews aren't consistent either:

 

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-07-04-born-slippy-the-making-of-star-fox

 

""The end came when we pitched to do a 3D platform game, the likes of which had never been done before. We mocked up a prototype using Yoshi. It was essentially the world's first 3D platform game and was obviously a big risk - Nintendo had never let an outside company use their characters before, and weren't about to, either. This is the moment the deal fell apart. We later made that game into Croc: Legend of the Gobbos for the PlayStation, Saturn and PC, which became our biggest ever game in terms of sales and also in royalties, since we owned the IP."

The similarity between Croc and Super Mario 64 isn't lost on San, who feels that the early prototype had some influence on the seminal N64 title. "Miyamoto-san went on to make Mario 64, which had the look and feel of our Yoshi game - but with the Mario character, of course - and beat Croc to market by around a year," San says. "Miyamoto-san came up to me at a show afterwards and apologised for not doing the Yoshi game with us and thanked us for the idea to do a 3D platform game. He also said that we would make enough royalties from our existing deal to make up for it. That felt hollow to me, as I'm of the opinion that Nintendo ended our agreement without fully realising it."

 

Less aggressive accusing of them stealing in this interview.

 

Again, if using Mario ip was the issue for the canned Yoshi game, why not show them a Croc demo which would not be a Nintendo ip? If Croc was started in 94 or not far from it? 

 

Also apparently they got Miyamoto to apologize. At "a" show, because they did not do the Yoshi game. So he was aware of that but not aware the partnership ended? Same for the guys with him??

 

Also if you've played both(M64 and croc), or even just seen both games, they feel or look nothing like each other.

[Lostdragon]

It's always the conflicting claims that trip the likes of Jane Whittaker, Martin Hooley, Jez San etc up. 

 

What I like about this one with Bob Gleadow, put it up in Panther thread as it does briefly mention the ST Console, is Bob wasn't afraid to challenge the claim HE was the one that had claimed the STE was going to be an Amiga Beater, that was a claim one of the Tramiel family had made. 

 

Bob's views often differed from the Tramiel family stance, here he isn't in favour of CD technology for the ST, but he was never one to shy away from clearing up confusion and explaining exactly what he meant. 

 

Where as the names mentioned above, would simply reinvent the wheel come future interviews, to suit. 

 

[Lostdragon]

2 hours ago, IntelliMission said:

Alpha Waves (1990) was the first 3D platformer. Even for 32 bit consoles, Jumping Flash was released in 1995.

 

So sorry Mario, and sorry Croc (good game with good music that I recommend, a "Tomb Raider for kids").

This is the most common account by Jez of how the SFX chip started life:

 

 

According to Argonaut Games founder Jez San, Argonaut had initially intended to develop the Super FX chip for the Nintendo Entertainment System. The team programmed an NES version of the first-person combat flight simulator Starglider, which Argonaut had developed for PC systems a few years earlier, and showed it to Nintendo in 1990. The prototype impressed the company, but they suggested that they develop games for the then-unreleased Super Famicom due to the NES's hardware becoming outdated in light of newer systems such as the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive and the TurboGrafx-16/PC Engine. Shortly after the 1990 Consumer Electronics Show held in Chicago, Illinois, Argonaut ported the NES version of Starglider to the Super Famicom, a process which took roughly one week according to San

 

Jez then tells Nintendo:

 

 

This is as good as it’s going to get unless you let us design some hardware to make the SNES better at 3D.”

 

 

 

The NES version of Starglider is absent from this interview, instead Jez implies he blagged a prototype SNES, converted Battlezone to it..

 

This either impressed Nintendo or left them non-plussed... 

 

There's no talk of Jez initially looking at the SNES DSP, it's straight into developing the SFX chip... 

 

The accounts by Jez are as bad as the ones by Martin Hooley and Jason Kin, none of them say their memory is a little hazy on details, but the basics were.. 

 

There's always enough deviation to leave you questioning exactly what went down. 

 

[Leeroy ST]

But if Nintendo stole their tech for Croc to make Mario 64...

 

Can we accuse Jez of stealing Nintendo's ideas for their close to M64 clone sequel Croc 2?

 

3 hours ago, Lostdragon said:

Is Bob wasn't afraid to challenge the claim HE was the one that had claimed the STE was going to be an Amiga Beater, that was a claim one of the Tramiel family had made. 

But how did that accusation start? Did the Tramiels drag him down?

[Lostdragon]

13 hours ago, Leeroy ST said:

But if Nintendo stole their tech for Croc to make Mario 64...

 

Can we accuse Jez of stealing Nintendo's ideas for their close to M64 clone sequel Croc 2?

 

But how did that accusation start? Did the Tramiels drag him down?

The industry likes to say they were inspired by concepts, art, technology, gameplay mechanics, music etc, rather than they simply copied them.. 

 

 

The accusation laid at the feet of Bob Gleadow appeared to start in the UK press after Sam Tramiel pulled off yet another of his infamous little headline grabbing Press calls. 

 

Letting the Press know Atari were working on new ST hardware and of course it'd not only match the Amiga, but it would beat it in key areas. 

 

Seem to remember Sam lied about the actual number of sound channels and number of colours it would be able to display on screen. 

 

 

Atari UK had never really made a lot of fuss about the machine, quietly showing it to development houses and when ST Format ran a feature on it and people like Wayne Smithson, Steve Bak and yes, Jez San, weren't exactly taken with it, Bob was left holding the baby as it were. 

[+madman]

13 hours ago, Leeroy ST said:

But if Nintendo stole their tech for Croc to make Mario 64...

 

Can we accuse Jez of stealing Nintendo's ideas for their close to M64 clone sequel Croc 2?

Absolutely, head over to the classic consoles section and start a thread titled "Was stealing Nintendo's ideas the biggest mistake Jez made with Croc 2?" 

[Leeroy ST]

3 hours ago, Lostdragon said:

The accusation laid at the feet of Bob Gleadow appeared to start in the UK press after Sam Tramiel pulled off yet another of his infamous little headline grabbing Press calls. 

 

Letting the Press know Atari were working on new ST hardware and of course it'd not only match the Amiga, but it would beat it in key areas. 

 

Seem to remember Sam lied about the actual number of sound channels and number of colours it would be able to display on screen. 

You'd think after his dad, Sam would realize the "get press's attention by any means necessary" strategy can backfire and become an issue long term.

 

They got away with it longer in the UK but in the US Atari was grilled after the earlier success. Even the musician demographic was capped. Over time it kept backfiring until the ST and family became extremely irrelevant outside enthusiast circles, with bad sales.

 

Amiga at least had the media and games niche but that wasn't so hot later on either. Iirc early on in the US, Atari was initially winning, so they blew that chance permanently.

 

[Stu11]

On 8/30/2021 at 10:48 AM, Lostdragon said:

Personally, I wouldn't put any faith in anything Jez says. 

 

He's never repeated the reverse engineering the SNES, doing a souped up version of Battlezone to try and get into 3D on the SNES, story outside of one interview with the Nintendo press, now it's the NES GLIDER story leading to the SFX chip development. 

 

 

Mev Dinc might even of beat Jez to the punch even if Jez's claim is true about him and Nintendo. 

 

 

Mev:Mev: Well, I really cannot remember the exact dates as to when Mario 64 and Croc came out but it must be after 1994-95.
We started the development of our super ambitious, all singing, all dancing 3D Hodja in 1994, at the same we started our excellent Street Racer. This should be a valid claim unless Croc came out in 1994-95!

Jez was a great developer and did some clever 3D stuff so I wouldn’t mind loosing out to him, he’s also a good friend. :))

Great days.

 

And Mev is far more humble than Jez turned out to be. 

 

Jez seemed to take the failure of widespread adoption of the SFX chip very badly, started turning of Sega, then Sony at the time and now Nintendo it seems. 

 

I've never heard any of the ST Starglider II team back up Jez's claim he originally put sampled sound in, but it killed the frame rate. 

 

I've just seen enough of Jez's claims shot down by recovered documentation, his own people and his own interviews. 

 

He's an unreliable source in my eyes. 

The latest claims I've heard coming from Jez San is that Argonaut were developing a rival graphics chip for the PS2, supposedly they were working for LSI Logic. 

 

Quote: " 

"We were working for LSI Logic at the time," Argonaut founder Jez San tells us. "They had just invested in Argonaut and part of the deal was they wanted us to design something for them. LSI were the fabricators of the original PlayStation 1 chip for Sony, and so were well placed to bid for the PlayStation 2 rendering chip, and wanted to compete along with several other designers. They used us to design it for them. LSI told us how Sony wanted it – they told us how many millions of polygons per second it had to do, and so we designed a chip that did that, and it was damn good." So good, in fact, that the chip's internal codename reflected its potency.

"It was something rude," remembers San. "It was either called Tadger or Todger, but it was something like that. It was probably called Tadger, because it was the dog’s bollocks. It was the fastest chip that we knew that anyone had ever designed. It would beat anything else that we were aware of."
Here

 

Sounds like it could be more bullshit..lol

 

[Lostdragon]

5 hours ago, Stu11 said:

The latest claims I've heard coming from Jez San is that Argonaut were developing a rival graphics chip for the PS2, supposedly they were working for LSI Logic. 

 

Quote: " 

"We were working for LSI Logic at the time," Argonaut founder Jez San tells us. "They had just invested in Argonaut and part of the deal was they wanted us to design something for them. LSI were the fabricators of the original PlayStation 1 chip for Sony, and so were well placed to bid for the PlayStation 2 rendering chip, and wanted to compete along with several other designers. They used us to design it for them. LSI told us how Sony wanted it – they told us how many millions of polygons per second it had to do, and so we designed a chip that did that, and it was damn good." So good, in fact, that the chip's internal codename reflected its potency.

"It was something rude," remembers San. "It was either called Tadger or Todger, but it was something like that. It was probably called Tadger, because it was the dog’s bollocks. It was the fastest chip that we knew that anyone had ever designed. It would beat anything else that we were aware of."
Here

 

Sounds like it could be more bullshit..lol

 

I have vague memories of Jez making a claim in an interview years ago about how he was working on an advanced 3D chipset, for a 'Major Player', but he couldn't say anymore... 

 

 

It was speculated then it was for a potential CD-I II Machine, i put the suggestion to Martin Piper at the time and asked if he knew of Argonaut working on any new 3D chipsets for Next Generation consoles, his reply:

 

"We were involved in early MMX stuff with Intel and using that to accelerate software 3D routines." 

 

 

That's all he was aware of. 

With all the talk of Croc, it's often forgotten Malice started life on the original Playstation... 

JEZ: 'Malice originally started over two years ago on an earlier--much less powerful--platform...when we heard about the Xbox specs, we decided it was worth the switch, and we started early in 2000 completely from scratch with a new engine. But we retained the creative concepts and gameplay ideas that we had invented so far, without being bogged down by what the previous hardware was able, and unable, to do. We did keep a small amount of legacy gameplay code that we had come up with. We've worked for many years on character-based game engines, starting with the Croc engine. So, with the Malice engine, we tried hard to retain the upward compatibility of the original gameplay concepts that we had developed so far but built this into completely a new rendering engine with new music, collisions, and such.

 

 

 

 From Playstation Museum :

 

The bottom line is Malice PS1 combines the action of Croc 2 with the exploration and depth of a Mario 64 and is presented with a sense of unique style and graphic beauty and detail that would have become the new technological standard for the PlayStation.

Although Malice was released for the PS2 in 2004, the PS1 version differs greatly in storyline, graphics, design, and gameplay. Any of the former Malice designers will tell you that Malice PS2 was only a shell of its original design. Unfortunately many of the designs that made this PS1 version so enjoyable were removed in the PS2 version

 

Malice ultimately proved to be the death of Argonaut  It switched publishers to Vivendi Universal Games,who then canned it in 2003..this at the same time Argonaut cancelled their other Xbox title, Orchard.. 

 

 

 

Malice was eventually published by Mud Duck in North America and Evolved Games in Europe to Medicore reviews on both Playstation 2 and Xbox, 2 months later, Argonaut called in the receivers.

 

 

 

But the hype for the game was immense from Jez, it was going to be a flagship Xbox title, picked due to their custom Shadow Caster Engine, then turned into a cross-platform title, with the Playstation 2 version offering more content to compensate for the lack of graphical finesse.. 

 

 

I mean here's a quote from them about why Playstation 2 and Xbox owners should buy it:

 

 

'This product has to be one of the most brilliantly created, visually superb, addictive, aurally inspiring games produced to date. It has been created to be a next-generation product that can work only on the new hardware that is available today. Each person who plays this game will be instantly drawn into the world and will go back to it time and time again to see all of the bits and extras that they've missed.

Make sure you have a Kleenex box nearby when you play it (for when your mouth dribbles of course!).'

 

 

How it fared at review :

 

 

For a game that's been in development for such a long time (over four years), that was hyped as being something original and "the next big thing," I would have expected Argonaut's Malice to have taken some chances, done something innovative. But no, after spending five hours with the big M (that's all it takes to beat the game!), I can assure you, the only chance Argonaut took with this game was putting its reputation on the line. Malice is, from top to bottom, about as standard and, unfortunately, boring a platformer as you can find. None of it is bad, but sadly, nothing about Malice is fun, interesting, exciting, new, or worth your thirty bucks.

 

 

is a shame that a game that we all had such high hopes for will be remembered more for its delays than the actual game itself. The very basic gameplay is further dumbed-down by the imbecilic computer AI to make for a game that even novices can breeze through in one night (and we don’t mean a long one either). There are a few nice looking levels, but for the most part this is proof that next-gen hardware demos should be taken with a grain of salt. Let’s just thank God that we got Halo as a launch title and not Malice.

 

This is a prime example of a game that I wanted to be good but was simply so bad that I couldn't stand it; it was certainly a waste considering all that Malice went through in order to finally get published. This game should be buried in the desert, along with the ET games that hurt the Atari so badly. And, Argonaut, please don't make a sequel unless you're willing to direct appropriate time, care, and attention toward it. I don't think I need to plead here, though, I'm sure Malice's sales figures will speak for themselves.

 

 

 

I swear it's examples of things like Red Dog Dreamcast, Birds Of Prey Amiga and Malice, being utterly savaged at review, that have seen Jez act in a similar manner to Jane whittaker, total distortion of what actually happened, just create a history where Argonaut were always played a foul hand and had opportunity cruelly snatched away from them. 

[Leeroy ST]

1 hour ago, Lostdragon said:

Malice was eventually published by Mud Duck in North America and Evolved Games in Europe to Medicore reviews on both Playstation 2 and Xbox, 2 months later, Argonaut called in the receivers.

 

 

 

But the hype for the game was immense from Jez, it was going to be a flagship Xbox title, picked due to their custom Shadow Caster Engine, then turned into a cross-platform title, with the Playstation 2 version offering more content to compensate for the lack of graphical finesse.. 

 

 

I mean here's a quote from them about why Playstation 2 and Xbox owners should buy it:

 

 

'This product has to be one of the most brilliantly created, visually superb, addictive, aurally inspiring games produced to date. It has been created to be a next-generation product that can work only on the new hardware that is available today. Each person who plays this game will be instantly drawn into the world and will go back to it time and time again to see all of the bits and extras that they've missed.

Make sure you have a Kleenex box nearby when you play it (for when your mouth dribbles of course!).'

 

 

How it fared at review :

 

 

For a game that's been in development for such a long time (over four years), that was hyped as being something original and "the next big thing," I would have expected Argonaut's Malice to have taken some chances, done something innovative. But no, after spending five hours with the big M (that's all it takes to beat the game!), I can assure you, the only chance Argonaut took with this game was putting its reputation on the line. Malice is, from top to bottom, about as standard and, unfortunately, boring a platformer as you can find. None of it is bad, but sadly, nothing about Malice is fun, interesting, exciting, new, or worth your thirty bucks.

 

 

is a shame that a game that we all had such high hopes for will be remembered more for its delays than the actual game itself. The very basic gameplay is further dumbed-down by the imbecilic computer AI to make for a game that even novices can breeze through in one night (and we don’t mean a long one either). There are a few nice looking levels, but for the most part this is proof that next-gen hardware demos should be taken with a grain of salt. Let’s just thank God that we got Halo as a launch title and not Malice.

 

This is a prime example of a game that I wanted to be good but was simply so bad that I couldn't stand it; it was certainly a waste considering all that Malice went through in order to finally get published. This game should be buried in the desert, along with the ET games that hurt the Atari so badly. And, Argonaut, please don't make a sequel unless you're willing to direct appropriate time, care, and attention toward it. I don't think I need to plead here, though, I'm sure Malice's sales figures will speak for themselves.

 

 

 

I swear it's examples of things like Red Dog Dreamcast, Birds Of Prey Amiga and Malice, being utterly savaged at review, that have seen Jez act in a similar manner to Jane whittaker, total distortion of what actually happened, just create a history where Argonaut were always played a foul hand and had opportunity cruelly snatched away from them. 

 

I had a massive Xbox collection around that time and hadn't heard of the game until a couple years later online. Neither did others I knew.

 

The Malice overhyping Jez was doing clearly had limited reach and interest.

 

It reminds me of the hype and confidence of games like Ride to hell. Where the spin masters were ready to PR damage control and assure you it's the next big thing after multiple delays.

 

 

 

This also makes me wonder who owned Croc. Croc was their (Argonauts) biggest success. If they owned Croc and not Fox, Croc 2 must have been a major flop. You'd think Jez would have tried salvaging that franchise instead of attempting multiple failed experiments 

[Lostdragon]

It's the 100+ employees that went down with Argonaut i felt sorry for, not Jez San. 

 

You don't see the press clambering to interview them. 

[pacman000]

Reading interviews with Satoshi Tajiri & other Game Freak employees, the story of Pokémon's origin seems to change from interview-to-interview & from person to person. Was it a clone of Dragon Quest, with the ability to exchange items? Was it inspired by Ultra Seven? Bug Catching? The Gameboy's link cable? Are they contradicting themselves? No; each story compliments the other, letting us see bits & pieces of a long, difficult development. I'd take most interviews with developers the same way.

 

On Starfox, it makes sense that Argonaut would start development on the NES as a port of Starglider; Starglider came out in 1986, so it was the right time. Bringing it to the SNES makes sense, since it was near the end of the NES' life, & Jez San developing some sort of Battlezone-type game for the SNEs makes sense, since he'd need to learn the hardware. If I were to try to synthesize a story from these, I'd guess development went something like this:

 

Starglider, ported to the NES.

Nintendo says the NES is nearing it's end of life.

Argonaut gets a SNES development system, develops demos, including a Battlezone clone, to see what they can do & to get used to the new system.

Starglider is ported to the SNES, relatively quickly.

Nintendo asks for a better version; Argonaut asks to develop a 3D-chip.

The FX chip is developed; Starglider is re-worked into Starfox.

 

Of course, this could change if I got more info from other interviews. Someone should sit down with Jez & get him to lay things out, from the beginning to the end. Maybe interview other Argonaut employees, to add even more data, & to create a more complete story. Perhaps with a timeline?