Who bought their Jaguar on launch in 1993?

[Boris K.]

For a research project about the Jaguar's history I am looking for people who actually bought their Atari Jaguar in 1993 on launch. Would you mind sharing your story of why you bought it back then and where you got it here? That would be awesome.

[Goochman]

I bought it due to being an Atari fan and hoped it would start a new direction for the company.  I bought it at Toys r Us about a month after it was released.

[+MacRorie]

I pre-ordered mine direct from Atari (with a money order direct to the VP of Marketing who was living near to me at the time, Don Thomas.  However, I did not receive it until THREE WEEKS AFTER launch because Atari management took all of Don's units and shipped them to retail stores.  I literally could have bought one at the store earlier than getting it from Atari.  Typical Atari, though.

 

-M

 

[Leeroy ST]

Most people wouldn't have gotten one until the full retail launch in 94.

 

But a friend of mine was in some club or something so he got his early though holiday 93. But it took I believe 9 months before stores within ~10 miles actually stocked other games for him to buy, with only 3-4 choices, which didn't get better until early 95, which is when I got mine at a small store clearly trying to get rid of stock at $129 with a free game.

 

There were signs for Jag games in 93 and 94 but they never came, and we saw people trying to return it or trade in toward a 3DO or pre order for something else 

 

Edited September 7, 2021 by Leeroy ST

[digdugnate]

I got mine Christmas of 1994 from my folks.  I had Pitfall and Iron Soldier for it, but there weren't a lot of games available it seemed like where I lived.

 

I ended up trading it in for a Sega Saturn later down the road.

[hwrd]

I pre-ordered mine will in advance from some mail order company, but received it in early '94.

Made sense, I figured, as the initial launch was limited geographically.

 

I just had Cybermorph, and although it was fine, I was not super enthused until Tempest 2000 arrived a few months later.

[+littaum]

I recall ordering mine via mail order from Atari (dealing directly with Don Thomas as well, who I remember did great customer service!) ... and my first console shortly failed thereafter (red screen of death - I had to search usenet rec.games.video.atari to remember when this happened and it was January of 1994 when I posted about it).  But they were able to replace it with a working unit which I still have.  I did play a lot of Tempest 2000, which still holds up very well to this day.

 

As to why I bought it, it was because I was a super Atari fan, heavily into buying cheap 2600 and 7800 titles at the time in the Big Lots/flea market scene and was convinced Atari was going to make a major comeback into the video game market with their ultra powerful 64 bit video game console (that's like .. 4 times the bits of the SNES/Genesis) and I wanted to get in on the ground floor.   I even purchased stock in Atari, which actually netted me a small profit right before they reverse merged with JTS and did a final nose dive.

 

[Boris K.]

Thanks again to everybody who shared their memories here!

[Major Havoc 2049]

I bought mine in December of 1993 at Electronics Boutique.  I was a ST and Lynx owner at the time and after the summer reveal articles in EGM and Video Games magazines and the October issue of Diehard Gamefan, I was hyped for the Jag.  With all the developers Atari announced for the Jag, it seemed like they were finally going to get their act together. 

 

I signed up in a pre-order notebook that my local EB used to have and got a call in December that they got three systems in.  I went down and picked my system up.  It was the last one and the manager got it out of the window display.  I wanted another game and controller, but the manager said they only got three systems and nothing else. He said other people were asking to buy the Jaguar in the window, but it was already reserved.  I went to the Babbages in the same mall and they actually had some controllers, AV cables and several copies each of Raiden and Trevor McFur. I bought some AV cables and a copy of Raiden.  The clerk said their store only got one Jaguar system, along with the small amount of accessories and games.  The clerk said that a steady amount of people were asking to buy the Jaguar because of the Diehard Gamefan cover story, but they just couldn't get any in to meet demand.  Basically then, I knew it was going to be the Falcon launch all over again, except maybe on a slightly larger scale.  Build a nice product, get some hype from the press and they blow it all by not meeting the initial hype demand and properly marketing the product. 

[James Vontor]

I had Jaguar and lots of promised games were coming. But no games were out when I brought it I got it waiting and waiting.

 

One year later I have Jaguar and no games. One game come out finally it is some cartoon game with some armless guy right out of the Mega Drive. I thought this was supposed to be 3D system, so I go to the local game shop trade in for 32X and 3 games including Virtua Fighter, Mortal Kombat 2, and Primal Rage fighters bundle. 

 

Only a couple years later I get Jaguar again and games on clearance rack, I find out there were some nice games and 3D games I missed but honestly I would still prefer 32X ended up with 20 games for it in the end, It also sold more than Jaguar by two times if I remember.