What Made the Tramiels Feel the Jag Could Succeed / What Sold Them?

[Jag64]

The Atari Jaguar is known for a few things. There's the infamous cave commercial with the Laaaaady in Redddddd. There's the "Do the Math" campaign that has a chalkboard and Jag slogan permanently logged in most of our memories. And to this day, you can read about the console's "potential." In fact, there are several active (somewhat insane and redundant) threads about the hardware's possible capabilities continuing on this very site right now.

 

The thing I don't understand is, what exactly sold the Tramiels on the Jaguar in the first place? Atari was working to the last minute to shove out a couple ports and their unfinished originals. But with hardware, there are usual demos that make someone go, "Holy fck! I want that." And quite often, you'll see a few early games on a platform that are borderline just a "game" that's little more than a UI/menu system so players can get to a fleshed out version of whatever that original tech demo was.

 

Then developers, as many of the hobbyists here do, build off, fork, and create new things off the foundations of those original demos that "wowed." But what did the guys at Flare II (Atari's version of Flare Tech) show Jack that made him think, "This is going to sell," because it wasn't just stats right? There has to be some "holy sht" graphics demo out there that made an established businessman like Jack Tramiel willing to bet everything on the console, right?

 

I know Leonard said they didn't understand software (under-fcking-statement of the millennium), but there had to be something that made them think it could succeed. Is there a "wowzas" demo out there?

Edited May 6, 2022 by Jag64

[agradeneu]

 

Cybermorph! 

 

But seriously, AvP was a pretty impressive game visually. (Magazine screenshots made me drool 1994) The Tramiels allowed the devs going from 2MB to 4MB space and even raised the budget.

[Goochman]

Im prob wrong but I thought going back to games was something Sam wanted to pursue - maybe to make his mark.  The Panther was supposed to be first but we know that story.

 

When Sam had his heart attack thats when Jack came back in and pretty much shut things down.

[Jag64]

AvP is definitely a "showcase title," and looks good. But that was of course made by Rebellion and commissioned after the Jaguar was already designed by F2 for Atari, right?

[zzip]

53 minutes ago, Jag64 said:

The Atari Jaguar is known for a few things. There's the infamous cave commercial with the Laaaaady in Redddddd. There's the "Do the Math" campaign that has a chalkboard and Jag slogan permanently logged in most of our memories. And to this day, you can read about the console's "potential." In fact, there are several active (somewhat insane and redundant) threads about the hardware's possible capabilities continuing on this very site right now.

 

The thing I don't understand is, what exactly sold the Tramiels on the Jaguar in the first place? Atari was working to the last minute to shove out a couple ports and their unfinished originals. But with hardware, there are usual demos that make someone go, "Holy fck! I want that." And quite often, you'll see a few early games on a platform that are borderline just a "game" that's little more than a UI/menu system so players can get to a fleshed out version of whatever that original tech demo was.

 

Then developers, as many of the hobbyists here do, build off, fork, and create new things off the foundations of those original demos that "wowed." But what did the guys at Flare II (Atari's version of Flare Tech) show Jack that made him think, "This is going to sell," because it wasn't just stats right? There has to be some "holy sht" graphics demo out there that made an established businessman like Jack Tramiel willing to bet everything on the console, right?

 

I know Leonard said they didn't understand software (under-fcking-statement of the millennium), but there had to be something that made them think it could succeed. Is there a "wowzas" demo out there?

First their computer line hit a dead end,  PC was ahead in every way, proprietary home computers were dead (except maybe Mac)  Atari couldn't even claim "Power Without The Price" anymore,  you could get a much better spec'd PC for the price of a Falcon

 

Proprietary consoles were still thriving so they put everything behind that.  At least they had finally invested in a modern console with Jaguar (and Panther).   But R&D at Atari Corp post ST was always slower than it needed to be.  Jaguar tech would haven been better if it had gotten a bigger head start on Saturn and PS1.

 

Then you had Jack who believed that all you had to do is sell something cheap and it would sell tons.

 

The other problem is they needed to get serious about video game consoles by the mid 80s.  They didn't- they kept selling consoles based on old tech with old gaming IPs for years.   That allowed Nintendo and Sega to gain a massive lead.   So by the time of Jaguar, Atari couldn't compete with Nintendo's marketing budget

[agradeneu]

By the specs, the believed they had a superior hardware that would be king of the hill for the next 10 years. Atari was about hardware. 

 

BTW Jaguar was not exactly cheap - it cost 599 DM in Germany which was 2x the price of the SNES. 

[Lostdragon]

1 hour ago, Jag64 said:

AvP is definitely a "showcase title," and looks good. But that was of course made by Rebellion and commissioned after the Jaguar was already designed by F2 for Atari, right?

Joint Atari and Rebellion project. 

 

Atari team in USA headed up by Purple Hampton. 

 

Rebellion team in UK by Kingsley Brothers. 

 

 

That's why you see both Jason Kingsley and Purple claiming they came up with the concept of the 3 separate species campaigns. 

 

 

Rebellion supposedly delivered the basic engine, (with Jane Whittaker and Mike Beaton flying to the states to help finish development from Rebellion) but there wasn't much of a game in there, it's been suggested Rebellion wanted to move onto other projects at this stage..

 

 

Purple and  team fleshed the game out, went and had budget and cartridge size increased etc. 

 

 

It's a tricky one to really know what went on, as only McNamee, Whittaker, Hampton and Kingsley Brothers have really spoken about the games development. 

 

And 50% of them are anything but reliable sources (Whittaker and Kingsley). 

[Lostdragon]

1 hour ago, zzip said:

First their computer line hit a dead end,  PC was ahead in every way, proprietary home computers were dead (except maybe Mac)  Atari couldn't even claim "Power Without The Price" anymore,  you could get a much better spec'd PC for the price of a Falcon

 

Proprietary consoles were still thriving so they put everything behind that.  At least they had finally invested in a modern console with Jaguar (and Panther).   But R&D at Atari Corp post ST was always slower than it needed to be.  Jaguar tech would haven been better if it had gotten a bigger head start on Saturn and PS1.

 

Then you had Jack who believed that all you had to do is sell something cheap and it would sell tons.

 

The other problem is they needed to get serious about video game consoles by the mid 80s.  They didn't- they kept selling consoles based on old tech with old gaming IPs for years.   That allowed Nintendo and Sega to gain a massive lead.   So by the time of Jaguar, Atari couldn't compete with Nintendo's marketing budget

Exactly. 

 

They'd been trying to get into the lucrative console market occupied by the SNES and MD ever since work began on the Panther and they took the Handy hardware on, Sam believing it was going to be the device to destroy the GB and Nintendo, not with the Tramiel's and their limited understanding and resources behind it. 

 

Even going back as far as the aborted 7800 launch, Atari UK opting instead for the XEGS, when it finally did limp out here in the UK, the Tramiel's just assumed it and it's software being cheaper than the NES and MS would be enough. 

 

 

Absolute pipe dream and that's why the system had so little impact over here. 

[zzip]

2 minutes ago, Lostdragon said:

Sam believing it was going to be the device to destroy the GB and Nintendo, not with the Tramiel's and their limited understanding and resources behind it. 

And Lynx was the one Atari gaming device the Tramiels had that clearly blew away the competition on capabilities.   But it showed that Nintendo already had vastly more marketing muscle than Atari.   Remember, Nintendo feared Atari before the Tramiels took over.   

[Lostdragon]

1 minute ago, zzip said:

And Lynx was the one Atari gaming device the Tramiels had that clearly blew away the competition on capabilities.   But it showed that Nintendo already had vastly more marketing muscle than Atari.   Remember, Nintendo feared Atari before the Tramiels took over.   

Absolutely. 

 

Whilst i can appreciate the price of the LCD screens was out of their hands and thus they couldn't really price the machine any lower, Nintendo held all the aces with the marketing and developer support sides of things. 

 

 

The marketing of the device here in the UK was a masterstroke, it became the must have machine and they were doing the whole cool factor in magazine adverts, long before Sony did it with the PlayStation. 

[Jag64]

1 hour ago, agradeneu said:

By the specs, the believed they had a superior hardware that would be king of the hill for the next 10 years. Atari was about hardware. 

 

BTW Jaguar was not exactly cheap - it cost 599 DM in Germany which was 2x the price of the SNES. 

Thanks for being the closest to answering the question asked. I ended up with a page of "What Went Wrong At Atari" again. FFS, we know. We all know Atari is a dumpster fire. Reading comprehension is a btch.

 

But seriously, thanks @agradeneu for basically saying there wasn't any eye-catching, jaw-dropping demo, perse, but the specs were enough to make an old man whose focus was always on specs think it was good enough. This is in the ballpark of my question.

 

7 minutes ago, zzip said:

Remember, Nintendo feared Atari before the Tramiels took over.   

So, Nintendo feared Atari before the video game crash .... when Atari was #1 and Nintendo was selling watches in the US? I mean, I'd think so.

Edited May 6, 2022 by Jag64

[zzip]

15 minutes ago, Jag64 said:

So, Nintendo feared Atari before the video game crash .... when Atari was #1 and Nintendo was selling watches in the US? I mean, I'd think so.

This is more important than the spec side.  You don't have to have the best spec'd machine,  there are plenty of examples of where the worst spec'd machine dominates the generation.   You need the best games, the best marketing organization and a system that doesn't break the bank.   Atari had these advantages before the sale.   But they pissed them away over the next few years to the point that the Jaguar was doomed no matter how wonderful it was.   It was too much of an uphill battle to get their old marketshare and mindshare back,  The Jaguar could have been equivalent to the PS1 and it still would have failed because they no longer had enough of a marketing budget to make it succeed.

[Jag64]

But the Tramiels never had any of that. Jack bought a shell of Atari that he thought he could use to shovel cheap sht hardware out the door with. You've got that right. But he never had any games, any of the marketing, any of the successful parts of Atari. Jack Tramiels Atari was like a boiler room for junk stocks that bought the building a former, once respected stock firm was in. But all the phones, desks, and good employees were gone. ....Not really sure why I'm bothering with this metaphor, so I'll stop.

[Austin]

That, and I think you've surpassed your metaphor quota for the day.

[agradeneu]

Atari hardware was quite great, Lynx was great hw, Jaguar too. Problem was always software support. 

[zzip]

4 minutes ago, Jag64 said:

But the Tramiels never had any of that. Jack bought a shell of Atari that he thought he could use to shovel cheap sht hardware out the door with. You've got that right. But he never had any games, any of the marketing, any of the successful parts of Atari. Jack Tramiels Atari was like a boiler room for junk stocks that bought the building a former, once respected stock firm was in. But all the phones, desks, and good employees were gone. ....Not really sure why I'm bothering with this metaphor, so I'll stop.

They had the market and mindshare, but yeah they didn't buy the half of Atari that was generating most of the new game IPs.   But they also didn't try very hard.  Even Len Tramiel said they were too focused on the ST to worry about a little company named Nintendo.   

 

In the beginning it was obvious they only really wanted to sell computers.  Conventional wisdom was that consoles were dead, but they also had a big hand in creating that conventional wisdom when they told parents to buy C64s instead of consoles.   So it may have been a case of them sniffing their own farts..    But still they were happy to sell off existing inventory of games and consoles to keep cash coming in.  But they didn't want to invest very much inthat side, so you got the 7800 released in 86 with a bunch of games that already felt dated in 84 when it was supposed to launch-- way behind the curve!

 

Eventually they wanted to pivot to focus more on games since that was growing while the proprietary computer market was shrinking.   But it was too late, they failed to lay the groundwork in the crucial years.

 

Now I don't know if the Tramiel family could have ever succeeded at the gaming side even if they had focused on it early.  Maybe a different buyer was needed, or maybe Warner needed to find a way to right the ship instead of selling. 

[+cubanismo]

1 hour ago, agradeneu said:

Atari hardware was quite great, Lynx was great hw, Jaguar too. Problem was always software support. 

 

Agreed. This tends to get lost in the whole "Was it 64-bit? Was it as good as Saturn/PS1/etc.?" debates (Which I enjoy too, but unfortunately always seem to go south). The Jaguar hardware was objectively good. You don't need to compare it to other things to see that. It has bugs, compromises were made for cost and schedule, but it is a very solid design that can do some cool stuff.

 

Bringing it back to how that answers the question, I doubt it took much more than that to sell the Tramiels. Various people pin them as hardware-focused here and elsewhere, and from a John Mathieson interview (direct link to quote), it sounds like they had a hard focus on the 3D capabilities when designing and presenting the hardware concept to Atari. It probably all sounded very advanced at the time, and (mentioned earlier in the same interview), Richard Miller was already at Atari and knew the Flare folks, probably greasing the wheels a bit.

[Jag64]

1 hour ago, cubanismo said:

 

Agreed. This tends to get lost in the whole "Was it 64-bit? Was it as good as Saturn/PS1/etc.?" debates (Which I enjoy too, but unfortunately always seem to go south). The Jaguar hardware was objectively good. You don't need to compare it to other things to see that. It has bugs, compromises were made for cost and schedule, but it is a very solid design that can do some cool stuff.

 

Bringing it back to how that answers the question, I doubt it took much more than that to sell the Tramiels. Various people pin them as hardware-focused here and elsewhere, and from a John Mathieson interview (direct link to quote), it sounds like they had a hard focus on the 3D capabilities when designing and presenting the hardware concept to Atari. It probably all sounded very advanced at the time, and (mentioned earlier in the same interview), Richard Miller was already at Atari and knew the Flare folks, probably greasing the wheels a bit.

Holy sht. I think I get it. The Great Salesman got sold. It's like that parable where the old carnie, that spent his life hustling people with rigged games, ended up getting hustled in the end by some young con-men. That might not be a parable at all... but it works. Maybe it was like an HBO anthological short or something. Don't care; imagery's in your head. Picture painted!

[MrMaddog]

15 minutes ago, Jag64 said:

Holy sht. I think I get it. The Great Salesman got sold. It's like that parable where the old carnie, that spent his life hustling people with rigged games, ended up getting hustled in the end by some young con-men. That might not be a parable at all... but it works. Maybe it was like an HBO anthological short or something. Don't care; imagery's in your head. Picture painted!

It was Sam the Son that was the guilable carnie, once he took over operations he was all over the place.  Instead of focusing on the SoHo demographic by continuing with the ST, he split Atari between selling high end (and closed off) PC's and low end redesigned game machines (no less than three) who's titles were outdated comparied to the NES.  People didn't know if Atari was suppose to be a "serious" computer company or a maker of "video toys" (Media's perception).  And buying a failing retail chain of stores (Federated) set the company back many years because that was a huge money pit.

 

And when a ST based game console wasn't feasable, Sam hired Flair Technology to design the Panther...which would have been Atari's next game system but they were far ahead with the developemnt of it's successor the Jaguar.  So Sam actually believed that people would choose advance technology over marketing or large game libraries, but we all know that wasn't the case.

[pacman000]

I thought buying The Federated Group was Jack Tramiel’s mistake.

 

On the topic at hand... Did Atari do any tests to make sure Flare could do what they said they could? I know when developing the ST the Tramiels & a few ex-Commodore engineers tested multiple processors to make sure their performance matched what was on paper. (If what I read & remember is right.)

Edited May 7, 2022 by pacman000
Back on topic.

[MrMaddog]

14 hours ago, pacman000 said:

I thought buying The Federated Group was Jack Tramiel’s mistake.

 

I might have read somewhere (in Current Notes?) that Sam had the idea of having a chain of retail stores for selling Atari computers, like what Radio Shack did for Tandy computers.  But ultimately Jack made all the final decisions and signed the checks.

 

Sorry if I couldn't be more clear about on the top of my head, but Atari overall did get set back financially from the Federated debacle, which might have affected how the Jag was marketed.

 

 

[Jag64]

Wow. I'd never even heard of the Federated Group debacle. I kept reading "Federated Stores" and thinking, "Tramiel's Atari could never afford to buy Federated, lol." Of course, I was thinking of "Federated Department Stores," aka the group that took over Macy's. After looking into the the Federated Group that Atari bought, I can see why it was just another nail in the coffin of Atari. I guess that family couldn't make too many good decisions after the Atari ST. But, shtty business practices and chronic lying to everyone (your partners, customers, stores, distributors, employees, [...]) will eventually back you into a corner. No one wanted to deal with the Tramiels, so they once again thought they could get around everyone by doing it themselves cheaper. And it ended up costing them more while losing ground. I thought they were fcking idiots before, but the more I read from their actual fans, the more I wonder how the Tramiels had any success, lol. Maybe Jack was a decent businessman (and honest) before his sons got involved. But holy sht, those morons seriously probably need supervision when drinking out of straws to make sure they don't poke their eyes out. Do they drool randomly? Like, does Sam need a bib to keep his shirt dry?

[Keatah]

On 5/6/2022 at 8:52 AM, Jag64 said:

The thing I don't understand is, what exactly sold the Tramiels on the Jaguar in the first place? Atari was working to the last minute to shove out a couple ports and their unfinished originals. But with hardware, there are usual demos that make someone go, "Holy fck! I want that." And quite often, you'll see a few early games on a platform that are borderline just a "game" that's little more than a UI/menu system so players can get to a fleshed out version of whatever that original tech demo was.

Every time I purchased something because I saw a jaw-dropping tech demo, that's all I got.. A machine that was good for demos and little else. Eventually they'd fall into obscurity or simply fade away.

 

When I purchased a machine because of software availability I was never disappointed. And Apple II and PC are perfect examples.

 

On 5/6/2022 at 9:57 AM, zzip said:

First their computer line hit a dead end,  PC was ahead in every way, proprietary home computers were dead (except maybe Mac)  Atari couldn't even claim "Power Without The Price" anymore,  you could get a much better spec'd PC for the price of a Falcon

Proprietary computers simply could not succeed beyond their niche, and for a limited time. The economics just aren't there.

 

On 5/6/2022 at 9:57 AM, zzip said:

Proprietary consoles were still thriving so they put everything behind that. 

I would argue that a console being proprietary is a requirement. They offer something compelling which is only available "here". The economics aren't as stringent as computers. A peripheral market doesn't need to spring up. Thousands of companies don't need to exist to make software for it.

 

In fact so many, too many, "open" consoles never become popular. The mfg gets lazy and waits for an ecosphere to magically appear. Think OUYA.

 

On 5/6/2022 at 12:08 PM, zzip said:

This is more important than the spec side.  You don't have to have the best spec'd machine,  there are plenty of examples of where the worst spec'd machine dominates the generation.   You need the best games, the best marketing organization and a system that doesn't break the bank.

I didn't know it at the time or even think about such things. Atari games seemed 2B everywhere, on TV, in the drugstore, the department store, and the grocery store too! And discussed everywhere, like schoolyard banter. Most games were deemed cool from the get-go, because videogames were new. I'll even say we didn't know what the difference between good and bad was. Genres were still to be invented. Games that were "bad" we chalked it up to being "just not interesting".

 

Surprisingly the then super-expensive Apple II turned out to have the lowest expenditure because of pirated software. The only ongoing expense was getting blank disks and the occasional hardware upgrade. One box of disks might have cost $20 or $30, the cost of "one cartridge - one game". But a single disk could hold several awesome games. And the kid next door would give them out for free.

[DavidD]

On 5/6/2022 at 9:40 AM, Lostdragon said:

The marketing of the device here in the UK was a masterstroke, it became the must have machine and they were doing the whole cool factor in magazine adverts, long before Sony did it with the PlayStation. 

Wait wait wait -- the Lynx did well in the UK?

[Keatah]

On 5/6/2022 at 8:52 AM, Jag64 said:

There's the "Do the Math" campaign that has a chalkboard and Jag slogan permanently logged in most of our memories.

Seems consoles/computers needing catchy slogans/campaigns to generate sales don't really sell well or go anywhere.

 

If a product is good, all that's needed is getting information out there. It will sell itself, with word-of-mouth extolling its virtues. When we'd see an ad for a new VCS cartridge we'd almost automatically want to get it. The console was proving itself to be fun time and time again. We didn't need any force feeding by ridiculous advertising, or tech demos. Just the name of the new game was sufficient - we'd put it on our shopping list for eventual purchase.

 

Going back to Apple II, there were several companies and authors we associated with good games by default. Stuff we'd buy sight unseen in many cases. No demos, no advertisements needed. Not even sure I recall any TV ads for Apple II software!