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[soxinthebox]

First pictures of Mike Kennedy's new console

 

[GamerMax73]

The Atari that released the Jaguar no longer owned Asteroids, Missile Command, Centipede, Millipede, Pole Position et al, FYI. By then those were owned by Atari Games, not Atari Corporation. Also, by the time of the Jag, Atari Corporation no longer had the money to license titles like Pac-Man and the like.

Lol, I know - I was jesting

 

[runnin_blue]

This thread is either proof of time travel or proof that someone doesn't know how to use past and present tense properly.

 

[Celine]

Atari Corp also had deals with Namco and Tecmo on the Atari Lynx and games like Ms. Pac-man, Pac-Land, Rygar, Ninja Gaiden arcade and Ninja Gaiden III were released on that system.

I still think Lynx had the best support among the Atari Corp. consoles.

 

[NoFaceNico]

E3 1995 behind the scenes video: https://youtu.be/fC9ZJWHFjhc?t=738

The headset was pretty ahead of its time for something from 1995. It has an IR tracking system, gyroscope and external CPU. But even though this would have been the cheapest commercial VR headset on the market in 1995, it was still too pricey for Atari to produce. Also the LCD technology and 52 degree FOV was a little bit problematic. But it is still really impressive for what it was, and it was a real VR headset unlike the Virtual Boy.

That's crazy! I didn't know they were that far in development of their VR. I always assumed they didn't bring it to the market because it was going to basically be a Virtual Boy Color.

I hope once VR starts to gain steam, someone out there will make an Jaguar VR emulator! That VR missile command looked very impressive!

 

[dark10x]

I'm not sure why anyone would want the Jag to succeed in retrospect. The hardware just wasn't up to par and would not have been able to provide the types of games that we would see in the five years following its release. The hardware was sluggish, the controller was limited, and the sound capabilities poor.

3DO launched with junk, and it remained that way until Gex finally arrived. But too little too late, and Street Fighter was a bit further down the line.

There just wasn't enough games to garner interest, and consumers knew bigger, better consoles were on the way. With games that obliterated 3DO's.

When I finally bought a 3DO a few years back Gex was one of the first games I picked up. You could say I was stunned by the fact that it runs at an unstable 30fps. I mean, a simple 2D platformer with minimal parallax scrolling running at 30fps or worse most of the time? Made worse by the fact that the console only outputs 480i which is bad news for 240p 2D titles.

 

[HyperZone<3]

I've always found the Jaguar to be kind of fascinating. It was just such a perfectly misbegotten system that I couldn't help but root for it. Years later, people still kept up the fight, well past the point of any continued relevance.

Songbird Productions might still have the record for most post cycle published games for any one system to their name. They didn't redeem the Jag, but they at least got some games out the door that wouldn't have ever seen the light of day otherwise, and that's pretty cool.

If you were ever curious what a Jaguar based franchise is like, search your favorite retro game shop for a likely scuffed up copy of Iron Soldier 3, which only got released on the Nuon (another vastly screwed system) and the Playstation 1. The first two games in the series were Jaguar exclusive, and somehow by some miracle of economics made a third installment with some slightly decent production values feasible. Its no great shakes, but its an interesting window into the never was universe where Iron Soldier 3 was a Jaguar 2 launch title or something.

 

[ramparter]

Atari thought that too OP.

 

[mdzapeer]

Wtf @ that controller. Am I going to order pizza lol!?

At least it has real buttons compared to the average smartphone!

 

[Englebert3rd]

First pictures of Mike Kennedy's new console

I wouldn't be so sure. I bet that one didn't have any stolen parts.

Black Ice/White Noise seemed like a pretty innovative game, shame it was never released.

 

[Occam]

What year is this?

 

[nkarafo]

proof that someone doesn't know how to use past and present tense properly.

Yeah amazing. To think that someone can do mistakes like this because English isn't his native language. Thankfully, we have now the proof.

 

[runnin_blue]

Yeah amazing. To think that someone can do mistakes like this because English isn't his native language. Thankfully, we have now the proof.

So it's not time travel? Bummer.

Take it easy man, it was just a joke. I didn't know English isn't your first language. Apologies if you are offended.

 

[OhNoDangerItsaPentagonRun]

You are deluded if you think the Jaguar could have been a success or maybe we have a different definition of success.
Jaguar sold about 125K in total, to have sales perfomance that could be called success you need 10-100 times that number.
I believe Tramiel's Atari didn't have the cash at hand to invest into the project to really become a success no matter what.

Jaguar sold over 200k

What killed the 3DO and Jaguar was poor Japanese third party support.

This was back when Japan was the king of the hill in console gaming and not having Square, Konami, Capcom, and so on hurt them.

The 3DO had a lot of japanese support. The reason the 3DO failed was because of a high entry price which they cut fast but too late, and they didin't market it really as a games consoles, hense the add-on to play Video CDs and other plans that were scrapped. Still sold million.

Jaguar didn't need Japanese support, people forget the best selling games outside Nintendo consoles (possible N64 exception) were not japanese in the U.S. and Europe. The best selling Genesis, PC, PSX, .N64*, PS2, Xbox, 3DO, etc.

A lot of people overstate the importance of japanese games and how much they owned.

The original Panther console seemed like it had a great spec/cost/time of release ratio and had a less problematic architecture. they probably should have gone with that design instead.

The original Panther ran Cybermorph at like 4 fps. They had games for the panther but the Jgauar was more powerful. One mistake about the Jaguar was that they wanted BC with Panther games, so they added the Moto3800k or 3600k chip for 2D sprites, and backgtround scaling for some of the Panthers 3D protoypes.

This was bad because the two Risc Processors on paper could do PS1 like graphics without warping, with <$200 hardware. But the Jaguar need the Moto 2D Chip too boot the system and start operations, so it's running the whole time making it hard to use both chips. A few games utilized this though.

3DO launched at $699 (in early 90s US Dollars), which is what really hurt it.

I always thought (as a EGM/Gamepro reader at the time) that 3DO and Neo-Geo seemed cool, but were insanely expensive and had very limited game libraries compared to Nintendo and Sega. We were already hearing about the Saturn and Playstation by the time 3DO actually came out.

Jaguar just looked dumb from the start.

YOu could actually get it for $599 at many places. Issue again was at first, they weren't posing it as a game system and they were greedily taking money from the manufactures, and getting money from companies getting prints, instead of helping advertise games. Instead talking about making the 3DO a super computer that can do 4D at 120fps, and talked about it's Video CD upgrade coming out. They realized it later though, a bit too late, but they still got a lot of consoles out there to 3DO's credit. ALso know the PS and the Saturn were on ears until after about a year after 3DO came out, and nobody was excited about he PSX until after E3.

While I agree that Rayman is a lot better than any Gex game, Rayman 1 is really not a good game.
It's decent, and it looks gorgeous, but isn't a killer app. It had bad hit detection, loose controls, blind jumps and levels with lots of unfair hazards.

Rayman really entered the great game category with Rayman Origins/Legends.

Both those games are not very good. Also half of what you are complaining about is in the PSX/SAt version not the Jaguar version.

Rayman couldn't have been that big. It was a 2D game and at the time people were excited for 3D.

Rayman was a huge game.

Any console without Japanese games in the mid '90s was DOA.

The best selling games on the Genesis, N64, PSX, PS2, Xbox, 3DO, etc. In U.S> and Europe were not japanese games.

There is a continuing delusion that japanese games outside most Nintendo consoles, were bigger than they actually were.

The only thing the Japanese owned was Hardware. Made with American parts most of the time.

 

[diffusionx]

Jaguar sold over 200k

To put it into context, the PSX sold 120,000 units at launch, I think.

The Jaguar hardware wasn't good enough (the PSX launched in Japan a year later and looked a full generation ahead) and the games mostly stunk. A few good ports and Tempest 2000 is not going to make a system. The 3DO had a better chance but overall I think the whole industry was waiting for Sega, Nintendo, and then Sony.

 

[MrCunningham]

Jaguar sold over 200k



The 3DO had a lot of japanese support. The reason the 3DO failed was because of a high entry price which they cut fast but too late, and they didin't market it really as a games consoles, hense the add-on to play Video CDs and other plans that were scrapped. Still sold million.

I'm pretty sure that Policenauts on the 3DO was the first home console game that Hideo Kojima was directly involved with. Before that he strictly worked in the PC sector of Konami and had no involvement with developing console games. But the 3DO was the console where he made that migration from Japanese PC's to home consoles. Kenji Eno also made his name of the 3DO as well with WARP and D. The console did have a bit of a cult following for being an anime/ adventure game machine in Japan because it was the most capable home machine at the time for producing those types of games on. It even had a little success as being a Karaoke machine as well.

 

[spookyfish]

I still have mine in the closet. Was worth it for AvP and Doom alone.

I feel this way, as well. It also got me into Wolfenstein 3D, so I credit the machine with getting me into corridor shooters.

 

[Moofers]

Brutal Sports Football is never mentioned and that was one of the Jaguar's best games. It wasn't just any old football game. You outfitted your guys with swords and clubs and stuff and played against other teams that literally consisted of rhinos and lizards and stuff. You could decaptitate other players. It was great and nobody ever talks about it.

Instead, I just heard the Giant Bomb guys mention Kasumi Ninja on their podcast as if it was the Jag's best fighting game. It was the lousiest fighter the system had next to Fight For Life. Ultra Vortek and Primal Rage were 100x better.

 

[NOLA_Gaffer]

Why does the OP read as if the Jag still has a shot in 2016?

I thought it was a parody/satire thread referencing the Wii U or Gamecube for some reason.

 

[Baron_Calamity]

As someone who bought the Jaguar when it was new, as well as the CD expansion and almost every game released during its supported life span, and who was a regular poster on the rec.games.video.atari and alt.jaguar news groups; The Jaguar didn't have a chance from the start. Sure Atari management was incompetent, the hardware had bugs, and they didn't have the IPs needed. The biggest problem was that few knew how to program in 3D, almost no one knew how to design a good game in 3D, and the few that did, had no interest working with Atari. The second biggest problem was Atari had terrible 3rd party support. A lot of companies signed up to support the console. Even Japanese companies. However as soon as they found out that Atari wasn't able to provide the most basic support, they dropped the idea quickly.

 

[Krejlooc]

Brutal Sports Football is never mentioned and that was one of the Jaguar's best games. It wasn't just any old football game

It wasnt even really football. It was basically rugby.

 

[sixteen-bit]

Do the math.

 

[OhNoDangerItsaPentagonRun]

What was the purpose for all those buttons? Did games actually use all of them? Dialling phone numbers? Running calculators?

Yes, it was used for extra moves in games like doom and others, it was used for camera, it was used for strategy gaes, it was used for inventory etc.

The PS1, Saturn, and N64 destroy it in 3D capabilities, and that controller wasn't going to be sufficient.

I think even if it had been initially successful, it would have been quickly overshadowed. Much like the Dreamcast, which would have quickly had problems being the only console of that generation without a second thumb stick

If the Moto68k wasn't used to but the system, the Jagaur would have better 3D than the saturn, and some if it's best games aren't far off from the Saturn now. The Jaguar died byt the time Saturn 3D was starting to look good, Jagaur for a longer time would have been as well as devs were starting to figure out how to access the two Riscs.

Remember despite what people believe, the Jagaur is "stronger" than the 3Do technically. The Jaguar is just bottlenecked.

The Jaguar did have some great ports but really not much else. It wasn't even that much more powerful than a Super FX'd SNES.

The biggest problem with the Jaguar is that it came out too late. If it came out in say, 1992, where it was competing against the SNES/Genesis I think it could have done much better. But having to compete against the 3DO, then Saturn/PS1? R.I.P.

We DID do the math, and the math added up to a console being way outdated by 1994/1995.

"Put it this way -- nothing's going to come along to knock Jaguar off the top"

The Jaguar and 3DO came out in 93. Sat/PS1 outside japan came out in 1995.

Also uh the console was not oudated by 1995. At all. I mean the 3DO and magazines were claiming ports on the PSX of games on the 3DO ran better on the 3DO. Graphics didn't really beat the Jagaur until end of 1996 and early 1997. #do around early 1999. (but that's because both consoles died early and no one was there to expand their capabilities.)

Eeeeh, i don't know. Allow me to have some doubts about this. The gap looks too big to be covered with just one additional chip while keeping everything else (CPU, RAM, etc) the same.

By the way, even the 32X and GBA are probably weaker systems than the Jaguar.

The GBA can barely outdo the Lynx. Which is just sad. Took Nintendo until the DS to start having "decent" portable hardware.

When those 3 were released in 93/94 the world was already waiting for the Sega Saturn. That's even before Sony came along with the Playstation and laid waste to all before it. Alas all three sit in the same annals of history as the 32X.

The Jag with a CD drive could have competed with the Saturn/PSX but were Atari even relevant enough at the time to attract the needed 3rd party support anyway? Sony did the right thing with PSX's launch and call on the Japanese 3D Arcade heavy weights (Namco and Capcom) along with Square to support the new machine day 1.

I think the Namco/Capcom support alone was enough for PSX to beat Saturn in to the ground, and Square helped murder the N64 before it was even launched.

Of course neither Sega, Commodore, Atari, or 3DO could have foreseen any of this in 1993.

No they weren't. Sega was trying to push the Genesis to cover for some mistakes in ads, a few lawsuits, and made it cheap to push the 32X. Segas sales were dropping across the board. Sega Saturn announcement made that worse. Also interest became an issue after the 95 E3.

Those 3D "japanese" heavy weights, a lot of which did not sell as well as you think, and otherwise were not the real instrument of the PSX's success but an acesory outside japan, did not "release" until around after both the 3DO and Jaguar were dead (well the 3DO did drag to early half of 97 despite reports of it being dead in 96.)

Ha, no. All it took to kill Jaguar was people comparing Starfox and Cybermorph and seeing no distinct difference in visual quality. For a system priding itself on being much much stronger, that is EMBARRASSING.

Cybermorph was more advanced, it had better polygon distances, it had smoother movement in a bigger area. The visuals itself looked a bit eh, but I think people are forgetting what the SNES version of starfox played.

Also Iron Soldier came out a bit later, SNES can't run that. Neither could it run Doom.

Lol, Atari's idea of 1st party titles...

Atari 2600 - Asteroids, Breakout, Space Invaders, Asteroids, Missile Command, Warlords, Bezerk, Centipede, Defender, Pac-Man, Galaxian, Pole Position, Ballblazer, Battlezone, Choplifter

Atari 5200 - Super Breakout, Space Invaders, Missile Command, Bezerk, Centipede, Defender, Pac-Man, Galaxian, Pole Position, Ballblazer, Choplifter

Atari XEGS - Ballblazer, Battlezone, Choplifter

Atari 7800 - Asteroids, Centipede, Ms. Pac-Man, Pole Position II, Ballblazer, Choplifter

Atari Jaguar - Tempest 2000

Mmm, I think there might be a pattern here...

This is a BS list with nitpicking and omissions.

If you look how the console was received and positioned back then you'd never claim such an outlandish thing. It makes the 3D0 look like a big deal in comparison.

This must be revisionist history because the Jaguar was well received.

 

[Dash_Riprock]

Had a Jaguar for a few years. AvP was awesome, as was a few other gems.

With a controller like this?

*Laughs*

Never.

The Pro controller was pretty decent:

 

[OhNoDangerItsaPentagonRun]

To put it into context, the PSX sold 120,000 units at launch, I think.

The Jaguar hardware wasn't good enough (the PSX launched in Japan a year later and looked a full generation ahead) and the games mostly stunk. A few good ports and Tempest 2000 is not going to make a system. The 3DO had a better chance but overall I think the whole industry was waiting for Sega, Nintendo, and then Sony.

They weren't. Sony was a question mark until after the E3 and still tok a second to kick. Nintendo upset people with delays and Sega was a question mark because they kept stacking retailers with genesis to push the 32X, the Saturn also was rushed out to fight press concerns.

The games did not mostly stick, most people only know of like 7 games of it's around 70 game library. The Jaguar hardware was good enough, and for some reason people seem to think early PSX games were rash 3 levels at alunch, that's not how that worked.

Again the 3DO was "technically" weaker than the Jaguar, yet the 3DO had articles in magazines that had the 3DO version of games that were on it and the PSX, ran better on the 3DO.

I'm pretty sure that Policenauts on the 3DO was the first home console game that Hideo Kojima was directly involved with. Before that he strictly worked in the PC sector of Konami and had no involvement with developing console games. But the 3DO was the console where he made that migration from Japanese PC's to home consoles. Kenji Eno also made his name of the 3DO as well with WARP and D. The console did have a bit of a cult following for being an anime/ adventure game machine in Japan because it was the most capable home machine at the time for producing those types of games on. It even had a little success as being a Karaoke machine as well.

Metal Gear Solid was also going to be on the 3DO.

 

[diffusionx]

They weren't. Sony was a question mark until after the E3 and still tok a second to kick. Nintendo upset people with delays and Sega was a question mark because they kept stacking retailers with genesis to push the 32X, the Saturn also was rushed out to fight press concerns.

Well, even if this is the case, nobody was sitting around thinking Atari is the savior.

The games did not mostly stick, most people only know of like 7 games of it's around 70 game library. The Jaguar hardware was good enough, and for some reason people seem to think early PSX games were rash 3 levels at alunch, that's not how that worked.

Most people only know 7 games because only 7 games are good unless you're an Atari fanboy. Early PSX games, in terms of graphics, were awesome. Compare Ridge Racer to Checkered Flag or BAT to Kasumi Ninja.

I'm not saying the system was worthless, it just wasn't good enough, the games weren't good enough, and I don't think there was anything they could have done to get people off Genny and SNES in 1993 and onto an Atari system. Those systems were really riding high at that point and nobody was going to ditch Secret of Mana to go play Trevor McFur.

 

[OhNoDangerItsaPentagonRun]

I bought a Jaguar and it was the dumbest knee-jerk thing I ever did.

The system was too expensive and they did not have a solid third-party.

I even bought Checkered Flag! Man that was dumb.

Uh no it was not expensive, especially when Checkered Flag was out.

3DO launched with junk, and it remained that way until Gex finally arrived. But too little too late, and Street Fighter was a bit further down the line.

There just wasn't enough games to garner interest, and consumers knew bigger, better consoles were on the way. With games that obliterated 3DO's.

Which is why the 3DO sold millions. No wait.

Also the 3DO did not launch with "junk" It launched with Battle Chess, a popular PC kids game with Putt Putt, It launched with one of the most amazing party games and best use of FMV I've seen with Twisted, it had Crash N' Burn, which got the press talking and plays really well, It had Draxons Revenge a 360 scale 3D shooter, It had the must play superior version of the popular Flashback. It had a pretty good doom style FPS with escape from Monster Manor, Also it had Guardian War for an Jrpg.

It had a pretty good line-up to a person watching during it's 1993 launch.

Also no the PSX nor Saturn had games that obliterated the 3DO, and inf act both shared games with it for a few years. The 3DO got obliterated after it died.

Let's put it this way: compared to the Jaguar, the 32x was a smash success.
.

No it wasn't.

With the ST and Lynx in decline and the TT and Falcon bombing hard, Atari didn't have much left in the tank to support the Jaguar. If Atari would have won the Sega lawsuit back in early '93 and if the Jaguar would have been a CD based system, it could have MAYBE been a mild success at best.

I'm a big Atari fan and have been a Jaguar owner since 1993. I've enjoyed the system and have a near complete collection, but wouldn't recommend it to anyone unless you are a hardcore Atari fan or like to collect niche systems.

One cool thing about the Jaguar is that new games are still being released to this day and the community is very knowledgeable and quite active.

The Lynx nor St were really in decline.

What happened is that when Jack's brother got control of the company he cut everything and crashed the Falcon into the wall. He had no reason to cut the 7800,2600, ST, and it's veriations, the 8-bit atari line, the Lynx etc. etc. He cut all of it, and threw all the eggs in the Jaguar basket to have one line of solid revenue. One of the dumbest things I have ever seen anyone do in charge of a company.

I believe Jacks brothers name was Sam.

I'm pretty sure Konami and Capcom never published games on Atari systems.
Namco licensed some properties on Atari systems which were actually developed by Atari, for example Ms Pacman and Pole Position.
This isn't different than , say, Namco licensing their game IPs to Epoch for porting the games to the Super Cassette Vision.

Microsoft was in far much better position than Atari Corp. simply because Microsoft could spend billion of dollars to buy support and marketshare.

EDIT:
Mmmh actually Konami published 3 games on Atari 2600, the more one knows...
Capcom licensed Commando to Activision and that's it.
The general point stand.
Atari Corp. consoles (Atari 7800, Lynx and Jaguar) had very weak third-party support and first party software was cheaply made.

Neither of those companies really mattered to be honest. But either way they both had published games across the 2600,7800 lines.

The Lynx had some pretty good TPS actually. Also 7800 doesn't really count as after the first year and a half Nintendo locked all the 3rd party devs that wanted to deal with Nintendo while the rest either waited or fled to PC untilt he Genesis came out.

I'm not sure why anyone would want the Jag to succeed in retrospect. The hardware just wasn't up to par and would not have been able to provide the types of games that we would see in the five years following its release. The hardware was sluggish, the controller was limited, and the sound capabilities poor.


When I finally bought a 3DO a few years back Gex was one of the first games I picked up. You could say I was stunned by the fact that it runs at an unstable 30fps. I mean, a simple 2D platformer with minimal parallax scrolling running at 30fps or worse most of the time? Made worse by the fact that the console only outputs 480i which is bad news for 240p 2D titles.

Yes the hardware was up to par. The controller was not "limited" at all (what does this even mean?)

 

[OhNoDangerItsaPentagonRun]

Well, even if this is the case, nobody was sitting around thinking Atari is the savior.



Most people only know 7 games because only 7 games are good unless you're an Atari fanboy. Early PSX games, in terms of graphics, were awesome. Compare Ridge Racer to Checkered Flag or BAT to Kasumi Ninja.

I'm not saying the system was worthless, it just wasn't good enough, the games weren't good enough, and I don't think there was anything they could have done to get people off Genny and SNES in 1993 and onto an Atari system. Those systems were really riding high at that point and nobody was going to ditch Secret of Mana to go play Trevor McFur.

Uh nobody thought any of the consoles was the savior.

Also there were more than 7 good games, you are among the ignorant, the 7 games usually consist of some games that are considered bad as well.

You then compare 1993 launch games and early 1994 games to late 1995 games?

I mean you aren't even trying to have a logical argument.

 

[wondermega]

I got an Atari Lynx not too far out of launch and thought it was the bees knees. It made Atari look like they were on the vanguard of mobile gaming development compared to Nintendo in those early days, with decent games and incredible tech. Of course Game boy followed with way better games fairly quickly, but that's another story. Lynx was able to keep a half-decent profile with a competent library padded with solid conversions of their popular arcade games - mind you arcade Atari was still quite a big deal back during this period (Stun Runner, Rampart, Hard Driving, Xybots) and it was sweet to have a machine at home that could properly emulate these experiences on that powerful hardware.
As the Lynx got on in years, their Arcade line slowed down and games released for the handheld started to get way more lame (Basketbrawl, Dirty Larry) and it looked like Atari's spot in the sun had once again receded dramatically. The system's price and support both plummeted.. meanwhile true 16-bit systems were owning the media. Cue Atari and their talk of a more powerful Panther and then Jaguar, but to a half-savvy gamer of the time, it didn't look terribly promising at all, compared to most of what else was going on.
Still I paid attention, and I rented the system for a weekend after it had been out for a bit. Ugh... Cyber morph and tempest. Of course tempest was cool but I wasn't really going to play that for hours compared to, say, anything on the Snes at the time. And cyber morph felt half baked. Yeah launch game syndrome, but when you look at what launch lineups typically were in those days (Super Mario World, Ghouls n Ghosts) and considering what had gone down with the Lynx line, a clear message of Stay Away was broadcast.
Again, it's a shame as 90s Atari (Games) really was kicking ass in the arcades and as for genuinely fun/different mobile gaming, Lynx was on point for a good while there. Maybe in some other dimension they became a modern Activision..

 

[Interfectum]

I totally wanted a Jaguar until I went over to a buddy's house and played it. That killed my new console lust almost immediately. Same went for 3D0.

 

[nkarafo]

So it's not time travel? Bummer.

Take it easy man, it was just a joke. I didn't know English isn't your first language. Apologies if you are offended.

Nah, no worries, to be fair i should be flattered. If you didn't notice it's not my native language it must mean i'm pretty good at it, thus the title does look like a dumb grammar mistake in the end.

The GBA can barely outdo the Lynx. Which is just sad. Took Nintendo until the DS to start having "decent" portable hardware.

The GBA was far more capable than the Lynx. There is no alternate universe where the Lynx can handle stuff like Doom or (let alone) V-Rally. There's a proper, full generation gap right there.

 

[Thanati]

Loved my CD-32

Still a more varied game library than most modern consoles

Loved mine too!

 

[Muffdraul]

And no, Tempest wasn't the right game to push the console to people. As great as it was, it was still a retro-looking game. People wanted to see awesome, colorful graphics and new tech, not a remake of an 80's vector arcade game. This should have been seen as a bonus in the Jaguar library, not a "killer app".

Thoughts?

You're probably right, but Tempest was definitely my personal Jaguar killer app. I dabbled in AvP, Doom, Iron Solider and a few other games, but I played hours and hours and hours of Tempest 2000. For many years I would occasionally drag the console out of the closet and set it up just to play some Tempest. In fact I think the only reason I stopped was that I got an HDTV in 2007 and couldn't connect it. Then again, I was the target demographic for Tempest 2000; I was 12 when the original dropped, and I had relatively recently just gotten back into video games shortly before the Jaguar released.

 

[OhNoDangerItsaPentagonRun]

I don't think so OP. And both Doom and Wolfenstein were on SNES.

Jaguar's lineup was in large part, a joke. Couple that with a garbage controller, lame marketing, and lack of the hottest games, and it did as well as it deserved to.

The first year of the Jagaur had, Trevor Mcfur, Bubsy 3 (Bubsy was a popular franchise btw, I know some revisionist will come in and say lol), Alien Vs. Predator, 2 3D racing games, Iron Soldier, Bruce Lee, Doom, Kasumi Ninja, Zool 2, WOlf3D, Raiden, Tempest 2000, 3D snowboarding game.

That's an amazing line-up no matter what you say while waiting to buy the console.

Bruce Lee, Doom, Snowboarding, Wolf3D, Zool2, Raiden, Tempest, Iron Soldier, Avs.P, Club Drive, Mcfur, are considered good to amazing games out of that line-up, giving plenty to play.

Then the next year you had Blue Lightning, Battlemorph, Rayman, Dragons Lair, Primal Rage, Powerdrive, Superburnout, Ultravortek, Syndicate, I-war, Missle Command 3d, Theme Park, Nba Jam, Flashback, Double Dragon V, Couple good soccer games, Canon fodder, Myst.

Thats a pretty damn good collection of games.

 

[therapist]

I think the controller was a huge reason why it didnt do very well.

What a hideous , hideous beast of a controller ugh

 

[panda-zebra]

If they can reboot the power pack ill be there.

Spoiler

This is what I grew up on

Well CJ has made plenty of ST games run on the Jaguar so far...

I think the controller was a huge reason why it didnt do very well.

What a hideous , hideous beast of a controller ugh

The pad was designed for the Atari STe, and the keypad on it made some sense in that context as plenty of ST games requires keyboard input, so this was possibly included to go some way to avoid having to sit at the computer to play.

Atari cheaped out when they reused it for the Jaguar. Above shows the redesigned pro controller and the original STe Power Pad.

 

[Shifty]

Imagine if the Atari Jaguar had been successful enough to influence modern game controllers.

Oh wait, the 360 chatpad is already a thing. Shit.

 

[OhNoDangerItsaPentagonRun]

Nah, no worries, to be fair i should be flattered. If you didn't notice it's not my native language it must mean i'm pretty good at it, thus the title does look like a dumb grammar mistake in the end.


The GBA was far more capable than the Lynx. There is no alternate universe where the Lynx can handle stuff like Doom or (let alone) V-Rally. There's a proper, full generation gap right there.

https://youtu.be/PMTF6OVsvxg

Skip to 1:42 and watch from there.

They weren't that far apart. WIth that said, the GBA was stronger, but it wasn't too far out. The games that look the biggest generational gaps are usually crappy ports that run near unplayable. Or they are an eye sore to look at.

With that said some guys got some racing games to look pretty good. But that's like of the very few that look like they are a decent gap ahead of the Lynx.

But the gap you are implying is uh, exaggerated.

 

[OhNoDangerItsaPentagonRun]

I got an Atari Lynx not too far out of launch and thought it was the bees knees. It made Atari look like they were on the vanguard of mobile gaming development compared to Nintendo in those early days, with decent games and incredible tech. Of course Game boy followed with way better games fairly quickly, but that's another story. Lynx was able to keep a half-decent profile with a competent library padded with solid conversions of their popular arcade games - mind you arcade Atari was still quite a big deal back during this period (Stun Runner, Rampart, Hard Driving, Xybots) and it was sweet to have a machine at home that could properly emulate these experiences on that powerful hardware.
As the Lynx got on in years, their Arcade line slowed down and games released for the handheld started to get way more lame (Basketbrawl, Dirty Larry) and it looked like Atari's spot in the sun had once again receded dramatically. The system's price and support both plummeted.. meanwhile true 16-bit systems were owning the media. Cue Atari and their talk of a more powerful Panther and then Jaguar, but to a half-savvy gamer of the time, it didn't look terribly promising at all, compared to most of what else was going on.
Still I paid attention, and I rented the system for a weekend after it had been out for a bit. Ugh... Cyber morph and tempest. Of course tempest was cool but I wasn't really going to play that for hours compared to, say, anything on the Snes at the time. And cyber morph felt half baked. Yeah launch game syndrome, but when you look at what launch lineups typically were in those days (Super Mario World, Ghouls n Ghosts) and considering what had gone down with the Lynx line, a clear message of Stay Away was broadcast.
Again, it's a shame as 90s Atari (Games) really was kicking ass in the arcades and as for genuinely fun/different mobile gaming, Lynx was on point for a good while there. Maybe in some other dimension they became a modern Activision..

True 16-bit?

The Lynx was a true 16-bit system. (so was the intellivison for that matter) even graphics wise. Lynx could jump with the SNES and Lynx and trashed the Tg16.

 

[diffusionx]

Uh nobody thought any of the consoles was the savior.

Also there were more than 7 good games, you are among the ignorant, the 7 games usually consist of some games that are considered bad as well.

You then compare 1993 launch games and early 1994 games to late 1995 games?

I mean you aren't even trying to have a logical argument.

Can you find me the Jaguar racing game that looks and runs like Ridge Racer? Or the fighter that looks and runs like BAT? I mean, I just looked up I-War after reading your post, it came out in 1995, compare it to Warhawk, says a lot IMO. Maybe it's unfair to compare a 1994 PSX game to an earlier Jaguar game, but your opinion seems to be that the PSX was unimpressive at launch and I can assure you it was not.

Since you seem to be a big Atari fan, could you elaborate on why you don't think this system failed? Many of the games you listed (Syndicate, Primal Rage, NBA Jam, Flashback, Double Dragon, Doom, Wolf, Cannon Fodder, etc.) were on one or the other 16-bit systems, and even if the Jaguar versions were objectively superior in some way, nobody was going to drop hundreds of dollars to play a slightly better Primal Rage. Some of the other games you could have just waited a bit to play on PSX or Saturn, which is what people obviously did.

Remember that Atari had to convince people to drop a system that they were probably satisfied with and get them to go with one from a hardware maker that hadn't done much worth a damn since the early 1980's. You need to do a lot better than Zool 2.

Going back through the memory banks, I remember being impressed with AvP. But that same Christmas I was playing Chrono Trigger, Yoshi's Island, etc.

 

[Absoludacrous]

The first year of the Jagaur had, Trevor Mcfur, Bubsy 3 (Bubsy was a popular franchise btw, I know some revisionist will come in and say lol), Alien Vs. Predator, 2 3D racing games, Iron Soldier, Bruce Lee, Doom, Kasumi Ninja, Zool 2, WOlf3D, Raiden, Tempest 2000, 3D snowboarding game.

That's an amazing line-up no matter what you say while waiting to buy the console.

Bruce Lee, Doom, Snowboarding, Wolf3D, Zool2, Raiden, Tempest, Iron Soldier, Avs.P, Club Drive, Mcfur, are considered good to amazing games out of that line-up, giving plenty to play.

Then the next year you had Blue Lightning, Battlemorph, Rayman, Dragons Lair, Primal Rage, Powerdrive, Superburnout, Ultravortek, Syndicate, I-war, Missle Command 3d, Theme Park, Nba Jam, Flashback, Double Dragon V, Couple good soccer games, Canon fodder, Myst.

Thats a pretty damn good collection of games.

It's like you're the Hiroo Onoda of the 90's console wars.

 

[commish]

I totally wanted a Jaguar until I went over to a buddy's house and played it. That killed my new console lust almost immediately. Same went for 3D0.

I owned both. 3DO was a classic and among my favorite consoles, at least relative to the short amount of time it was alive. So many great games.

Jaguar was the system that I wanted to love, and I did play most of the big titles, but it was lacking outside of a few big titles. Would not purchase again.

 

[Crayon]

It was $249 and the games actually looked unique and fun. But by the time it was coming to market, you had Donkey Kong Country on snes which sort of called into question how much of an increase in performance the Jaguar really was, meanwhile there was some outlandish misrepresentations of what the mysterious sony playstation could actually do graphically, let alone the reality that the psx really would blow away Jaguar when the real thing hit.

I don't know if anyone has mentioned this, but when the rumors started floating around that the psx would launch for $299 in the us, a lot of things changed. The idea that it was the most powerful console in the world had already been established, but nobody expected it to be so affordable. This was enough to put a major damper on the excitement for the 3DO, Saturn and even the cheaper Jaguar. Sam Tramiel even stated that the disparity in psx pricing between Japan and the states was price dumping and threatened to get the FTC involved.

 

[nkarafo]

https://youtu.be/PMTF6OVsvxg

Skip to 1:42 and watch from there.

They weren't that far apart. WIth that said, the GBA was stronger, but it wasn't too far out. The games that look the biggest generational gaps are usually crappy ports that run near unplayable. Or they are an eye sore to look at.

With that said some guys got some racing games to look pretty good. But that's like of the very few that look like they are a decent gap ahead of the Lynx.

But the gap you are implying is uh, exaggerated.

Watch this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1OuB-Qe6nk

The tracks are actual texture mapped polygons. The frame rate is fast. Heck, even on the 32X/Jaguar i haven't seen anything as good. Looks like a generation gap compared to Lynx to me.

Oh and this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NwVI2QDbfQ

Edit: And this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TGoI6_AqBg

Yeah, there's a huge gap right there. I mean, it's only logical, there's more than a decade separating the systems.

 

[Celine]

Jaguar sold over 200k

As December 1995, Atari had shipped 125K units in total with 100K more in inventory.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari...ing.2C_filed_by_ATARI_CORP_on_4.2F12.2F1996-4

Neither of those companies really mattered to be honest. But either way they both had published games across the 2600,7800 lines.

Konami had published 3 games on 2600, I don't think Capcom has ever published a game for Atari consoles (they licensed their IPs to other companies though, for example Commando).

 

[TheMan]

Is the OP a time traveler? Why is the post written in present tense?

 

[MiguelItUp]

I had one of these, and say what you will about the controller. At the time I thought it was awesome (I was a kid) and I remember the controller not being too uncomfortable. But I thought the idea of games coming with plastic cards to put over the numeric pad portion of the controller was a pretty neat idea. The only game that I personally owned was AVP, and that was the main reason I wanted the console, well and Wolf 3D & DOOM (since we didn't have a PC at the time). Thankfully I had another friend of mine that owned one as well, and he let me borrow a number of games, or I'd just play them at his home since he lived a couple of blocks away. Iron Soldier, DOOM, Wolf 3D, Kasumi Ninja, Rayman and AVP, those were the Jaguar to us and at the time it was grand, haha.

 

[OhNoDangerItsaPentagonRun]

Can you find me the Jaguar racing game that looks and runs like Ridge Racer? Or the fighter that looks and runs like BAT? I mean, I just looked up I-War after reading your post, it came out in 1995, compare it to Warhawk, says a lot IMO. Maybe it's unfair to compare a 1994 PSX game to an earlier Jaguar game, but your opinion seems to be that the PSX was unimpressive at launch and I can assure you it was not.

Since you seem to be a big Atari fan, could you elaborate on why you don't think this system failed? Many of the games you listed (Syndicate, Primal Rage, NBA Jam, Flashback, Double Dragon, Doom, Wolf, Cannon Fodder, etc.) were on one or the other 16-bit systems, and even if the Jaguar versions were objectively superior in some way, nobody was going to drop hundreds of dollars to play a slightly better Primal Rage. Some of the other games you could have just waited a bit to play on PSX or Saturn, which is what people obviously did.

Remember that Atari had to convince people to drop a system that they were probably satisfied with and get them to go with one from a hardware maker that hadn't done much worth a damn since the early 1980's. You need to do a lot better than Zool 2.

Going back through the memory banks, I remember being impressed with AvP. But that same Christmas I was playing Chrono Trigger, Yoshi's Island, etc.

I'm gong to ignore the made up part of the post you "assumed" by pretending I said something I didn't in the middle.

I-war was a game that was supposed to come out in 1993. You're not helping your argument and you're not backpedaling.

Are you really going to pretend a lot of the PSX's 94-95 games actually looked that good outside a few exceptions? The PSX really did not kick until 97 outside japan.

The PSX was not impressive at launch. Also Zool 2 wasn't the only game I listed and it's a good technical 2D game,a gain you are literally nitpicking and trying to grasp at straws.

And also company not worth anything since the 80's? The St was a popular computer, the 7800, and Lynx sold millions with great games, the 8-bit line of computers was still selling and was a big part for a lot of people and businesses. Had great arcade titles as well.

 

[nkarafo]

Is the OP a time traveler? Why is the post written in present tense?

Can some mod fix the grammar mistake in the title please?

 

[SmokedMeat]

Which is why the 3DO sold millions. No wait.

Also the 3DO did not launch with "junk" It launched with Battle Chess, a popular PC kids game with Putt Putt, It launched with one of the most amazing party games and best use of FMV I've seen with Twisted, it had Crash N' Burn, which got the press talking and plays really well, It had Draxons Revenge a 360 scale 3D shooter, It had the must play superior version of the popular Flashback. It had a pretty good doom style FPS with escape from Monster Manor, Also it had Guardian War for an Jrpg.

It had a pretty good line-up to a person watching during it's 1993 launch.

Also no the PSX nor Saturn had games that obliterated the 3DO, and inf act both shared games with it for a few years. The 3DO got obliterated after it died.

Don't give me the revised fictitious history. I was around for it, and know how things went down.

Battle Chess? Putt Putt? Are you serious?

Crash and Burn reviewed poorly.
So did Total Eclipse
So did Mad Dog Mcree
So did everything. Unless you want a kid's
game, which what kid had a $700 3DO?

Shared games with PlayStation and Saturn?
You mean the games ported to those systems so the developer could try and make money? Because barely anyone was including 3DO in the multiplayer titles. The system was far too weak for PlayStation/Saturn level games. It pushed somewhere around 20,000 polygons per second, which was nothing.

You must be that guy I ran into a long while back that claimed the system had 500,000 games.