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[FoxMcChief]

No, you're probably thinking of the canceled Phantom and its lapboard.

No way! I wanted that lap board something fierce. I just remember going to the toy store down the street and they had some console in a kiosk with a controller that had 120 buttons on it.

 

[Havoc2049]

The Jaguar was a fun console to own as a side console. If it was your main jam and you chose it over a Genesis, SNES, Saturn or Playstation, it wasn't that great. It also wasn't a great casual console to own, as you really had to be into the Jaguar scene to get the most out of it. You had to do some research and stay plugged into the community for retailers, release dates, games in development, events, etc.

The Jag had some unique exclusives and some classics ported to the system, so the library isn't that bad for not having that many games.

I always felt the best hidden gem was Super Burnout.

 

[Paperclip Killa]

One thing about the jaguar is you could say it was a N64 version .05, and people spend too much time believing sometimes deserved slander to realize that. Almost everything about N64 hardware or games people say it brought to gaming, was already done on the jaguar except the joystick, (Neo Geo CD gets that one)

Stuff that the PS1, 3DOM, and Saturn lacked that people say the N64 brought with its hardware, was already in the Jaguar, difficulty in using those features notwithstanding.

Flare were geniuses but were restricted by a timetable and cheapness mandate by Atari to reach a $250 price msrp. But if they had a bit more time for QA it would have been legendary for what you got in 1993 and 1994 for the price. The jaguar was way ahead of everyone offering the features it did for only $250 in 1993. Another big mistake was having IBM do the manufacturing, the were incompetent, expensive, and caused production disasters. Why Atari even gave the greenlight for the Jaguar being released across Europe and Japan boggles my mind.

When you look at the big picture you had a $250 Jaguar competing against an $800 PC (bare minimum) to play comparable games in 1993, and a $3DO$ that was introduced with a $700 price tag. Late 1994 the Sega Saturn was released for $450 in Japanese currency, then later released in 1995 for $400 in the US. Sony introduced their PlayStation console in 1995 for $299 but were taking a loss to achieve this. We wouldn't see an introductory price of $250 again until the N64 3 years later, offering many of the same features the jaguar did but less difficult to work with and with better technology that had reduced significantly in price. The only reason why the PlayStation was comparable and won out in many cases is because Nintendo also hurt themselves with a mandate of cheapness. Both Nintendo and Atari sold at a profit with $250.

I think the biggest problem with the Jaguar for those people who were excited when Atari first announced it, is that Atari had everything they needed to win, but ran head-first into every problem that would help cause them to lose, and most of it was avoidable.

 

[MiguelItUp]

Man, system gets a lot of hate, but as a kiddo with no PC, I loved it! Even if there weren't many solid releases, haha. The Wolfenstein and DOOM ports were the best at the time. Main reason I wanted it was because of Alien Vs Predator, which I loved as well. The whole number pad thing and the covers that came with each game was an interesting idea, haha.

 

[IbizaPocholo]

The Atari Jaguar is a home video game console developed by Atari Corporation and released in North America in November 1993. Part of the fifth generation of video game consoles, it competed with the 16-bit Sega Genesis, the Super NES and the 32-bit 3DO Interactive Multiplayer that launched the same year. Powered by two custom 32-bit processors — Tom and Jerry — in addition to a Motorola 68000, Atari marketed it as the world's first 64-bit game system, emphasizing its 64-bit bus used by the blitter.[1] The Jaguar launched with Cybermorph as the pack-in game,[11] which received divisive reviews. The system's library ultimately comprised only 50 licensed games.

Development of the Atari Jaguar started in the early 1990s by Flare Technology, which focused on the system after cancellation of the Atari Panther console. The multi-chip architecture, hardware bugs, and poor tools made writing games for the Jaguar difficult. Underwhelming sales further eroded the console's third-party support.[11]

Atari attempted to extend the lifespan of the system with the Atari Jaguar CD add-on, with an additional 13 games, and emphasizing the Jaguar's price of over US$100 less than its competitors.[12] With the release of the Sega Saturn and Sony PlayStation in 1995, sales of the Jaguar continued to fall. It sold no more than 150,000 units before it was discontinued in 1996. The commercial failure of the Jaguar prompted Atari to leave the console market.

 

[RAIDEN1]

I don't know if I mentioned it before already, but in all honesty I just can't see how the Jag if all went right with it could have competed with the PS-X and Saturn much less the N64....

 

[diffusionx]

I remember in my class there was a kid who said he was going to get a Jag for Christmas that year and we all made fun of him.

 

[Ozzy Onya A2Z]

How many of these gems are in the Atari anniversary celebration pack? I almost bought it last night.

 

[Havoc2049]

How many of these gems are in the Atari anniversary celebration pack? I almost bought it last night.

Out of the games shown in the video posted by the OP, only Missile Command 3D is included in the Atari 50 collection. The best game in the whole Atari 50 collection is arguably Tempest 2000. Missile Command VR is the main game in Missile Command 3D, along with 3D and Classic modes. The VR mode is a solid game and really unique, but it gets REALLY hard on the last stage. Just think of the VR mode as Missile Command, but is first person mode and you can switch between the three gun emplacements that encircle the city you are trying to protect, with missiles and various baddies raining down on you from above. There are various enemies, power ups, sub and main boss battles. Battling and defeating the dragon in the sky city stage is a trip and kinda cool.

I don't know if I mentioned it before already, but in all honesty I just can't see how the Jag if all went right with it could have competed with the PS-X and Saturn much less the N64....

The Tramiel family ran a tight ship and a bare bones operation without much overhead. If they could have just sold a couple million Jags, they could have maybe kept going and we would have seen more games, the Jag Duo and the Jag 2. For the Jag to be a big time success, they would have had to get WAY more Silicon Valley venture capital investment or partner up with a larger company. They just didn't have the money to compete.

 

[RAIDEN1]

Out of the games shown in the video posted by the OP, only Missile Command 3D is included in the Atari 50 collection. The best game in the whole Atari 50 collection is arguably Tempest 2000. Missile Command VR is the main game in Missile Command 3D, along with 3D and Classic modes. The VR mode is a solid game and really unique, but it gets REALLY hard on the last stage. Just think of the VR mode as Missile Command, but is first person mode and you can switch between the three gun emplacements that encircle the city you are trying to protect, with missiles and various baddies raining down on you from above. There are various enemies, power ups, sub and main boss battles. Battling and defeating the dragon in the sky city stage is a trip and kinda cool.



The Tramiel family ran a tight ship and a bare bones operation without much overhead. If they could have just sold a couple million Jags, they could have maybe kept going and we would have seen more games, the Jag Duo and the Jag 2. For the Jag to be a big time success, they would have had to get WAY more Silicon Valley venture capital investment or partner up with a larger company. They just didn't have the money to compete.

The irony is though, where Jag had Tom and Jerry but next to no developers interested in them, on top of the fact it had a Motorola processor from 1985, and then Sega also went with the dual chipset and developers couldn't be bothered with that either...I mean if you are Atari R and D at least think about ok, if we are going to make this console a success we need to make sure there are no bottlenecks anywhere....even the controller looked like something out of 1983, let alone 1993....this console was for all intents and purposes Atari's CD32....that console proclaimed to be the first 32 bit system on the market, yet the 3DO wiped the floor with it in terms of true 32 bit games...the only achilles heel for the 3DO was its price....but tech wise it could certainly hold its own against the Saturn and PSX in the early years...

 

[cinnamonandgravy]

just watched this last night.

it had three processors... two beefy 64/32-bit processors, and an old ass 68000 (e.g., genesis cpu). a lot of devs werent familiar or had trouble with the new beefy processors, so they just developed for the 68000, ha.
apparently one of atari's head honchos even said to avoid using the 68000 for primary game logic, but devs did it anyway.

so basically you got a slightly fancier genesis, but without any of the good games/developers.

 

[diffusionx]

just watched this last night.

it had three processors... two beefy 64/32-bit processors, and an old ass 68000 (e.g., genesis cpu). a lot of devs werent familiar or had trouble with the new beefy processors, so they just developed for the 68000, ha.
apparently one of atari's head honchos even said to avoid using the 68000 for primary game logic, but devs did it anyway.

so basically you got a slightly fancier genesis, but without any of the good games/developers.

It also had some crippling hardware bugs that meant devs couldn’t take full advantage of it.

 

[RoboFu]

Having owned a jaguar during its time on the shelves ( not some collector playing it years later ). I can safely say … no there wasn’t 10 gems of any sort. There wasn’t even 5. There was a few third party mediocre games that it played well but that’s it.
Club drive was fun for an hour maybe.

 

[Havoc2049]

The irony is though, where Jag had Tom and Jerry but next to no developers interested in them, on top of the fact it had a Motorola processor from 1985, and then Sega also went with the dual chipset and developers couldn't be bothered with that either...I mean if you are Atari R and D at least think about ok, if we are going to make this console a success we need to make sure there are no bottlenecks anywhere....even the controller looked like something out of 1983, let alone 1993....this console was for all intents and purposes Atari's CD32....that console proclaimed to be the first 32 bit system on the market, yet the 3DO wiped the floor with it in terms of true 32 bit games...the only achilles heel for the 3DO was its price....but tech wise it could certainly hold its own against the Saturn and PSX in the early years...

Again, most of it comes down to money. There was talk of using the 68020 or 68030 as the base controller CPU and having 4 MB of RAM instead of 2 MB of RAM, but Atari wanted to stay at a mass market price point and couldn't afford to sell the console at a loss or break even point.

The Jaguar CoJag arcade board used in Area 51 by Atari Games, had the 68020 and more RAM and the results were pretty impressive.


Saying the 3DO is better than the Jaguar or CD32 isn't saying much. . They all three bombed hard. In the grand scheme of things, the 3DO library isn't that impressive. The library mainly consisted of PC ports and the cool next gen Electronic Arts games were quickly ported to the Saturn and Playstation. First party support was slim at best on the 3DO. At least the Jaguar had a bunch of first party games that were unique to the system and couldn't be played anywhere else.

When the 3DO and Jaguar/Jag CD did go Head-to-Head in games that appeared on both systems, the results were pretty much even.

 

[nush]

Missile Command VR is the main game in Missile Command 3D, along with 3D and Classic modes. The VR mode is a solid game and really unique, but it gets REALLY hard on the last stage. Just think of the VR mode as Missile Command

Does it actually support PSVR? The Jag version had Jag VR support included but the hardware never was released.

 

[Agent X]

on top of the fact it had a Motorola processor from 1985

For what it's worth, the Sega Saturn also contained one of those old Motorola processors.

 

[Romulus]

Playing AvP going from Genesis/snes was mind blowing at the time. That was a colossal jump and my brother and I were huge fans of the franchises.

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

Saying the 3DO is better than the Jaguar or CD32 isn't saying much. . They all three bombed hard. In the grand scheme of things, the 3DO library isn't that impressive. The library mainly consisted of PC ports and the cool next gen Electronic Arts games were quickly ported to the Saturn and Playstation.

Lol?

3DO is a failed console but comparing it to the CD32 or Jaguar is a bit crazy. Also many games not playable anywhere else the system has hundreds of games, unlike the other two.

Though iirc I think CD32 had more games than the Jaguar which is pretty funny given CD32 didn't even last 8 months.

For what it's worth, the Sega Saturn also contained one of those old Motorola processors.

It was used in arcades until the 2000s.

It was a major breakthrough CPU that was utilized in so many electronics gaming or non. Some computers ran primarily on it. Too bad Motorola messed up later on and ruined their chance to be competitive in the processor space. Now they make underpowered phones for Lenovo.

The irony is though, where Jag had Tom and Jerry but next to no developers interested in them

More like it was very hard to even get to them, or use them.

The irony is though, wherI mean if you are Atari R and D at least think about ok,

R&D?? Atari didn't even make the console lol. They had the design and plans with prototyping, and then due to funds outsourced it to third party UK company with no finished products that had internal problems with developer consistency for both the Jaguar and the Panther. Granted, the Jaguar was in prototype for incredibly impressive until they actually started working on the insides, and then IBM was contracted to manufacture the units which ended up making things worse.

Now that I think about it, Atari hadn't made a console since the Lynx 2 which they were involved with. Before that the Xegs in 87, they only really made (some) Computers after 1987, outside the Lynx 2.

That's what happens when you outsource the entirety of your hardware to a third-party, maybe half at most but the whole thing?

.that console proclaimed to be the first 32 bit system on the market,

Actually they claimed 64-bit, and they were right technically. Console marketed ruined how devices were determined by bits, it was by the Bus, which is why many said the N64 was 32-bit despite the claim of being 64-bit. Whether a "part" in the console was a certain bit was some silly console marketing nonense.

Technically, Atari was the first console to have a 64-bit bus despite that being pointless because of the poor internal design. Actually, not entirely pintless because the console would be incredibly crippled with a 32-bit bus. Technically though they were right, it was the first "64-bit" console, and iirc the ONLY one as I don't recall another console with a 64-bit bus (PS2/DC were 128 iirc, and Xbox original was 32-bit.)

Of course it didn't rally matter. But like I said, if Atari wanted to outsource their hardware they should have done it with someone with a brand name and at least one finished product under their belt.