Atari Jaguar

[trufun202]

This forum has plenty of people that appreciate the not-so-mainstream side of gaming... Soooo, have any of your guys owned or played the Atari Jaguar?

This is honestly one of my favorite consoles of all time. The magazines ripped it to shreds...aside from AVP and Tempest 2000, all Jaguar games got shit reviews. Which actually made me love the Jaguar that much more.

If you happen to check out the Jaguar one day, may I recommend the following:

Atari Karts - basically SNES Mario Kart w/ better graphics and characters you've never heard of...
Alien vs. Predator - an amazing FPS for its time, with incredible depth
Fight for Life - a 3D fighter, made by the dude that programmed the cameras in Virtua Fighter
BattleSphere - a homebrew 3D space shooter that was completed long after the Jaguar's death
BattleMorph (CD) - a damn good 3D shooter / adventure game and a damn good sequel.
Tempest 2000 - one of my favorite games of all time
Defender 2000 - yet another classic from the legendary Jeff Minter (creator of Tempest 2000)
Iron Soldier 1 & 2 - a mech-based 3D shooter with fun gameplay and amazing explosions
Rayman - that's right...it all started on the Jaguar
Super Burnout - kinda like Sega's Hang-On, but with better graphics and a 60 fps framerate.
Ultra Vortek - the 90's was the decade of fighting games, this one was pretty damn cool for a console.
Zero 5 - a nice little 3D space shooter released a few years after the death of Jaguar.

I dunno...back in the day, I was a huge Nintendo and 3DO fan, but the Jaguar has earned a special place in my gaming heart.

EDIT: Oh yeah, I forgot to mention Missle Command 3D.

[bulls.bears2011]

Yeah, I hope to get a Jaguar at some point. It was ahead of its time, 64-bit way before anyone else was. However, the controller was shit, which was probably up there in the main reasons for failure. Also, Atari's name had just been destroyed by the time the Atari Jaguar came out.

Kind of sad.

Just imagine if it had succeeded. Would Atari still be in the big three? Would Microsoft have still made the Xbox?

The Jaguar's success would have a butterfly effect and completely make the current gaming market different that it currently is, I think.

[eatcomics]

We may have virtual reality instead of the wii

[trufun202]

Yeah, I hope to get a Jaguar at some point. It was ahead of its time, 64-bit way before anyone else was. However, the controller was shit, which was probably up there in the main reasons for failure.

They later came out with a much improved 6 button controller. It was a little smaller, more responsive, and had the 3 extra buttons:

[bulls.bears2011]

Yeah.

Though, the Atari name being ruined would have to be one of the biggest reasons still.

[programmerinprogress]

They later came out with a much improved 6 button controller. It was a little smaller, more responsive, and had the 3 extra buttons:

it looks like an xbox360 controller (with it's keyboard attatchment) after a steam-roller's been over it


Still... would be interesting to see what happened if Atari has pushed on with consoles, but that's like saying if the CD-based console deal didn't fall through between sony and nintendo (or panasonic and nintendo), would we have had the nintendoPlayCDI64?

mind boggling

[Falco Girgis]

Man, this topic really makes me want a Jaguar.

I have almost every mainstream console and plenty of more obscure ones, but the Jaguar has always eluded me. I was aware that there were some pretty damn good games for it, but I didn't realize that it had things like Tempest and Rayman.

...I guess I know what I'll have to spend my next grant from the University on.

[trufun202]

Man, this topic really makes me want a Jaguar.

I have almost every mainstream console and plenty of more obscure ones, but the Jaguar has always eluded me. I was aware that there were some pretty damn good games for it, but I didn't realize that it had things like Tempest and Rayman.

...I guess I know what I'll have to spend my next grant from the University on.

Check out viMasterJag's YouTube channel. He's got alot of gameplay videos of Jaguar games, even some that were never released.

You can see the Jaguar at its BEST:

Tempest 2000

Alien vs. Predator

BattleSphere

Phase Zero

...and at its WORST:

Club Drive

Supercross 3D

White Men Can't Jump

The Jaguar hardware was a 2D powerhouse, but 3D games were up and coming at the time... Many of the early 3D Jag games had little to no texture mapping, but by the time the 3DO and Saturn hit the scene, Atari felt the need to up the poly counts and add textures -- which led to some HORRENDOUS framerates. BattleSphere and Phase Zero are games that were released after the Jaguar's death - developers were just starting to show the console's potential.

[programmerinprogress]

I watched the videos, and I have to say, some of the games looked pretty good.

one thing I noticed straight away was the fact that the better games used mainly 2D sprites (AVP and phase zero ) on a 3D surface, sort of like doom, but with an enhanced colour pallet, which is cool.

The poorer games just looked rushed and unfinished, probably due to the lack of textures and quality soundtracks, i'm guessing full texturing would probably have rendered the games unplayable due to the low frame rates...

I think if this console had better programmers working on jaguar games, then who knows, the jaguar might have made it yet.

[Kcirtap1990]

I watched the videos, and I have to say, some of the games looked pretty good.

one thing I noticed straight away was the fact that the better games used mainly 2D sprites (AVP and phase zero ) on a 3D surface, sort of like doom, but with an enhanced colour pallet, which is cool.

The poorer games just looked rushed and unfinished, probably due to the lack of textures and quality soundtracks, i'm guessing full texturing would probably have rendered the games unplayable due to the low frame rates...

I think if this console had better programmers working on jaguar games, then who knows, the jaguar might have made it yet.

With the Sony PlayStation coming out a year and a half later and the Nintendo 64 another year after that, I think the Atari Jaguar was pretty much doomed regardless. Although, within that year and a half it could have easily pulled out some pretty sweet games.

[trufun202]

With the Sony PlayStation coming out a year and a half later and the Nintendo 64 another year after that, I think the Atari Jaguar was pretty much doomed regardless. Although, within that year and a half it could have easily pulled out some pretty sweet games.

That whole era of consoles (3DO, Jaguar, and Saturn) was pretty doomed... The PlayStation was out earlier in Japan, so US gamers could see what was soon to come - which was an impressive leap.

[programmerinprogress]

it occurs to me, the console market is a lot like the economy. You have booms and busts. basically, you have a few years where companies (or consoles) prosper, everyone's happy, then too many competitors get in on the action, and the general public literally can't afford to maintain all consoles and all of their games, therefore someone has to go.

There was a video game crash in 1983, there was a much more minor one in the 90's, whats not to say there won't be one in the future?

In my opinion, we're kind of past that whole console boom and bust thing, all three competitors in the market are very strong, and they both have consistent sales, also the complexity of professional hardware and software makes developing a new console, with no brand identity a very unappealing task to any newcomers.

The console market, in essence, is oligopolistic(like a monopoly, but with slightly more competitors)

In my opinion, something extremely revolutionary must be developed if we want to see any more competitors (companies can't really get away with 64-bit and Blast-processing any more, a new console would need a unique edge, kinda like the wii's control system, but even more unique)

perhaps there is only room in the market for 3 dominating consoles, your thoughts?

[eatcomics]

Well it would take me years to think of something revolutionary, let alone get a demo of it...

[Kcirtap1990]

it occurs to me, the console market is a lot like the economy. You have booms and busts. basically, you have a few years where companies (or consoles) prosper, everyone's happy, then too many competitors get in on the action, and the general public literally can't afford to maintain all consoles and all of their games, therefore someone has to go.

There was a video game crash in 1983, there was a much more minor one in the 90's, whats not to say there won't be one in the future?

In my opinion, we're kind of past that whole console boom and bust thing, all three competitors in the market are very strong, and they both have consistent sales, also the complexity of professional hardware and software makes developing a new console, with no brand identity a very unappealing task to any newcomers.

The console market, in essence, is oligopolistic(like a monopoly, but with slightly more competitors)

In my opinion, something extremely revolutionary must be developed if we want to see any more competitors (companies can't really get away with 64-bit and Blast-processing any more, a new console would need a unique edge, kinda like the wii's control system, but even more unique)

perhaps there is only room in the market for 3 dominating consoles, your thoughts?

Same thing with auto makers, its another example of an oligopoly. Only so many companies can exist, and so when there are too many, one usually gets pushed out. This is what is happening now (with a lot of other stuff) with GM and other American car industries. People just aren't buying the cars.

Now back to video game consoles. This generation there have been roughly 83 million video game console sales total. With three consoles that is about 28 million each. Add in a fourth then the average would be 21 million. That is a pretty big difference. Now, the Wii has 34.55 million sales, statistically if there was a fourth console it would be down to 26 million sales, below the current average. I think it is pretty clear to see that just adding one more console to the mix could easily cause one of the four to not make it to the next generation.

[programmerinprogress]

Exactly, but how likely is it that another console would be able to dare I say it, 'penetrate' the market?, they would have to come up with the ultimate marketing campaign, no bullshit, and their product would have to be of mass appeal (not nessecarily the most technically advanced, but the console would need a competitive edge over the rest) There would have to be one hell of a USP.

Also, I think launching a console requires expert timing, from what i've heard, people believe dreamcast came at the wrong time, it was too late to get in on the playstation/N64 generation, but too early to compete against the soon to be released(back then) gamecube/xbox and ps2, this hypothetical system would have to come out at a time where there was little competition out there with a new product, but there was high demand for a new system, currently that isn't the case, I don't know about you, but i'm pretty happy with what i've got (Xbox360)

And to think... I got an E in economics (before dropping it...and dropping off to sleep from the boredom of that lesson) and yet this interests me