Atari Jaguar alt history thread

[Anonymous No.1233762]

Is there any way this could've succeeded?

[Anonymous No.1233768]

The only way it would be successful is if it weren't a game console.
Like maybe if it were something else.

[Anonymous No.1233773]

Rayman was a solid game. If they locked in Rayman as their mascot and focused on 2D games they could've attracted all the later 32 bit 2D titles that went to PS1 and Saturn instead.

[Anonymous No.1233778]

>>1233773
Nah, the controller was TERRIBLE.
If the controller is no fun to use gamers will move on.

[Anonymous No.1233779]

I own one and a bunch of the better games for it. It sucks. Quality is never been mutually inclusive with financial success, but still I say no fucking way.

[Anonymous No.1233783]

>>1233773
>Symphony of The Night on Jaguar

Hmmm...... nope.

[Anonymous No.1233784]

>>1233779

It does Doom perfectly and Wolf3D better than perfectly. I wonder if games like Duke Nukem 3D or Shadow Warrior could've run decently on it.

Rise of the Triad could've.

[Anonymous No.1233797]

The best game it had apart from Tempest 2000 was Aliens vs Predator. That game only has one flaw, a chunky framerate. It only has that problem because it tried to innovate by keeping the entire game map in memory all the time. So enemies in distant corners of the map would be doing their thing wherever you were in real time.

The engine itself was perfectly capable of 30-60fps on the Jag hardware and looked fantastic for the time due to high color artwork. If they'd just separated it into levels like any other fps it could've run very smoothly, enough so that splitscreen multi would've been feasible.

[Anonymous No.1233801]

Wasn't Jag more or less on the same level, graphically, as the gba?

Gba had some pretty impressive titles near the end of its lifespan. Developers really did some amazing things with it.

[Anonymous No.1233895]

It basically just comes down to the fact that 3rd parties weren't ready to trust Atari anymore after the crash. There was basically no Japanese support at all. Atari could have had the English market for Famicom and they turned it down to develop 7800 then they just skipped over the fourth gen completely unless you count the SL computers. Nobody believed in them anymore.

[Anonymous No.1233898]

All they needed was better third party support and ship with a non shit controller.

[Anonymous No.1233907]

if it came with a cd drive, spent more time on the hardware, closer to what the 'jaguar 2' was going to be, less alienating gamepad, they could have produced a succesful niche market, at least.

[Anonymous No.1233912]

It should have just embraced its true destiny as a dental camera.

[Anonymous No.1233938]

They shouldn't have harped on about how 64 bit it was when the graphics didn't match the expectations that number created in the minds of consumers.

Call it 24 bit whether it was or wasn't. Or 32 bit at the very most.

[Anonymous No.1233959]

the game library and technical prowess couldn't really top the presentation and name. also nobody really knew what bits did so ramming that down our throat didn't help anything. also atari. also the controller was crap. more buttons != better gameplay experience. yes I've played it, my buddy owned it and several games.

[Anonymous No.1233997]

>>1233912
the shell looks nice in white

[Anonymous No.1234005]

>>1233997

Some guy bought the mold and was selling replacement shells in a bunch of colors on ebay a while back - turns out he is still selling the white ones : http://www.ebay.com/itm/Atari-Jaguar-new-White-Plastic-Console-Replacement-Covers-/110804896487?pt=US_Video_Game_Cases_Bags&hash=item19cc7c8ae7

[Anonymous No.1234035]

>>1233959
>also nobody really knew what bits did so ramming that down our throat didn't help anything.
Were you around back in the early and mid nineties? No one knew the nitty-gritty, but sixteen bits was clearly better than eight, and sixty-four should have been amazing.

But it clearly didn't live up to tht promise, compared to the "inferior" thrity-two bit Playstation and Saturn, and the tru sixty-four bit Nintendo 64.

[Anonymous No.1234063]

>>1233784
The thing about the jaguar is that it was extremely difficult to get the most out of it's hardware, perhaps more difficult than the saturn, if only because of lack of documentation.

Carmack personally worked on the Doom port (likely the reason it runs so well), but even he avoided most of the jaguar's hardware because it was undocumented and just terribly designed.

[Anonymous No.1234070]

>>1234063
What I meant to add at the end, is that it could have done Duke and Shadow Warrior, maybe even Quake is programmed well enough.

[Anonymous No.1234078]

>>1234063
What I meant to add at the end, is that it could have done Duke and Shadow Warrior, maybe even Quake if programmed well enough.

[Anonymous No.1234089]

I remember seeing KB Toys selling a stack of these things for $20 each. Still overpriced...

[Anonymous No.1234098]

One of the things was that they never actually advertised the thing, and they didn't have enough 3rd party support for good games. Some of the games on there were pretty good, I had a lot of fun with Blue Lightning, and of course Alien vs Predator. And of course the controller was insane, though it wasn't uncomfortable to me, it just had a lot of buttons.

[Anonymous No.1234123]

How did someone look at the keypad controller and go "Yeah, let's do that"? How does that happen?

[Anonymous No.1234136]

>>1234035
yes I was
But a shunned hardware company couldn't just start touting big numbers. Nintendo could get away with it, really they got away with everything else. except virtual boy.

[Anonymous No.1234140]

>>1234123
atari has trouble designing controllers with more than one button

[Anonymous No.1234145]

>>1234063
Id software created the first code used to make the link adaptor, buggy at that, but due to jaguar not even supplying the code for developers. Doom also cant play music and play at the same time as they couldnt figure out how to do it, but it created some good ambience, i guess.

[Anonymous No.1234149]

>>1234145
>jaguar/atari
complete bug free code for using the link adaptor came out in 2000 years after the console died by the guys who made battlesphere, which is now a 1000 dollar cartridge in perfect and complete condition

[Anonymous No.1234159]

How it could of worked

- Dont lie about the specs
- Quality control on the games and systems
- Expand your markets in both Asia and EU
- GAMES (just because your system can to 3d dosnt mean 99% of the games should be in 3d, look at the Saturn, it could do 3d but also offered alot of amazing 2d games)
- Either not of bothered with a CD expansion OR had it on board from the start
- Not be an Atari product
- Scrapped the RF port on the back in favor of AV (adverts called it the next gen and what not but used RF....the god damned NES did AV almost 10 years before this)
- "borrowed" the Super famicom controller design and scrapped the insert/inlays on the controller
- Make a few "best of" carts featuring the best of Ataris past and have 8 to 10 arcade ports on the cart

-

[Anonymous No.1234170]

>>1234159
These mofos also had a modem coming out.. It could have really been something special if they did it right.

[Anonymous No.1234185]

I like to think threads like these are by dreamers that are communicating with people from another time in an attempt to change the history of failed consoles. Every gamer is a winner if every console is a winner.

[Anonymous No.1234191]

>>1233912
My dentist office has one of those. I will never unsee it

[Anonymous No.1234201]

I wonder how many people who whine about the controller have actually used it.

I had no problems with it. The keypad may have been a little awkward, but given controllers available up to that time, was not an illogical thing to do; especially as they were not meant to be action buttons. At worst, just unimaginative.

[Anonymous No.1234270]

>>1234201
Yeah and the pro controller is a great improvement. It just looks like youre into weird shit to most people.

[Anonymous No.1234368]

>>1233762
Maybe if it focused more on porting some of the early PC games. I still say the controller killed it though. Easily one of the top 5 worst controllers of all time.

[Anonymous No.1234412]

>>1234123
There were a few early consoles with keypad like the Colecovision or the Intellivision.

[Anonymous No.1235030]

>>1234412

Still a horrible, horrible design choice around the time of the jaguar.

[Anonymous No.1235034]

>>1234170

>These mofos also had a modem coming out.. It could have really been something special if they did it right.

Not really. It was just a bit too early for that. It might have been a good selling point but in the end it would just have been a niche.

[Anonymous No.1235052]

1. The system architecture was God awful and made it extremely difficult to develop for, which resulted in no games due to third parties not being assed enough to port games over, and exclusives looking like shit. It was technically 64-bit, but very few games ended up harnessing whatever power it had, Alien vs. Predator being the lone exception off the top of my head.

2. The controller isn't bad because of the keypad, it's terrible because the D-pad and face buttons are the shittiest ever implemented in any controller in history. I can't even describe how atrocious they are, it's something that just has to be experienced. The keypad is actually nice, especially for PC ports like Cannon Fodder and Syndicate, as well as the FPS games.

[Anonymous No.1235107]

>Implying the Jaguar controller isn't a massively improved version of the 5200 controller

[Anonymous No.1235112]

>>1234201
The first and only time I've ever played a Jaguar was around 1996 or 1997, whenever KB Toys had them on $30 clearance trying to get rid of them all. I found the controller overly bulky and not at all comfortable. In retrospect I wish I had said "Yes" when my grandmother asked me if I wanted it, if only to have as a novelty nowadays.

[Anonymous No.1237562]

>terrible controllers
>not actually 64-bit, just technically
>awful to develop for
>cd peripheral that was fucking shit, as in, the way they were constructed would ensure that 99% of them would break

If it had been a completely different console, maybe.

[Anonymous No.1237604]

>>1233784
>It does Doom
Didn't it have no music? That's kind of a big flaw when it comes to porting Doom.

[Anonymous No.1237610]

>>1233801
The GBA was optimized.
The Jaguar wasn't.

[I ain't tripfagging !!jIVnZZY3Z6j No.1237681]

it had a kickass port of Raiden

[Anonymous No.1237728]

>>1233762

Not really. Atari was great but by this time it was outdated. It's like Sega trying to make a new console

[Anonymous No.1239138]

>>1233895
Didn't Coleco interfere with the Atari/Nintendo deal due to it supposedly infringing their exclusive right to release Donkey Kong on home consoles?

[Anonymous No.1239160]

>>1239138
Like... because there was already a Famicom version produced by Nintendo? Anyway something like that could easily have been worked around.

[Anonymous No.1239219]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OayPZ5cUpJY

this vid probably sums up a lot of issues

[Anonymous No.1239610]

Why the fuck is Jaguar so expensive?
It's not really rare and every one thinks it's piece of shit (as it is), but still it goes for ~150$ in ebay as a losed.

[Anonymous No.1239626]

>>1239610
I blame AVGN, I swear whenever he covers something it shoots up in price

[Anonymous No.1240116]

>>1237562
>not actually 64-bit, just technically

what?

[Anonymous No.1240131]

This console had potential, it was the next step in technology in consoles, it could do 3-d and 2-d fine and it used cartidges (no load times).

The problem was the lack of games, no advertisement compared to PS1, hard to code and the fact that atari couldn't afford another fail.

[Anonymous No.1240140]

>>1234201
It fucking sucks.

[Anonymous No.1240274]

>>1239219
sounds like a pair of guys trying to be edgy.

[Anonymous No.1240327]

>>1240116

watch the vid @ >>1239219 around 0:40 mark. It had a 32 bit GPU and a 32 bit CPU with a 64 bit graphics accelerator.

>>1240274

I'm not saying they're funny, but they had a few good points about why the console failed.

Poor game library, shitty marketing campaign, misleading information about its graphical capabilities, bad controller design and Atari itself had already fucked up one too many times for anyone to have any confidence in the console. Could it have been great? Sure. Almost any console has potential. But I wouldn't compare it to something like the Sega Saturn which is a real case I think of a gem console not getting its proper due (at least in the States).

[Anonymous No.1240331]

>>1240140
Do you still occasionally hook up your Jaguar and play it?

[Anonymous No.1240334]

>>1240331
I have one and no, I don't.

[Anonymous No.1242016]

Atari made one good product to last an eternity, 2600. They realy mattered and I feel sorry for their misfortune

[Anonymous No.1243564]

>>1240334
That's not me. Wish we had IDs back. Yes I do, and I still think it sucks.

[Anonymous No.1243573]

>>1243564
I think he probably knows it wasn't you or else the person would have had no need to mention that he also has one.

If you can't keep up or being recognized is so important to you become a namefag.

[Anonymous No.1243589]

>>1243573
Being recognized isn't important, but knowing who you're talking to, at least in the sense of addressing someones post, is some what necessary. The way I took >>1240334's post was him saying sarcastically ">>1240140 (me) has one and doesn't hook it up/play it". It's been a little over a day since I've posted the pic. Working and other activities make it a little hard to "keep up". Instead of replying to me, he/she should have replied to >>1234201. This is a minor thing that is being made out to be more than it is. Please, let's drop it.

[Anonymous No.1243591]

>>1243589
But I did forget to add that I'm sorry to >>1240334 if it wasn't meant to be the way I thought it was.

[Anonymous No.1244115]

>>1233762
As a kid I always thought this thing looked too much like a toilet to be taken seriously. And know that I see it as an adult it still looks like a toilet, except with a remote control for flushing.

[Anonymous No.1244126]

>>1233773

Wasn't Rayman ported to PS1 before the Jaguar was even out?

[Anonymous No.1244142]

>>1240140
Where did you learn to fly?

[Anonymous No.1244953]

>>1234089

$20 Tempest 2000 machine is pretty good, yo.

Though if someone finds a $50 Nuon with Tempest 3000. Give me a call.

[Anonymous No.1245337]

>No door on the cart slot

What the hell. I can't imagine how dirty any given Jaguar is inside by now. Of all the things they could have cut, they leave the cart reader unprotected?

[Anonymous No.1245345]

PS1 was better at 3D and Saturn was better at 2D.

There's no way it could have succeeded.

[Anonymous No.1245852]

>>1244142
What do you mean?

[Anonymous No.1245854]

>>1244142
I hate you