1035 replies to this topic

[Pete5125]

the stuff that is forgoten is that Atari had to release something in 93 they had stocks that where trending in the less than $1 range and had to release something, the Lynx was dead the Falcon was over with it was either liquidation and become a software company to the competition, or release the system they had as is...using leftover controllers from the Falcon was a mistake, not spending what they had to get Mortal Kombat on the system ASAP or Street Fighter 2, at this time it was sports games and street fighter ports, Atari had neither if these.

The ads at the time where inivative they where designer by the same company that made Sega Scream a houshold thing, Atari did alot of things wrong but the company was done out of money Jag gave it a few more years Sega lawsuit winning shut it down, it was in the black 1st time in years so they did the reverse merger took the money and ran, sadly not great for fans but Atari blowing the money keeping a loosing video game system going and going under a year later with no money in the bank would of been even worst

[Felyx]

I agree with Pete: I am not sure Atari could have done it very differently as the company was already engaged in a race against the bankrupcy.

That explains many things like releasing the Jag in a hurry without even finishing to debug it and taking time to provide the developpers a proper the SDK for example.

If Atari could rewrite the history I suppose they would avoid some mistakes like recylcing the Panther games on the Jag. I think it was a poisoned gift as on a hand Atari was pushing the Jag as a revolutionary system and on the other hand the firsts games were equivalent and already seen on 16 bits systems.

I don't think they could posponed the release of the Jag that much.
The limited launch to some cities and with a small production shows that Atari was running out of money and it is not a big surprise as after having being succesfull with the ST, all other Atari products were somehow flops: 7800, XE Games, Portfolio, Stacy and of course the utter failure of the Falcon and the failure of the Lynx, crushed by the Gameboy and beaten by the Ggear on the small remaining market share for color handelds.

Atari put all the remaining money in games development and what a pity: if they only provided a decent SDK and not and sloppy one, many games could have been released before Atari closed down.

Alien vs Predator prove that good games were making good sales.
The Jag was missing blockbuster games and Mortal Kombat III, Black Ice White Noise, Demolition Man, Kick off 3, Tiny Toons could have fill that gap.
Games like Soulstar, Phase Zero, Creature Shock, Zzyorxx, Varuna's Forces would have gve the Jag a far better credibility vs 16 bits Sega and Nintendo.

I got no idea if that could have been enough to survive the Playstation but at least the Jag will have not get that ugly reputation of being a shitty system.

[JagChris]

A lot of the times the magazines would outright lie about the Jags good games. Or totally fail to review them. Two examples that come to mind are Doom and NBA Jam TE.

I believe a good chunk, probably about 25% or so, of Atari's failure at the end is the fault of the media being outright slanderous.

Edited by JagChris, Tue Apr 10, 2012 2:01 AM.

[kevincal]

ya i think what happened was sega nintendo and sony were giving loads of free stuff to the media including games whereas i heard atari always wanted their games back after review etc and were kinda hostile towards media because of a rocky past (ataris troubles in the 80s) especially egm was a huge thorn in ataris side regarding the jaguar. egm was the most popular gaming mag during the jags time and they really hated the jag and gave it bad scores including in the same issue making the 32x version of doom out to be better than the jag version lol.

[spiffyone]

I'm not going through all these pages to look for one of my old posts, but I'm pretty sure I posted in this topic long ago.

The little mini-debate about the CPU of the console jogged my memory (BTW, IMHO, the answer to the question of whether the console designers really wanted TOM to be the CPU of the console is answered by simply opening up a Jag and seeing what's silkscreened on TOM: it says right there, "CPU". That's good enough for me).

Anyway, f I recall correctly, I went on about replacing the 68k with another RISC processor, probably an R3000 based derivative, like the CoJag arcade board used. But that might've been too costly for Atari.

Regardless, I do stand by my earlier assessment that it would've been better in the long term had Atari stuck with the Panther release date in '91, and wait on the Jag until '94 at the earliest. The Jag, by then, had Panther proved somewhat successful (and I think it would've been somewhat profitable for Atari) would've been revised a bit and certainly the dev tools would've been hashed out better. That aside, I think it was an absolute mistake for Atari to lack hardware up until Jag. What did they have in '91? The pretty irrelevant by that point (though still profitable) 2600 Jr., the very much irrelevant at that point 7800, a Lynx portable that had sadly failed to take off, an 8-bit line that was dead, and a 16-bit computer line that dying. If Atari was trying to save some amount of profitability, not having real product in '91 that had room for growth was a bad move, IMHO.

So, what would I have done in '93?

I would've been ordering the early preparations for the finalization of the Jaguar hardware for a '94 or '95 launch, and I would've been prepping for another year of Panther on shelves, possibly (hopefully) by that point introducing a price drop for that system to coincide with the holiday push, and maybe a few key titles. I don't know how feasible it would've been to have ports of ST games on Panther, but from my admittedly limited understanding, Atari would've likely have had ST based dev kits for Panther anyway (as they shared the same CPU, and, from what I've read, the Panther graphics processor was in some ways similar to the ST Blitter...right?), but that would've at least given a deeper avenue of potential software and a readily installed base of potential developers (at least in Europe).

It wouldn't have been impossible for Panther to have taken off, on some level, in Europe, IMHO. ST had a good userbase there, and Panther likely would've had a little bit more "power" than the typical ST set up (typical in terms of how many consumers owned it; the highest selling ST variant) and at lower cost.

It would've been either go with Panther in '91, and keep developing and "fixing" Jaguar designs for a late '94 release, or do something even earlier:

Approach NEC with the intent of handling distribution and marketing of the US and EU versions of PC Engine (which became known as TurboGrafx-16) in '87 for an '88 launch, and release that as the successor to 7800 under the Atari brand. The key is to secure an iron clad contract with NEC so they don't and couldn't pull out of the deal, and basically try to make money without doing much of the "grunt" work of actually spending R&D on a console design, dev tools/documentation, etc. Atari would be streamlined to handle the business of selling the product. They'd be making money off of NEC's work.

Now, this is obviously looking back with today's eyes...but, honestly...that might've been the best road to take for both Atari and NEC. And it certainly would've been better for TG16 owners as they wouldn't have those dillweeds at NEC America (mis)handling the game releases as they did.

[twoquickcapri]

spiffyone, on Sun May 6, 2012 3:37 PM, said:

Regardless, I do stand by my earlier assessment that it would've been better in the long term had Atari stuck with the Panther release date in '91, and wait on the Jag until '94 at the earliest. The Jag, by then, had Panther proved somewhat successful (and I think it would've been somewhat profitable for Atari) would've been revised a bit and certainly the dev tools would've been hashed out better. That aside, I think it was an absolute mistake for Atari to lack hardware up until Jag. What did they have in '91? The pretty irrelevant by that point (though still profitable) 2600 Jr., the very much irrelevant at that point 7800, a Lynx portable that had sadly failed to take off, an 8-bit line that was dead, and a 16-bit computer line that dying. If Atari was trying to save some amount of profitability, not having real product in '91 that had room for growth was a bad move, IMHO.

I think 91 would have been to late for the Panther. It would been competing against a Sega with its new Sonic game and Nintendo with Mario World. Atari really need a new system in late '89 when 7800 sales started to taper off. Wouldn't it been awesome if Atari didn't burn its bridges with GCC. Imagine a new 16 bit system with a 68k, 64k+ of ram, MARIA III and GUMBY II.

spiffyone, on Sun May 6, 2012 3:37 PM, said:

Approach NEC with the intent of handling distribution and marketing of the US and EU versions of PC Engine (which became known as TurboGrafx-16) in '87 for an '88 launch, and release that as the successor to 7800 under the Atari brand. The key is to secure an iron clad contract with NEC so they don't and couldn't pull out of the deal, and basically try to make money without doing much of the "grunt" work of actually spending R&D on a console design, dev tools/documentation, etc. Atari would be streamlined to handle the business of selling the product. They'd be making money off of NEC's work.

Now, this is obviously looking back with today's eyes...but, honestly...that might've been the best road to take for both Atari and NEC. And it certainly would've been better for TG16 owners as they wouldn't have those dillweeds at NEC America (mis)handling the game releases as they did.

I like the idea of working with NEC but with the Jaguar. They could use the Jag hardware in place of the PC-FX. With NEC help they could beef up the jag. They could supply the NEC V810 CPU to replace the 68k, add more RAM and supply extra resources to work the bugs out of the jag and work on better tools. NEC could release it in Japan with a CD-Rom and Atari could release it with carts (to keep the cost down) and later add the CD-ROM. I only suggest this because Atari has always been seen as a low cost system. I don't think Atari could have sold a $400+ system.

[spiffyone]

twoquickcapri, on Mon May 7, 2012 2:17 AM, said:

I think 91 would have been to late for the Panther. It would been competing against a Sega with its new Sonic game and Nintendo with Mario World. Atari really need a new system in late '89 when 7800 sales started to taper off.

Keep in mind I don't think that Atari would become market leader with Panther. That's not the point. Rather, the point would be to have a successful enough product to bring some profit into the company sooner rather than later. Not having new product with room for potential growth until '93 with Jag brought that to Atari later; releasing Panther in '91 would've brought it to them sooner, and possibly more of it because Panther, unlike Jaguar, was at least somewhat similar to ST hardware (iirc; or at least much more than Jag).

How to counter the growing Genesis market as well as the SNES hype in '91? Well, perhaps targeting older gamers would've been the best move for Atari. It's something they tried, on some level, with Jaguar, but Jaguar was released a bit too early, IMHO, as far as market conditions were concerned (the 16-bit market was at it's apex in '93). So, okay, Atari wouldn't have a Mario to target the "E for Everyone" market that Nintendo always goes for, nor would they have a Sonic to target the "older kids/teens" who wanted something with a bit more attitude. But there was a game released in '91 on ST (and Amiga) that may have, if Atari approached the devs with a Panther dev kit early enough, been a salvo to the older teen/adult gamer: Another World/Out of this World. Perhaps securing an exclusive window on that title would've been enough to position Panther as the "game console for adults".

It wouldn't have been positioned to "win", but positioned to target a profitable niche.

If Atari did need something earlier, though, then approaching NEC for US/NA and EU rights over PC Engine in '88 or so would've been a smarter move as well (and if it happened, Panther likely would've been shelved earlier, saving R&D money on Atari's part). That would've given Atari product in '88/89 in the US and EU markets. While under such a deal they wouldn't make as much on hardware, if they were smart about it and picked up publishing rights over Japanese games, as well as started internal software development themselves, they could've laid the groundwork to possibly transition into a software company should their hardware business fail to catch on.

[twoquickcapri]

spiffyone, on Mon May 7, 2012 12:46 PM, said:

twoquickcapri, on Mon May 7, 2012 2:17 AM, said:

I think 91 would have been to late for the Panther. It would been competing against a Sega with its new Sonic game and Nintendo with Mario World. Atari really need a new system in late '89 when 7800 sales started to taper off.

Keep in mind I don't think that Atari would become market leader with Panther. That's not the point. Rather, the point would be to have a successful enough product to bring some profit into the company sooner rather than later. Not having new product with room for potential growth until '93 with Jag brought that to Atari later; releasing Panther in '91 would've brought it to them sooner, and possibly more of it because Panther, unlike Jaguar, was at least somewhat similar to ST hardware (iirc; or at least much more than Jag).

I understand what your saying and I'm not referring that Atari needed to target the Mario-Sonic market. But more that in '91 Sega was hitting full steam with sonic and its price cut. While Nintendo was still the top dog and impressing everyone with there new SNES.

'89 was the last year the 7800 sold well. I think if Atari wanted to keep its #2 spot It would have need to roll a system out sooner then '91. Panther, 10400, consolized ST or Lynx whatever system it maybe.

spiffyone, on Mon May 7, 2012 12:46 PM, said:

If Atari did need something earlier, though, then approaching NEC for US/NA and EU rights over PC Engine in '88 or so would've been a smarter move as well (and if it happened, Panther likely would've been shelved earlier, saving R&D money on Atari's part). That would've given Atari product in '88/89 in the US and EU markets. While under such a deal they wouldn't make as much on hardware, if they were smart about it and picked up publishing rights over Japanese games, as well as started internal software development themselves, they could've laid the groundwork to possibly transition into a software company should their hardware business fail to catch on.

In the late 80's NEC was a much bigger company then Atari and they believe they could take there #1 selling system in Japan and easily sell it in the USA. But they couldn't combat the monopoly that nintendo had and left the market in '92. So after '92 Atari could have likely made a deal with NEC to sell the TurboDuo or PC-FX here. But would have been a step back from the Jaguar.

[suspicious_milk]

I would've went full-on 3DO. Pushed some 3DO dev systems software out for the Falcon. Made 3D0 peripherals and games and any Falcon stock could've been packaged as 3DO dev stations with the right software packed with it. If 3do had more support they may have gone a lot further (tempest 2k wouldn't have hurt). This move would've supported their game line and their ST line.

If 3do still wouldn't take of with the added full support of Atari, this would've bided time to come out with a decent Falcon upgrade.

For those who don't know (all two of you probably) 3DO Licensed out EVERYTHING (system production etc) to anyone who would sign on. Having the "Atari 3DO" competing with the Panasonic FZ-1 would've been a no brainer for a lot of people. 3DO biggest points of market failure are often sited as 1. not enough games 2. no good peripherals 3. too expensive. Atari could've helped with all those while adding its name recognition to boot. To top it off, Jaguar and 3DO were competing with one another - - - they had the home console (32bit) market to themselves; splitting the early adopters.

-----
It certainly would've been cheaper on me, I bought both

Edited by suspicious_milk, Mon May 7, 2012 8:24 PM.

[spiffyone]

suspicious_milk, on Mon May 7, 2012 8:20 PM, said:

I would've went full-on 3DO.

For those who don't know (all two of you probably) 3DO Licensed out EVERYTHING (system production etc) to anyone who would sign on. Having the "Atari 3DO" competing with the Panasonic FZ-1 would've been a no brainer for a lot of people.

The issue with that, unfortunately, was that the 3DO business model meant that, at least in the early going (until Trip and company saw the error of their ways), the hardware manufacturers themselves didn't get a cut of software revenue at all. That's why the 3DO was so expensive at launch - Matsushita (parent company of Panasonic) was trying to make as much profit off of the hardware sales as possible. When LG/Goldstar released their 3DO unit, they came in at $499 because their strategy was to undercut Panasonic's price point, and, while taking less profit per unit sold, hopefully make up for it by selling more units than Panasonic.

It wasn't until Trip and company figured out where they went wrong and enticed Matsushita and LG to drop price by cutting them into software revenues that the price dropped on both units to more market friendly standards (iirc, they both dropped down to $399 by holiday season '94, then $299 in response to the Saturn surprise launch, and then $199 by that holiday season after the PS1 had launched). But, of course, he wound up irking developers by A. increasing their royalty payments by 2x, from $3 to $6 (because Trip sure as heck wasn't gonna take that money out of his pocket to pay the 3DO manufacturers when he could rob Peter to pay Paul), and B. decide to start 3DO on the path of developing games of their own when they had promised 3rd parties that they wouldn't do that.

So, in that context, I don't think Atari could've changed anything much by going with 3DO (as far as changing the 3DO model). They would've still needed to make money off of hardware, and that would've meant launching at a high price point. And LG/Goldstar, Matsushita/Panasonic, Sanyo and the rest were MUCH larger and wealthier companies than Atari.

Also, on a slightly humorous note, I'm sure Atari releasing what was, in effect, a sort of off-spring of the Amiga (RJ Mical had something to do with both Amiga and 3DO, and 3DO's OS was said to be very AmigaOS-like) would've been a sign of the End Times.

Quote

It certainly would've been cheaper on me, I bought both

Oh, I did too. But later. 3DO was a gift from my older brother, a used console bought shortly before 3DO called it quits. Jag was bought years later, shortly before I came to join this forum, actually.

Looking back, and with today's eyes, of the two, 3DO was, all around, the better product (maybe not in theoretical "power", but relative "power" and ease of development) but was stymied by that poorly thought out business model. Had the 3DO Company simply sold the technology, and their technical know-how, to Panasonic (as they later did with the M2 tech when they sold the tech and parts of their engineering company to Panasonic), Panasonic would've gone with the razor blade model and it likely would've been the market leader, taking the position that Sony had but doing so a couple of years earlier.

[suspicious_milk]

spiffyone, on Mon May 7, 2012 10:39 PM, said:

So, in that context, I don't think Atari could've changed anything much by going with 3DO (as far as changing the 3DO model). They would've still needed to make money off of hardware, and that would've meant launching at a high price point. And LG/Goldstar, Matsushita/Panasonic, Sanyo and the rest were MUCH larger and wealthier companies than Atari.

Also, on a slightly humorous note, I'm sure Atari releasing what was, in effect, a sort of off-spring of the Amiga (RJ Mical had something to do with both Amiga and 3DO, and 3DO's OS was said to be very AmigaOS-like) would've been a sign of the End Times.

Well, the End Time probably would've happened, I agree .

However, If there was *one thing* Atari was good at, it was getting hardware mass produced for dirt cheap!!! That would most definitely affected Panasonic, Goldstar, and Sanyo. Would the effect have been enough to make price drops happen sooner??? I think so (hence my post), but who knows?

They could also just chosen to sell games, peripherals, and development stations. Again, either way, worst case scenario - this woulda-coulda kept Atari floating for a bit, at least long enough to crank out a decent new computer upgrading their ST/TT/Falcon line - in addition to getting them a higher public profile.