119 replies to this topic

[LinkoVitch]

DCUltrapro, on Tue Oct 25, 2011 4:35 AM, said:

Anyone saying the Jaguar is one of the worst consoles of all time is an idiot who clearly hasn't done his/her research properly IMHO

I'd still say the Jag is one of the worst consoles. Wacky hardware, bad marketing (or lack of), rushed buggy games, limited 3rd party games.. It's certainly not up there with the better consoles.

Doesn't mean I don't love my Jag's though, and I'd certainly not consider myself an idiot who hasn't done his research

[DCUltrapro]

LinkoVitch, on Tue Oct 25, 2011 6:01 AM, said:

DCUltrapro, on Tue Oct 25, 2011 4:35 AM, said:

Anyone saying the Jaguar is one of the worst consoles of all time is an idiot who clearly hasn't done his/her research properly IMHO

I'd still say the Jag is one of the worst consoles. Wacky hardware, bad marketing (or lack of), rushed buggy games, limited 3rd party games.. It's certainly not up there with the better consoles.

Doesn't mean I don't love my Jag's though, and I'd certainly not consider myself an idiot who hasn't done his research

ok so I didn't mean the guys on here are idiots, I just meant that people in general on Youtube for example who put these stupid vids up saying how crap it is and they have no idea about what it had and what it can do etc, they just make the assumption based on the fact that they don't like the design and it wasn't very successful. If someone on here who is clearly knowledgeable etc comes to that conclusion then fair enough, I still personally wouldn't say its one of the Worst Consoles of all time, ok its marketing was shit and if you don't like the design etc then yeah you could say that fine, but I guess what I'm trying to say is that I wouldn't personally label it that way, because I quite like it lol

[syntexerror]

Atari Jaguar in my opinion is a dam nice console for its time!!!!!!!It had poor marketing and promises that were left unfinished but it did furnish some fun games and the launch of the AVP first person era not to mention all of there ports like doom were great excluding the no music bit.And wow the wacky desighns for it were great back in the day seeing a console that looked like the jaguar was a experience in itself wich left you wanting to try it.Just my opinon ppl have to remember when the jaguar came out what it could and could not do while not promiseing all the hype it still delivered a punch.I always thought there, the very few i seen commercials were cool exspecialy the aliens vs predetar ones.I love the JAGGGG.

[Curt Vendel]

Exactly - the Jaguar really shines with everything but 3D games. World Tour Racing is one exception, Alien V Predator is another... The Jaguar does some great side scrollers - Rayman and Bubsy are superb, it would've been interesting to have seen some of the great Capcom/SNK games done of the Jaguar like the Metal Slug games...

remowilliams, on Thu Feb 3, 2011 10:28 AM, said:

jaybird3rd, on Thu Feb 3, 2011 12:06 AM, said:

I also get the impression--possibly mistaken--that Jaguar developers were under a certain pressure to do PlayStation-style 3D games, even though this wasn't something that the hardware and/or the development tools were well-suited for.

The funny thing is the fans that still clamor for 3D games on the Jaguar that it's really ill suited for.

[theloon]

It might not even be that the Jag is ill suited for 3D. It just never reached the maturity for developer skills and tools to take advantage of the hardware. Late PS2 games look like early PS3 games. Late SNES games looked like early PSX games, etc..

[Rex Dart]

DCUltrapro, on Tue Oct 25, 2011 6:20 AM, said:

I still personally wouldn't say its one of the Worst Consoles of all time, ok its marketing was shit and if you don't like the design etc then yeah you could say that fine, but I guess what I'm trying to say is that I wouldn't personally label it that way, because I quite like it lol

It's perfectly fine to admit that something isn't all that great AND that you happen to like it anyways.

[syntexerror]

Ya jaguar had some good 3D concepts for the time look at I-WAR,HOVERSTRIKE and IRON SOLDIER while not at par with the saturn and psx that was pretty good for the year it came out 94-95 i was very happy with the end results of those games.To bad we never had a chance to see the jag go further in developing games.Look at the cd game base line up they had.Black Ice White Noise,Demolition man,Commander Blood(Always wanted to try that one) Sadly we never got to see these great games come to life on the jag ofcaurse we have the alpha version of BIWN but man oh man i would have had a great time playing the full version of that.Just to clear the smoke i think while the jaguar wasnt the best at 3D it do show that it had the power to play great 3d games:).

[bobotech]

I have often read about how the Jag isn't a powerhouse 3d machine and was a great 2d machine.

What I wonder about is what would have happen if Atari decided to market the Jag as a super Neo Geo. SNK never tried to get into the 3d market because they knew their hardware was NEVER suited for 3d. So SNK just made bigger and better 2d games.

I imagine that the Jag could have made bigger and better looking games than the Neo Geo if pushed.

What I'm driving at is that I think that if Atari didn't try to push the 3d angle of the system so much and instead capitalized on its other hardware specs that were quite good (its 2d capabilities?), would it have survived longer?

Look at how long of a lifespan the Neo Geo ended up having because it never pretended to be anything other than what it was. It never tried to put any real 3d games on it (viewpoint wasn't a real 3d game, it was like Zaxxon on steroids).

[GKC]

bobotech, on Tue Oct 25, 2011 6:31 PM, said:

I have often read about how the Jag isn't a powerhouse 3d machine and was a great 2d machine.

What I wonder about is what would have happen if Atari decided to market the Jag as a super Neo Geo. SNK never tried to get into the 3d market because they knew their hardware was NEVER suited for 3d. So SNK just made bigger and better 2d games.

I imagine that the Jag could have made bigger and better looking games than the Neo Geo if pushed.

What I'm driving at is that I think that if Atari didn't try to push the 3d angle of the system so much and instead capitalized on its other hardware specs that were quite good (its 2d capabilities?), would it have survived longer?

Look at how long of a lifespan the Neo Geo ended up having because it never pretended to be anything other than what it was. It never tried to put any real 3d games on it (viewpoint wasn't a real 3d game, it was like Zaxxon on steroids).

Isn't that the kind of angle Sega had originally thought of with the Saturn, the ultimate 2d video game console? That is before a last minute effort to give it more 3d prowess? I think Sega saw in 1995 and I believe Atari saw in 1993, that gaming was going 3d. I don't think Atari wanted to be in a niche market like the Neo Geo was and sought a place with the big boys, Sega, Nintendo and, soon to be, Sony. Then again perhaps it was niche market for the Neo Geo because of its cost and not what the system offered? It's all speculative but I think Atari wanted a system that could compete with the likes of Sega and Nintendo for years to come.

Edited by GKC, Tue Oct 25, 2011 6:53 PM.

[Austin]

bobotech, on Tue Oct 25, 2011 6:31 PM, said:

What I'm driving at is that I think that if Atari didn't try to push the 3d angle of the system so much and instead capitalized on its other hardware specs that were quite good (its 2d capabilities?), would it have survived longer?

No. 3D was all the rage then and as much as we would all like to imagine, I doubt anything would have changed that.

bobotech, on Tue Oct 25, 2011 6:31 PM, said:

Look at how long of a lifespan the Neo Geo ended up having because it never pretended to be anything other than what it was. It never tried to put any real 3d games on it (viewpoint wasn't a real 3d game, it was like Zaxxon on steroids).

The Neo-Geo was only successful in the arcades. It performed terribly in the console realm, at least here in the US. If you are counting its long console lifespan, consider that due to SNK being persistent and stubborn.

Edited by Austin, Tue Oct 25, 2011 7:06 PM.

[syntexerror]

Agreed!Neo geo couldnt hold a match to what the jag could do bro it was souly limited to 2d fighters and arcade history it had great games butttt.... the jaguar on the other hand had to try and make its place on the market.This well known fact is that atari had to battle the big boys nintendo,sega, and sony gamers at this time like siad above was in the 3D hayday games were hitting the market left and right atari had to fight with its poor marketing to even launch its 2d games wich are great rayman,bubsy,zool2,Pitfall all great platformers,But it was a inevetable for there 3d skills to come out.About this i thought the jaguars 3d aspects were quite nice i loved everything the jaguar had to offer.I do realy think that if the marketing was better and they stuck to launch dates such as launching the cd unit and games earlier.That they would have had a much longer life span and maybe we would have seen some of the GREATS that never came to be on the jaguar.

[LinkoVitch]

SNK did try to get into 3D and it failed. They had a system "Hyper NeoGeo 64" that was a 3D system, didn't do too well

http://en.wikipedia....yper_Neo_Geo_64

[sheath]

I am not aware of Sega ever marketing the Saturn as a 2D system, that is editorialist history at best. By 1994 marketing 3D was hitting full steam, it was just a question of what kind of 3D. People thought Donkey Kong Country and Sonic 3 & Knuckles were 3D for example. It is obvious from the sources that nobody knew whether the Saturn or PS1 were going to take off, in the US anyway, and my personal experience was that everybody was waiting patiently and loyally for the Ultra 64 to come in and destroy everything.

For the Jaguar, that meant it was perfectly positioned to snag marketshare. I just don't think that American companies understood the bias of Japanese companies at that critical point, and nobody knew what the Internet would do to worldwide communication anyway.

I personally am still trying to snag more Jaguar games in order to have its gameplay time at least match the amount of enjoyment I have had with the 32X.

[GKC]

Not marketed as a 2d power house but originally intended as one. Sega was set to have the Saturn pretty much mimic their Model 1 games. Then the world was introduced to the Playstation and Sega saw a 3d capable machine that out matched theirs. There was a redesign done on the Saturn which gave it more 3d capabilities. There is speculation that the original design of the Saturn called for a single processor. After the redesign the Saturn got two SH-2 RISC processors and dual VDPs to make a machine more 3d capable.

My source is the Videogames Hardware Handbook by Retro Gamer.

*edit* I said model 1 but it could have been the Sega system 32 That Sega was originally aiming for. Don't feel like pulling out the Handbook to confirm.

Edited by GKC, Wed Oct 26, 2011 11:46 PM.

[doctorclu]

LinkoVitch, on Tue Oct 25, 2011 6:01 AM, said:

DCUltrapro, on Tue Oct 25, 2011 4:35 AM, said:

Anyone saying the Jaguar is one of the worst consoles of all time is an idiot who clearly hasn't done his/her research properly IMHO

I'd still say the Jag is one of the worst consoles. Wacky hardware, bad marketing (or lack of), rushed buggy games, limited 3rd party games.. It's certainly not up there with the better consoles.

Doesn't mean I don't love my Jag's though, and I'd certainly not consider myself an idiot who hasn't done his research

"One of the worst" comments is where I get caught up. It really was not. I guess I have experience with the "one of the worst" comments that always surrounds Bubsy. Like the Jaguar, Bubsy is noted to be "one of the worst" platform mascots, but if you REALLY look into mascots with many one shots, terrible controls, and just not as animated as Bubsy, you learn that Bubsy is far from one of the worst. Just the first in a line of mascots that people care to remember. Since the scale starts there, he is branded as "one of the worst" or even "the worst".

The Jaguar is the same. If you REALLY look into the history of consoles you'll find many that were released and quickly pulled off the shelves, or many that had less than 5 to 10 games (the Nuon is my favorite example there). Where I get the perspective I give here is from a History of Game Consoles from the late 80's to 2002. The Jaguar is mentioned in there, but so are numerous other consoles. Read a resource like that and come back and tell me that the Jaguar is "one of the worst".

It really wasn't.

Some of the worst from my recollection would be things like the Captain Powers system, or one laser disc system that had 2 games with one other rare game, or various other knock offs. But we don't think about those, and to be honest, they were so obscure I didn't even bother to remember their names.

I really believe, once again, like Bubsy, the Jaguar is as far back as we care to remember. Sure there were worst consoles, quite a few, but the Jaguar is one that is at that mid level where we actually care to remember back to. And so, since the other ones drop off from memory, the Jaguar was actually good enough to be remembered.

And since many people's scales start as far back as they can remember, and also since others make it popular to say "Jaguar = bad" the Jaguar is remembered to be "one of the worst".

But like Jack Sparrow who was "the worst pirate that was heard of" the Jaguar was at least heard of.

(Still not one of the worst.)

[sheath]

GKC, on Wed Oct 26, 2011 11:30 PM, said:

Not marketed as a 2d power house but originally intended as one. Sega was set to have the Saturn pretty much mimic their Model 1 games. Then the world was introduced to the Playstation and Sega saw a 3d capable machine that out matched theirs. There was a redesign done on the Saturn which gave it more 3d capabilities. There is speculation that the original design of the Saturn called for a single processor. After the redesign the Saturn got two SH-2 RISC processors and dual VDPs to make a machine more 3d capable.

My source is the Videogames Hardware Handbook by Retro Gamer.

*edit* I said model 1 but it could have been the Sega system 32 That Sega was originally aiming for. Don't feel like pulling out the Handbook to confirm.

This is the popular line, but I cannot find any evidence of it. System 32 based systems by Sega practically ended up being the Sega CD after its last hardware revision. EGM and Gamepro were reporting on a "Gigadrive" up until Summer of 1991 when the Mega CD was officially unveiled. Gamepro at that point speculated that two 68000 processors was equivalent to the System32 and incorrectly reported that the add-on included a higher color output.

Similarly, we only have a few speculative comments about the Saturn's 2D VDP being the origins of the system. There are no details of what changes were made to the Saturn's design at any phase, much less after Sony's press announcement in Fall of 1993.

Edited by sheath, Thu Oct 27, 2011 1:07 PM.

[GKC]

Alright, like I said, I cited my source to show I didn't come up with this out of thin air. You can disagree with it. I find it odd though that in this second post of yours you say that it is a, "popular line" while your first post indicated you had never heard of it. But that's neither here nor there as this thread is about the Jaguar.

So, you're opinion of the Jaguar?

Edited by GKC, Thu Oct 27, 2011 2:13 PM.

[sheath]

GKC, on Thu Oct 27, 2011 2:13 PM, said:

Alright, like I said, I cited my source to show I didn't come up with this out of thin air. You can disagree with it. I find it odd though that in this second post of yours you say that it is a, "popular line" while your first post indicated you had never heard of it. But that's neither here nor there as this thread is about the Jaguar.

So, you're opinion of the Jaguar?

Sorry, I missed that you were referencing Retrogamer here. I have found significant problems with their articles in the past though, they have no standard for researching history before publishing. I know you didn't come up with the Saturn as a 2D system on your own, that is a popular version of history among the video game media today. I have never seen any evidence that Sega ever promoted the Saturn as a 2D system though.

Like the Sega CD or 32X, I wish the Jaguar had more optimized games, even if it only had more ports from the 3DO and Sega CD that would be great. I have always been fascinated with the "in between" platforms like the Sega CD, 3DO, Jaguar and 32X. Having only just acquired a Jaguar I am still looking for that one or two exclusive titles that will hook me. I am generally disappointed by the level of optimization of the Jaguar games I have bought so far though. Stuff like Tempest 2000, Doom, Iron Soldier and Alien vs Predator are obviously fine games. Flashback and Cybermorph are also very good games in their own right. But when I see full screen framerate drops in Ultra Vortek it just points to a rush job by the developer. I want to see something that makes the system shine, and I am not at all interested in seeing the Jaguar beat the PS1.

[GKC]

sheath, on Thu Oct 27, 2011 2:24 PM, said:

GKC, on Thu Oct 27, 2011 2:13 PM, said:

Alright, like I said, I cited my source to show I didn't come up with this out of thin air. You can disagree with it. I find it odd though that in this second post of yours you say that it is a, "popular line" while your first post indicated you had never heard of it. But that's neither here nor there as this thread is about the Jaguar.

So, you're opinion of the Jaguar?

I have always been fascinated with the "in between" platforms like the Sega CD, 3DO, Jaguar and 32X.

Me too. The early to mid 90's are by far my favorite years for video games with the 32x and Jaguar being my most played systems.

My fascination with the Jaguar started with seeing a Jaguar box in a store window at a mall as a young kid. I hadn't seen any games in action or in game photos. Seeing only a black box with two eyes glaring at me and only knowing that whatever it was was "64bit!" allowed my young imagination to run wild. I'm betting that if I had picked it up then I may have been disappointed but looking at the Jag now with my dwindling interest in modern gaming and growing appreciation of the early 90's video games I love it. When I saw it as a kid It caused me to looked forward imagining the future of gaming. I look at the Jaguar today and it takes me back to when I enjoyed games the most.

[DCUltrapro]

nice post, I'd be inclined to agree, though I do love my 360 and the games on it I still love all my older consoles and certainly prefer the days when everything was new and exciting and what not, the Dreamcast will always be my fave machine as nothing has ever provided me with as much fun in console gaming but the Jaguar has such a bizarre and interesting character and aura about it, I've now got 34 games for it and its just really good fun discovering all these hidden gems that no one knows about. I'm a little disappointed with Skyhammer (more to do with me not understanding how the hell to play it lol) but I'm really looking forward to Phase Zero and Towers 2 and I absolutely adore playing Battlemorph and a bunch of the other cartridge classics. Great little machine with lots of 90's character and the CD I think is a must