Was the JAG one time to late

Joined Aug 2006
47 Posts | 0+
Texas
Well you look at the amount of systems put out by Atari in a short amount of time and you say yes the Atari 7800 was great for 84 but when it came out in 86 it was too late. Then I find out about the Jaguar and it was just one console too late. The thing that happened with Atari is that they didn't have the loyalty of the fans they once had. The Jaguar was a beautiful system with high quality titles but when it came out nobody had high hopes for it and it flopped badly. What I have to say is this I loved the jag as a system and I though it coulda been great but by the time it was released it was too late.
 
I know that this is an old topic and have no idea if Rollermacka is still around, but I just want to respond to this.

I think that the Jag's timing was a little off. It could have went up against the SNES and the Genesis, if it had been released during those early times. Of course third party support would have been required. That is something that the Jag lacked. At the time of it's release, third party was interested in bigger profits from Cd's and the opportunity to have the freedom that the format gave them vs limited space that expensive carts gave (Playstation and Saturn). The industry was ready to move on to the next generation of gaming. They were turning away from ROM cart use. (Two years later,N64 was an exception.) If the Jag had started as a CD based system, it could have had a slight chance. I think there was some poor judgment in interpreting the market at the time by those that were in control of Atari.

From everything that I read, I understand, the system was very difficult to develop for. (If that is so, then why is there homebrew games being made for the Jag even today?) If only the system had focused on arcade games. Games like Tempest 2000 and Defender 2000 make the system worth owning for me. From looking at the games that were released on the carts, the system looked like a high end super 16-bit game machine.

Interestingly the Lynx was more successful than the Jag and had a lot more game releases.
 
The Jaguar couldn't have been too difficult to work with, because I remember reading that Doom was ported over to it in one weekend.
 
Being this was the 1st 64 bit console (so-to-speak)... It is hard to say that it came out late.

If anything, it may have come out too early... and they didn't put enough power behind the system and to see what they actually needed to make it succeed.

I own a Jaguar, and I have fun with it. I love Tempest 2000 and I still play it to this day. I still like playing Alien Vs Predator... even though the frame rate isn't that good. There are a couple other decent games.

But I don't think they thought about competing with actual 64 bit systems... they thought about competing with 32 bit systems that weren't out yet... and their immediate 16 bit competitiors.

The other problem came in the aspect of developers... the system attracted a lot of crappy games for whatever reason. Game that could have been good... weren't.

Don't get me wrong, there is something about the Atari Jaguar that I like... I bought the system, I still play it. But on the otherhand... it could have been better.

BV :hat