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So the SuperGrafx was a commercial failure.
But its good that it didn't fail from a hardware perspective. Same goes for 32X.
Those consoles failed because they were unnecessary.
Its good it didn't end up in the category of consoles that bombed from a hardware perspective. Yes, the Atari Jaguar is iconic for that.
SuperGrafx wasn't so much unnecessary, as poorly matched (marketing wise) to the CD-upgrade being marketed at the same time, and also a little too early, especially in terms of the JP market. (it would have been better if done a bit later and as an add-on -ideal as part of the Super CD upgrade)Quote:
Originally Posted by azonicrider
With the right marketing, support, and management, the SGX as it was still could have done much better than it did, and still could have been incorporated into the Super CD/Duo standard in 1991/92. (IMO not as good as just waiting until '91 to release all that together, but after the fact of the '89 release, it still would have made tons of sense)
With SGX (or slightly better) level hardware combined with the Super CD, NEC's platform would have aged significnatly better than the PCE/CD, and would have bought more time for their 32-bit designs. (OTOH, as it was in '92/93, not shelving the Iron Man project and actually pushing out their full new console in '93 -and keeping it compatible- probably would have been OK too . . . a Super CD compatible PC-FX in 1993 would have been pretty decent and releasing a 3D accelerator upgrade later on should have kept up reasonably with the Saturn and PSX)
Jaguar didn't bomb from a hardware perspective . . . pretty much no console ever died because of bad or weak hardware alone. (though there's a few cases where it was mostly due to hardware)Quote:
Its good it didn't end up in the category of consoles that bombed from a hardware perspective. Yes, the Atari Jaguar is iconic for that.
The Jaguar itself, bugs and all, would have been pretty decent for the time if marketed by a competent, healthy company with lots of investment capital and good PR in the industry. Then again, a decently funded and managed company probably would have avoided the hardware bugs entirely with better R&D funding and/or waiting for another chip revision before starting mass production. (a 3rd revision of TOM and 2nd revision of JERRY could have helped a lot)
Yeah, the Jaguar hardware architecture, specs and price point were pretty good and the US release date was also spot on IMO. It's really a shame that Atari was a walking dead shadow of itself in those days.
Of all early tries in the 5th gen (3DO, Jaguar, CD32, 32X, FM Towns Marty, etc...), this was the console design that I think could have succeeded and turned into a VERY interesting platform during 1993-1997 (maybe 1998).
I see it as being more flexible than the other architectures of the same period, it could have provided a lot of possibilities for a plethora of different sorts of games if it had been released by a healthy gigantic company.
As a 2D powerhouse it was supposed to be, it could have been your cheap console alternative to get very solid arcade conversions from companies like SNK and Capcom, and it could always have the cartridge advantages over the CD-only based systems like being able to get rid of those stupid loading screens.
It could also run in higher resolutions than the 32X and still with good performance (unlike the 3DO) to provide more games like Rayman, a proper 5th gen 2D game IMO.
With the CD add-on it could have delivered games like Myst and such, maybe targeting different public than the cartridge usual customers, etc...
The controller with that many buttons also was really cool for PC ports, like FPS and such... I really think it was a great idea that got undermined by its poor execution, like the whole system actually.
For 3D games it could probably match most of the 3DO offerings if well programmed and with the proper docs and SDKs, but for a FAR lower price. For textured 3D it was probably much better than the 32X design as well.
The option (it should have been just it and not what it actually became) of using its M68K (which was clocked higher than the Sega CD's, Neo Geo's, Amiga's and Genesis) as the main CPU was cool IMO and certainly would have helped to allow for ports of Amiga, Genesis/Sega CD and Neo Geo games without much effort like it would have been necessary for most of the other 5th gen platforms.
*sigh*
What a waste of a good opportunity it became, oh well...
I'm not saying it wasn't powerful enough, I'm saying they screwed up almost every hardware aspect on the console.
I think theres only one thing they got right, the console won't turn on unless you got a cartridge in it. Smart design. Otherwise:
The controller is just a mess. You only have three usable buttons on it. No shoulder buttons. That keypad design was unnecessary and deprecated.
They didn't jump to CDs. That wasn't too bad of a thing in 1993.
The AV port is just an exposed circuit board. Did soldering cost to much, to add a more civilized style of port?
No dust cover for the cartridge slot. It seems they were cutting costs in every way possible, when designing the console.
You're never gonna attract third party developers, when the console has such an alien-like internal design. I've heard the Jaguar was very tough to program for.
I was watching Game Sack earlier. It seems Joe would choose the SuperGrafx with its 5 games, over the Jaguar with its 75 games. That really says alot about the console and the general fun you could have with it.
I'll have to use that face palm for your previous comment too.
It would have to be in some magical, alternate universe, where the Jaguar could have ended up becoming a successful console, let alone lasting until 1997.
To me that says a lot about what a Jaguar hater that Joe must be. Dai Makaimura and 1941 to me are amazing games, but come on... the Jaguars 75ish game library isnt that bad to not top the Supergrafx meager 5 game library, and the 2 best SGX games (which i love) have better ports on other hardware. The Jaguars got stuff like Tempest 2000, Rayman NBA Jam TE, Flashback, Doom Wolfenstein 3D, Super Burnout, Powerdrive Rally, Battlemorph, Iron Soldier 1 and 2, Atari Karts, Aliens VS Predator, Raiden, Defender 2000, Missile Comand 3d, Worms just to name a few pretty nice games. And yes, i have played and had some fun with all those games.Quote:
Originally Posted by azonicrider
So, that Joe guy comments dont tell me anything about how bad or unfun the Jags library of games is suposed to be.
Did i just expose myself as a Jaguar fan?, hehe.
I've never seen a Atari Jaguar in loco, but you shouldn't base your opinion based on someone else take on the matter.Quote:
Originally Posted by azonicrider
You make it seems like he's some absolute authority on Video Games.
The SNES bombed from a hardware perspective, because it was gray and purple and boxy. Who would want to develop for that?
It's not Joe who is the authority, it's youtube. A whole new generation of nu-retro "8-bit lifers" only experience old games by watching videos of people talking about them.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bottino
But does the SNES require you to hook your console by using exposed circuits? does it have a dust cover so rats don't crap inside your cartridge slot?
Honestly, most of my hatred for that console is because of the controller. I tried it during a Craigslist pick-up, left a very bad taste in my mouth.
Joe is just someone I agree with. I've never tried a SuperGrafx, but if its just a tuned-up TG-16, it sounds a little more awesome than the Jaguar.
I can see how some people like the Jaguar, but its just not me.
You're absolutely right.Quote:
Originally Posted by Black_Tiger
I know some guys that makes indie games and are "retro lovers". When i talked about Space Harrier and Centipede, they never even heard of these games. In reality, they are Nintendo retro lovers; everything else doesn't matter.
What's kind of ironic is looking at both Commodore and Atari Corp in '93/94. Both were in trouble in different ways, both tried to push out next-gen consoles, and both ended up failing, yet not in quite the same way.Quote:
Originally Posted by Barone
The Amiga CD-32 was horribly weak for the time and not very cost effective either (poor performance relative to price point). However, CBM was still together enough to manage fairly decent advertising and distribution, and had better PR and cashflow than Atari at the time. (and for the limited time on the market, the CD-32 sold better in Europe alone than the Jaguar did worldwide from '93-95) Then there's the issues of the CD-32 being blocked from a US release.
Now, if you took the best aspects of hardware, management, funding, etc, out of both Atari Corp and CBM at that time, there might have been a very real chance for success.
Or, rather, if Atari Corp had been in more the financial (and reputation, etc) position in the early 90s, they probably could have avoided the rushed test market of the Jaguar, cleaned up the internal hardware design a little more, and targeted CD-ROM from day 1 in a 1994 release pretty close to the price of the CD-32. (not to mention better marketing, distribution, software development, etc)
Though, as it was for Atari, they made a big mistake in ignoring Europe to a large extent. (even cutting out the London and Paris test market plans in '93)
They might have have had massive success, but given their reputation and the general consumer and software development situation in Europe at the time, putting an emphasis on that market (with what limited funds they had) very well might have worked out a lot better than it did. (and if they DID manage decent success in Europe, they still might have some change at establishing it as a low-key low-cost next-gen platform in North America too)
Heh, they at least might have outsold the CD32 . . . which would also imply more than double the Jaguar sales they saw in reality. (remember they sold only 135,000 consoles worldwide from 1993 up to the discontinutation in early '96 -some 100,000 more were liquidated afterwards)
Atari Corp's bigger problem in general, that fed into the whole 1993 situation was lack of a full range of viable products from ~1990-1993. The Lynx never got that far along (hit and miss with both management and marketing), their computers were stagnating and falling out of favor, and they had no follow-up console to the 7800 for ~1990. (the Panther wasn't great, but they had nothing and it still had some interesting potential . . . something actually better than that would have been really interesting -like had the Flare Technology guys come up with a cut-down short-term advanced design targeting a 1991 release, and then followed that up with a more refined Jaguar which was backwards compatible)
In 1989/1990 they were still doing well enough to support that kind of thing, and while management had slipped after Jack Tramiel and Mike Katz left, things might have evened out better with actual good/marketable products on-line. (rather than slipping management being further weakened by weak sales and cashflow, and then creating a vicious feedback loop entering into the nasty downwards spiral they had in the early 90s)
Heh, on the note of Sega, with all the money they ended up pouring into the 32x, combined with the Atari patent settlements in 1994, I wonder if it would have been a better investment to negotiate a merger/buy-out of Atari's assets back in '93 or '94. :p ( . . . still probably not a GOOD investment at that point though -had Atari been looking for partners back around '91 or so, that might have been more compelling -then again, Sega turned doen the 3DO hardware development thing too, so hey)
I'm sorry but if you have a rat problem, then you have other worries to worry about it.Quote:
Originally Posted by azonicrider
What are the bugs the jag had and are they crippling or can they be worked around? I remember the Jag failing because of the poor software and a lack of that next gen leap. Every gamer mag back in the day bashed it saying the grafx weren't next gen. I got the system for $50 brand new in 1995 and played the shit outa Rayman, Power Drive Rally, Tempest 2000, and AVP. Those games alone made the console worth while. Hell I even enjoyed Dyno Dudes. I just wish games made that huge leap and that console took off. I only had Blue Lightning and Vid Grid in the cd unit so I'm not too sure about the games there.
The primary bug was a problem with GPU jump commands that had the effect of not allowing the GPU to execute code from the main ram - all GPU code had to be in the local ram. Given the small (4KByte) size of the local ram, you either needed a tiny routine, or to swap snippets of code in and out of the local ram. Doom divided the drawing code into nine separate phases that were small enough to fit in the GPU local ram. So games mainly took this form: the main game logic was all done by the 68000 from main ram, while routines that NEEDED to be fast were uploaded to the GPU local ram as needed by the BLITTER. That made it a royal pain for programmers. Being able to run GPU code from main ram would have been slightly slower than local ram, but you wouldn't need to split the code into segments. Not to mention, running the game on the GPU in main ram would still be FAR faster than running the game on the 68000 in main ram.Quote:
Originally Posted by evilevoix
The DSP processor has the same bug, but no one was going to run the DSP in main ram anyway because it only used a 16-bit bus to external memory, so it would have been no better than running the 68000 in main ram. The DSP also has 8KBytes of local ram, so it's easier to fit all your audio code into local ram.
The other major bug was a hardware problem with the serial port used for communicating with other Jaguars... all those games that would link up like Doom? They all quit communicating after a very short time. The only current known work around for this is to have Jerry watch the serial input at a set rate, and then decode the serial data by hand, not using the UART for reading data at all.
Yeah, I don't see the problem with the graphics... they were at least on par with the 3DO. Sure, the PS1/Saturn/N64 could do better, but that was almost three years later. I would certainly HOPE a console 3 years newer would look better! :lol:Quote:
Every gamer mag back in the day bashed it saying the grafx weren't next gen. I got the system for $50 brand new in 1995 and played the shit outa Rayman, Power Drive Rally, Tempest 2000, and AVP. Those games alone made the console worth while. Hell I even enjoyed Dyno Dudes. I just wish games made that huge leap and that console took off. I only had Blue Lightning and Vid Grid in the cd unit so I'm not too sure about the games there.