The Death of a Once Great Console Developer

Between each entry of this top 5 list, I will be taking a moment to write, criticize, rant, praise or maybe even cry about something from the lovely 90's era of gaming. There is really not much logic to this, living in the past is bad for us, so they say, but these are undoubtedly the very things that made gaming what it is now.

These little reports will be classified and filed in two forms, weather this innovation or game is a diamond that made gaming rock, or dogshit that failed. This is the Diamonds and Dogshit report. I'll start with dogshit, its more fun to write about a failure rather than remembering and groveling at the feet of something that everyone loves. Failures are also way more important because the rest of the world can learn from it.

Entry 1

Atari's last stand.

I am too young to remember the Atari 2600 when it was in its prime, but I have messed around with one. When I was little, and long before my parents finally broke down and bought me a Gameboy, I got to play an Atari system at a mom's friends house. The NES was already in full swing and was blowing people away all over the world, but my mom's friend wasn't that far ahead. This friend was a black woman with a family that lived out in the 'hood (no this is not a bad joke I’m writing). Whenever I came over to their home I immediately ran into their sons room and fired up his Atari 2600 and played games like... damn I can't remember, but in all seriousness few people do. With all due respect to the first big video gaming system, most of the Atari 2600 games look the same. That is how I remembered the Atari company name years later when I was a SNES fan, and Atari released a system that was supposed to outperform and REPLACE my beloved SNES system.

I was an avid reader of EGM in those days and at that time the magazine was about 30% content, articles and reviews and 70% ads. Those ads featured some promising products, some obscure some major, and most not worth your money. In the pages of game and peripheral ads, a new system was emerging on the horizon called the Atari Jaguar, a 64 bit system with a familiar name behind it. I was impressed by some of the screenshots that I saw from some of its games like Alien vs Predator (plus the idea of playing a game based on Aliens, marines and Predators fighting was bad ass to me).

The console itself looked cool. Black and sleek like the Genesis, but compact. It was a cartridge system and from the pics I’ve seen it only has one button on the console to turn it on, no reset button or eject lever. The controller looked a little odd. It was huge and had a numerical keypad on it, but what made it a controller for games was that it also had three action buttons and a directional pad also just like a Genesis model 1 but with 13 extra buttons. How this thing was going to be used to play a 6 button fighting game I had no idea but the whole thing sparked curiosity to my 13 year old mind.

I didn't really realize in those days that Atari had a bad reputation. I never even knew about the horrors of its Pac-man translation and the failure of the ET game on the 2600 system. I had no knowledge of the gaming crash of 83-84, and how should I know these things? After all I was 13 years old and eager to find something that could replace my SNES and the only other new system on the market at that time was the 3do, a system to complicated for me to really follow not to mention cost about $700 (whoa). There was also the Sega CD attachment but at that time I wasn't interested in Night Trap (who the hell was?) I guess back then I was afraid of CD's. It was truly a big decade for gaming and every company including Phillips were making video gaming machines that we all know now really sucked.

I gawked at the cool screen shots of the 'Jag' in action. AvP looked like and awesome riot of a game, shooting aliens and even playing as one, what wasn't there to like? I was a Doom fan in those days and was dying to play it on a system and was in awe of seeing that it was a Jaguar title. Another great shooter was Wolfenstien 3d and that made it to the system. It seemed like all the great first generation FPS's were being made for Atari's new 64 bitter.

I won't lie I wanted one of these things. I believed that Atari's new system was 64 bits. I was young and stupid and as it turns out... that was the kind of consumer Atari wanted. I, however was also a poor consumer unwilling to shell out $300 dollars for a system when I already owned an SNES and a Genesis (both bought from pawn shops). As time went on I heard less and less about this machine and I never really knew why until now.

I've done my homework on this system recently, I don't know why but I was curious after all these years as to know just WHY this thing didn't move. The most well known and talked about reason is that this gaming system might NOT have been truly 64 bits and the worst part is that its debatable even all these years later. In the 90's of gaming people cared about BITS. Bit were like inches on the dick of your gaming system, the more the better. Atari's 64 bit system had 2 32bit processors inside it that worked together, but according to many of the Jag's critics that doesn't cut it as being truly 64 bits. The system really performed at a level of a 'cart based' 32 bitter. As a result, Atari had an ad campaign called "Do the math" and the company worked with that slogan thinking that companies like Sega, Sony and Nintendo would never strike back. Boy did Atari screw up.

Games continued to come out for this system and they got reviews that would make Simon Cowell cringe. Look at a 'worst games ever' list and expect a few or more Jag titles to show. Many of the games suffered from poor graphics that didn't look all that better than what an SNES could do. To make matters worse for Atari and its feline system, Sony was getting ready to unveil a finished product that was on their drawing board since 1986, The Playstation and Sega was already making some waves with their Saturn System.

Sam Tramiel, Atari's president and CEO in those days must have been getting desperate and he should have been. Their Jag wasn't doing well and just because you have a few good shooters doesn't mean you have success. The system was currently on life support in terms of sales, and it games were not the prescription to help heal it. They hadn't sold as many units as they had wanted, even when the price was dropped to $149. Sam decided to put his foot down... too bad it was onto a nail.

He was interviewed shortly before the release of the Sony Playstation. Maybe it was the desperation, maybe it was the lack of sales but he had to say something to appease the industry into thinking he was going to win come hell or high fuckin water. The interview is available (go ahead and google it) but in short, its all overly optimistic crazy talk. it’s a funny little thing to read, something that gaming geeks can chuckle over.

Here is a little gem quote from it, straight from Sam's mouth:

"The PlayStation, I must say, is a little, little bit more powerful in certain areas -- but not in others -- it's a little bit more stronger machine than Jaguar. A little, little bit."

A video of this interview would be something to see. I wonder if this man's nose grew. Anyways, he even gave Atari's potential future customers something to look foward to, the Jaguar 2 system that was in the works at the time of that interview. The rest of it is fancy talk and touting about how the future looked for the Jag. One thing was certain and was going to happen regardless of what mr.Tramiel said: The Playstation was ready to stomp a mud hole into the Jaguar's ass.

Sony debuted the Playstation, Sega released its Saturn and Nintendo came out with a 64 bit system that was believably and undisputedly 64 bits. Atari's fate was sealed. It didn't matter WHAT game it made, it made no difference, they were competing with the big boys. Atari came out with a CD drive that attached to the Jag, but it was like trying to revive a skeleton. 13 Jaguar CD games exist, I haven't played or even really seen them but I’m sure they suck.
Atari closed shop and ditched the Jaguar 2 project, rumor has it there are probably prototypes of that 'Jaguar Duo' floating about but screw that noise, its just a damn rumor about a shitty system. Atari has left the console market, and I must say its kinda sad. Atari's console days had a traveled a long road only to swerve off of it and hit a tree due to it being drunk on 'bad marketing' rum or 'bad idea' gin. Atari’s 7800 got outdone by Nintendo when the NES came out. Atari would have been the distributor of that now classic and famous NES but when a CEO working for Atari back in the early 80's blew his stack in rage at Nintendo's suits during an electronics convention and accused Nintendo of double dealing when he saw that another company called Celeco got the rights to Donkey Kong, Nintendo cancelled the deal and went into the US market without Atari's help and became the new kings in home video gaming. Atari may have missed out on billions (billions with a ‘B’ ). The Atari Lynx- a handheld with a full color screen- got creamed by the less powerful green-and-white-screened Nintendo Gameboy, and it could be blamed due to the Gameboy being cheaper at the time to appeal to a parent when shopping for their kids' holiday gift. It might have been easier for Atari in the 1970's when your competing against PONG machines but innovation- the father of invention- must step in eventually and another great electronics company will try to strike you out.

There is no chance that Atari will go back to consoles but that doesn't mean you can't enjoy the greats that they once made. Go to a wal-mart and you'll find plug and play devices that allow you to relive the classics like Pitfall or Space Invaders and more for around 20 bucks. You can also find roms now on various online emulation websites for free. There is even Jaguar emulators that play the Jag games (if you simply just can't let go). Atari made games for everyone, and there is still even a homebrew scene of people that make games. Atari isn't dead to the world yet, and to this writer, I am glad.

Atari is now a publisher, making games for the companies that handed their ass to them. Atari's mark is on games like the 90's dino-fighting hit Primal Rage and the over-hyped Enter the Matrix, and the multiplayer FPS Unreal Tournament series. There is even a band called 'The Atari's'.

So maybe the industry is wrong, maybe there is a chance for Atari to make a comeback. No one would see that shit coming, an Atari system competing against Microsoft! No doubt it will be named after an animal. The Atari Marmoset?

Don't hold your breath.

I still want a Jag. I've got a Jaguar emulator on my computer and I’ve played AvP and to be honest im not impressed, nor would I be at the age of 13 or even 6. I'll have more on that game later but at least I got to experience the best the Jag could offer and I now know why it flopped. Perhaps I’m just a man looking to collect something that I grew up hearing about, and maybe in about 40 years from now- I can be on Antiques Roadshow and have an appraiser of electronics tell me that my 1990’s relic ain’t worth squat. There is a chance for some gaming systems to be worth money, like the Commodore 64, and the Neo Geo (granted the Neo Geo still rocks after all these years) they’re people out there that would sell their car for a Neo Geo. Someday when I’m at a Goodwill I'll find a Jaguar in a stack of 8 track players I’m still gonna buy it, after all its Goodwill and its for a good cause.