Jaguar
During the early 1990s, it was the Sega Genesis that was to rule the video game industry. The Sega Corp. was making extremely strong sales, the NEC TurboGrafx-16 was just under the Sega Genesis and the Super Nintendo had not even been released yet.
There were rumours everywhere about the latest and greatest peripherals that will be released soon by Sega along with the soon to be released Sony PlayStation. There was another very important rumour that had begun to circulate in 1991. This rumour was that of Atari was to re-enter the gaming industry. This rumour was about a 32-bit console that was dubbed, the Panther. This gaming console was never to be released due to the fact that Atari was currently in the middle of the design of a 64-bit console. This 64-bit console that Atari was planning on releasing was the Atari Jaguar. Atari had been designing both consoles at the same time, but it was to be the Jaguar, that would progress at a quicker rate than the panther.
At first, the Atari Corporation did not divulge any information about their new Jaguar system. But since the Atari Jaguar was planned to be released in 1993, they would have to start releasing information about the specs of the new Atari Jaguar. The only bit of information that Atari gave about the new Jaguar console, was that it was to feature a true 64 bit processor. This system was literally light-years more advanced than the Sega Genesis and the super Nintendo combined. The best part about the information that I had released, was that the Atari Jaguar was going to be released at only $100-$150.
The internal structure of the Atari Jaguar is a completely impressive setup. This system features five different processors, in which two of these processors were proprietary; one was a Motorola 68000 while the final chip is the graphics chip. This entire system ran at just over 26 ½ megahertz and was capable of 26 ½ million instructions per second. The system even came with 2 MB of RAM.
When it was time to party announce the official launch of their new gaming console, although they had announced a price tag of $100-$150, the final production of run was to be released at $200. Due to the video gaming industry's demand for a 64-bit machine, by the time the Atari Jaguar had officially hit the shelves in the stores, the price had reached an amazing height of just over $250. Although the price had climbed over $100 from the initial estimate, the number of sales where just overwhelming. Matter of fact, the Atari Jaguar was not even being manufactured by Atari, but rather IBM was manufacturing the system for them. Atari was all set to do full out marketing of the Atari Jaguar, but the major problem was not the consumers, but the retailers themselves. The retailers were highly sceptical about the Atari's ability to offer quality games and keep all of their promises.
By the time the Atari Jaguar was available, the consumers offered a mixed reaction about the console itself. There were many gamers who enjoyed a higher level of power; there were also several gamers who insisted that the Jaguars were not a true 64 bit system. Those who swear that the Jaguar was not a true 64 bit system state that it was actually 2 32-bit processors that were running in parallel. The biggest problems came down to development of the games. Atari did not have sufficient development tools for the game development companies. What this actually created was a heightened delay of literally every game that was to be made for the Atari Jaguar system. There were some games, however that were not delayed. These games were rushed out the door so quickly that the effects on the playability of the games were so insubstantial that they managed to amplify the shortcomings of the Atari Jaguar system.
By 1994, with the new Sega Saturn and the Sony PlayStation coming up quickly to the gaming market, the Atari Jaguar was to see a horrendous Christmas season. When the Sega Saturn, along with the Sony PlayStation game systems were released towards the end of 1995, the world had already forgotten the Atari Jaguar system.
Atari probably knew that this was to be the end of the Atari Jaguar since there was not a chance that they were going to be able to compete against the Sony PlayStation. With only $3 million worth Atari Jaguar consoles sold during the last quarter of 1995, they began to lay off employees and prepared for the inevitable discontinuation of support for the entire Atari Jaguar line-up.
Before this final collapse of the Atari Jaguar, the Atari Corporation had already begun the development of the Jaguar II. They were expecting 7 processors on three different chips that would be running at roughly 53 MHz. They had already made several prototypes but due to the collapse of Atari Jaguar, the Jaguar II was never to see production.
The eventual inevitability of the Atari Jaguar is that the game consoles were to end up as the controllers for a plethora of kiddie rides. These are the same kiddie rides, that one would see sitting out front of any local Kmart, their neighbourhood supermarket or a Chuck E. Cheese.
Original Authors: Gobel Team (Nick)
Edit Update Authors: RPN
Updated On: 28/08/2007
