Atari Jaguar: История 64-битной консоли

Home video game console

The Atari Jaguar is a home video game console developed by Atari Corporation and released in North America in November 1993. Part of the fifth generation of video game consoles, it competed with the 16 bit Sega Genesis, the Super NES and the 32 bit 3DO Interactive Multiplayer that launched the same year. Powered by two custom 32 bit Tom and in addition to a Motorola 68000, Atari marketed it as the world's first 64 bit game system, emphasizing its 64 bit bus used by the blitter. which received divisive reviews. The system's library ultimately comprised only 50 licensed games. Development of the Atari Jaguar started in the early 1990s by Flare Technology, which focused on the system after cancellation of the Atari Panther console. The Jaguar was an important system for Atari after the company shifted its focus from computers having ceased development of its Atari ST back to consoles. However, the multi chip architecture, hardware bugs, and poor tools made writing games for the Jaguar difficult. Underwhelming sales further eroded the console's third party support. With the release of the Sega Saturn and PlayStation in 1995, sales of the Jaguar continued to fall. It sold no more than 150,000 units before it was discontinued in 1996. The commercial failure of the Jaguar prompted Atari to leave the console market. After Hasbro Interactive acquired all Atari Corporation properties, Around 1989 work began on a new console leveraging technology from their Atari ST computers. Originally named the Super XE following the Atari XE Game System it eventually became the Atari Panther using either 16 or 32 bit architecture. A more advanced system codenamed Jaguar also began work. Impressed by their work on the Konix Multisystem, Atari persuaded them to close Flare and form a new company called Flare II, with Atari providing the funding. Work on the Jaguar design progressed faster than expected, so Atari canceled the Panther project in 1991 and its 32 bit or even 64 bit architecture. By this time the Atari ST had long been surpassed in popularity by the Amiga, while both Atari and Commodore became victims of 'Wintel', which would become the dominant computer platform.

The Jaguar was launched on November 23, 1993, at a price of $249.99, under a $500 million manufacturing deal with IBM. The system was initially available only in the test markets of New York City and San Francisco, with the slogan "Get bit by Jaguar", claiming superiority over competing 16 bit and 32 bit systems. During this test launch Atari sold all units hoping it would rally support for the system. A nationwide release followed six months later, in early 1994. The Jaguar struggled to attain a substantial user base. Atari reported that it had shipped 17,000 units as part of the system's initial test market in 1993. By the end of 1994, it reported that it had sold approximately 100,000 units. Computer Gaming World wrote in January 1994 that the Jaguar was "a great machine in search of a developer/customer base", as Atari had to "overcome the stigma of its name (lack of marketing and customer support, as well as poor developer relations in the past)". Atari had "ventured late into third party software support" for the Jaguar while competing console 3DO's "18 month public relations blitz" would result in "an avalanche of software support", the magazine reported. The small size and poor quality of the Jaguar's game library became the most commonly cited reason for the Jaguar's tepid adoption, as early releases like Trevor McFur in the Crescent Galaxy, Raiden, and Evolution: Dino Dudes also received poor reviews, the latter two for failing to take full advantage of the Jaguar's hardware. Jaguar did eventually earn praise with games such as Tempest 2000, Doom, and Wolfenstein 3D. The most successful title during the Jaguar's first year was Alien vs. Predator. However, these occasional successes were seen as insufficient while the Jaguar's competitors were receiving a continual stream of critically acclaimed software; GamePro concluded their rave review of Alien vs. Predator by remarking "If Atari can turn out a dozen more games like AvP, Jaguar owners could truly rest easy and enjoy their purchase." Next Generation commented that "thus far, Atari has spectacularly failed to deliver on the software side, leaving many to question the actual quality and capability of the hardware. With only one or two exceptions – Tempest 2000 is cited most frequently – there have just been no truly great games for the Jaguar up to now." They further noted that while Atari is well known by older gamers, the company had much less overall brand recognition than Sega, Sony, Nintendo, or even The 3DO Company. However, they argued that with its low price point, the Jaguar might still compete if Atari could improve the software situation. This claim is questioned by some, because the Motorola 68000 CPU and the Tom and Jerry coprocessors execute 32 bit instruction sets. Atari's reasoning that the 32 bit Tom and Jerry chips work in tandem to add up to a 64 bit system was ridiculed in a mini editorial by Electronic Gaming Monthly, which commented that "If Sega did the math for the Sega Saturn the way Atari did the math for their 64 bit Jaguar system, the Sega Saturn would be a 112 bit monster of a machine." Next Generation, while giving a mostly negative review of the Jaguar, maintained that it is a true 64 bit system, since the data path from the DRAM to the CPU and Tom and Jerry chips is 64 bits wide.

In early 1995, Atari announced that they had dropped the price of the Jaguar to $149.99, in order to be more competitive. Atari ran infomercials with enthusiastic salesmen touting the game system. These aired for most of 1995, but did not sell the remaining stock of Jaguar systems. In a 1995 interview with Next Generation, then CEO Sam Tramiel declared that the Jaguar was as powerful, if not more powerful, than the newly launched Sega Saturn, and slightly weaker than the upcoming PlayStation. Next Generation received a deluge of letters in response to Tramiel's comments, particularly his threat to bring Sony to court for price dumping if the PlayStation entered the U. S. market at a retail price below $300. Many readers found this threat hollow and hypocritical, since Tramiel noted in the same interview that Atari was selling the Jaguar at a loss. The editor responded that price dumping does not have to do with a product being priced below cost, but its being priced much lower in one country than anotherwhich, as Tramiel said, is illegal. Tramiel and Next Generation agreed that the PlayStation's Japanese price converts to approximately $500. His remark, that the small number of third party Jaguar games was good for Atari's profitability, angered Jaguar owners who were already frustrated at how few games were coming out for the system. In Atari's 1995 annual report, it noted: Jaguar sales were substantially below Atari's expectations, and Atari's business and financial results were materially adversely affected in 1995 as Atari continued to invest heavily in Jaguar game development, entered into arrangements to publish certain licensed titles and reduced the retail price for its Jaguar console unit. Atari attributes the poor performance of Jaguar to a number of factors including (i) extensive delays in development of software for the Jaguar which resulted in reduced orders due to consumer concern as to when titles for the platform would be released and how many titles would ultimately be available, and (ii) the introduction of competing products by Sega and Sony in May 1995 and September 1995, respectively. In addition, Atari had severely limited financial resources, and so could not create the level of marketing which has historically backed successful gaming consoles. Although Atari continued to deny these theories going into 1996, core Jaguar developers such as High Voltage Software and Beyond Games stated that they were no longer receiving communications from Atari regarding future Jaguar projects. In its 10 K405 SEC Filing, filed April 12, 1996, On April 8, 1996, Atari Corporation agreed to merge with JTS, Inc. in a reverse takeover, thus forming JTS Corporation. The merger was finalized on July 30. After the merger, the bulk of Jaguar inventory remained unsold On March 13, 1998, JTS sold the Atari name and all of the Atari properties to Hasbro Interactive.

Atari Games licensed the Atari Jaguar's chipset for use in its arcade games. The system, named COJAG (for "Coin Op Jaguar"), replaced the 68000 with a 68020 or MIPS R3000 based CPU (depending on the board version), added more RAM, a full 64 bit wide ROM bus (Jaguar ROM bus being 32 bit), and optionally a hard drive (some games such as Freeze are ROM only). It runs the lightgun games Area 51 and Maximum Force, which were released by Atari as dedicated cabinets or as the Area 51 and Maximum Force combo machine. Other games were developed but never released: 3 On 3 Basketball, Fishin' Frenzy, Freeze, and Vicious Circle.

Prior to the launch of the console in November 1993, Atari had announced a variety of peripherals to be released over the console's lifespan. This included a CD ROM based console, a dial up Internet link with support for online gaming, a virtual reality headset, and an MPEG 2 video card. However, due to the poor sales and eventual commercial failure of the Jaguar, most of the peripherals in development were canceled. The only peripherals and add ons released by Atari for the Jaguar are a redesigned controller, an adapter for four players, a CD console add on, and a link cable for local area network (LAN) gaming. The redesigned second controller, the ProController by Atari, added three more face buttons and two triggers. It was created in response to the criticism of the original controller, said to lack enough buttons for fighting games in particular. Sold independently, however, it was never bundled with the system. The Team Tap multitap adds 4 controller support, compatible only with the optionally bundled White Men Can't Jump and NBA Jam Tournament Edition. Eight player gameplay with two Team Taps is possible

The Jaguar CD is a CD ROM peripheral for games. It was released in September 1995, two years after the Jaguar's launch. Thirteen CD games were released during its manufacturing lifetime, with more being made later by homebrew developers. Each Jaguar CD unit has a Virtual Light Machine, which displays light patterns corresponding to music, if the user inserts an audio CD into the console. It was developed by Jeff Minter, after experimenting with graphics during the development of Tempest 2000. The program was deemed a spiritual successor to the Atari Video Music, a visualizer released in 1976. The Memory Track is a cartridge accessory for the Jaguar CD, providing Jaguar CD games with 128 K EEPROM for persistent storage of data such as preferences and saved games. The Atari Jaguar Duo (codenamed Jaguar III) was a proposal to integrate the Jaguar CD to make a new console, a concept similar to the TurboDuo and Genesis CDX. A prototype, described by journalists as resembling a bathroom scale, was unveiled at the 1995 Winter Consumer Electronics Show, but the console was canceled before production.

A virtual reality headset compatible with the console, tentatively titled the Jaguar VR, was unveiled by Atari at the 1995 Winter Consumer Electronics Show. The development of the peripheral was a response to Nintendo's virtual reality console, the Virtual Boy, which had been announced the previous year. The headset was developed in cooperation with Virtuality, which had previously created many virtual reality arcade systems, and was already developing a similar headset for practical purposes, named Project Elysium, for IBM. The peripheral was targeted for a commercial release before Christmas 1995. However, the deal with Virtuality was abandoned in October 1995. After Atari's merger with JTS in 1996, all prototypes of the headset were allegedly destroyed. However, two working units, one low resolution prototype with red and grey colored graphics and one high resolution prototype with blue and grey colored graphics, have since been recovered, and are regularly showcased at retrogaming themed conventions and festivals. Only one game was developed for the Jaguar VR prototype: a 3D rendered version of the 1980 arcade game Missile Command, titled Missile Command 3D, and a demo of Virtuality's Zone Hunter was created. but was not actually released until mid 1995. The ICD CatBox plugs directly into the AV/DSP connectors located in the rear of the Jaguar console and provides three main functions. These are audio, video, and communications. It features six output formats, three for audio (line level stereo, RGB monitor, headphone jack with volume control) and three for video (composite, S Video, and RGB analog component video) making the Jaguar compatible with multiple high quality monitor systems and multiple monitors at the same time. It is capable of communications methods known as CatNet and RS 232 as well as DSP pass through, allowing the user to connect two or more Jaguars together for multiplayer games either directly or with modems. The ICD CatBox features a polished stainless steel casing The CatBox is also compatible with Atari's Jaglink Interface peripheral. An adaptor for the Jaguar that allows for WebTV access was revealed in 1998; one prototype is known to exist.