sk anyone in the industry and they will tell you this market is brutal. Yes, we are talking about Asteroids, Space Invaders and Pac-Man, the video game market. It is amazing how important timing is in this market. This is the story of the Atari Jaguar, the world's first 64-bit video game system and it's a story about how you not only can be too late in this market but sometimes too early. It seems like this market goes in waves and it is important to catch the wave at the right up swing. Neither too early nor too late. Atari created the video game craze in the seventies. Then in the early eighties the market collapsed and was reborn by the advanced 8 bit systems and fresh games ideas. It was Nintendo with its hit Mario Brothers, which brought the market back to life. Then at the end of the eighties Sega introduced its 16 bit console Genesis which was followed later by the Super Nintendo. Again, the market raised to new levels of sales and profits. Through all that time Atari, the home video game inventor, was very busy with its successful ST personal computer line. Still, it always kept its door in the video game market. The 2600 was still selling as an inexpensive entry level game system enjoying a huge library of classic titles. Atari was also present with its XE Game system as well as with the 7800 Proystem. And in the back of the heads of Atari's management were always ideas about new video game systems. There were talks about a stripped down version of the ST computer used as a game system. There was the rumored Panther, which existed in prototype form. In 1989, Atari got definitely back into the video game market when it acquired the Lynx portable video game system from troubled game software maker Epyx. The Lynx was the first color handheld video game system. It was so advanced, the system still impresses people today. Unfortunately early production problems limited its glory for a fast success.   

Vice president of engineering was Richard Miller in those days who had worked on the Atari Transputer project back in the UK. Friends of his who worked with him at Sinclair years ago had founded a company called Flair to develop a next generation home video game system. Those ties brought Atari and Flair together and Atari started to fund the Jaguar project. So far home video games were basically 2D games. The Jaguar was aimed to deliver Gouraud shaded 3D worlds. Atari had ambitious plans with the Jaguar chip set. Not only did it want to use it for its next generation video game system but also as a graphics chip set for a new set of personal computers. Time went by and up until 1993 only rumors existed about this advanced new game console. Atari kept very quit about it. At the end of 1992 Atari noticed the rising competition of the PC clones in the home and personal computer market. It got clear that proprietary systems would face a hard time in the future. Atari started to cut back on its computer-relate development. It looked over its shoulder and saw the enormous profits Sega and Nintendo were enjoying in a market, which is driven by innovation. Were it was still able to excite people with new, powerful hardware. And that's something Atari under the Tramiels was always good in, delivering new exciting hardware at low cost. So, Sam Tramiel reorganized the company and had it focus on the Jaguar development. In mid 1993 Atari computer sales were dramatically decreasing. But Atari surprised everyone that summer by the announcement that nobody less than IBM was going to manufacture the world's first 64 bit video game console, the Atari Jaguar Multimedia System. Within months the stock price soared from $0.50 to $12. Sam Tramiel invited the press to come to Sunnyvale and take a look at first prototypes. But Atari was not without competition. Tim Hawkins, founder of Electronic Arts announced the 3DO game player for Christmas of 1993. It was an interesting new concept. 3DO just developed the technology and was going to license it to hardware manufacturers like Panasonic or Goldstar. Atari was switching into high gear to beat 3DO with the introduction of the new game player. That summer everyone worked long hours at 1196 Borregas Avenue to make sure, Christmas would not be lost. And in November it delivered. A press conference was held in the Time Warner building introducing the Atari Jaguar Multimedia System. The first units produced by IBM were shown to the world. Right in time for Christmas, the units shipped to toy stores everywhere in the US (primarily New York and California though) along with four game titles, more than 3DO offered at that time. 3DO did beat Atari by a few weeks with its introduction. But the 3DO carried a high price tag of $699 where the Jaguar was $399. And what about Sega and Nintendo? It seemed they were paralyzed. Shocked, that they had no answer to this next generation of games. Taken by total surprise. Sega tried to do damage control and came out with a 32 bit add-on for its Genesis game system. And Nintendo just told the world to wait for its most powerful next generation system, which will come one day in the future. It sounded pathetic, but as we will find out later, the world sure did wait.   
So what's inside that so advanced video game system? Here are the technical specifications:  

  • M68000 CPU at 16 MHz
  • Graphics Processor Unit, custom RISC processor running at 25 MHz
  • Digital Signal Processor, custom RISC processor running at 25 MHz
  • Blitter Chip
  • Object Video Processor
  • 2 MB of RAM
  • True Color Video 
  • HiFi Quality Audio
  • Optional CD-Player
Looking back now it seems that Atari should have put all its strength into the Jaguar even earlier, because in 1994 there was a draught of software titles for the Jaguar. Video games for an advanced system like the Jaguar were far more complex. A new generation of tools was needed which did not exist back then. Atari then put a lot of effort into getting a good number of titles out for Christmas of 1994. And by Christmas there were about 12 titles, including those long awaited games like Alien vs. Predator, Iron Soldier and Kasumi Ninja. So far there was no competition in side other than 3DO. Well, no competition in the 32 or 64 bit world. Atari found out the hard way that not enough people were yet ready to make the jump to the next level of gaming platforms. And consumers were confused about all the announcement of new machines, like Sega Saturn, Sony Playstation and Nintendo Ultra 64. And due to magazines like The Edge, hard core game players knew that the next level of gaming should not only happen in 3D worlds, but these 3D worlds better be texture mapped. And for that you need quite powerful machine. So maybe the Jaguar was too early? Maybe it should have been a bit longer on mother's milk before being released into the Jungle? Well, that's easy to say now. But back in 1993 with the troubled home and personal computer market, Atari needed a new product. And the Jaguar chip set was definitely one hot piece of hardware. It delivered unbelievable graphics power for an unbelievable price. Even PC graphic card vendors were interested in the chip set.  

Back to 1994. Christmas turned out to be ok for Atari. And the money from a won lawsuit against Sega had filled Atari's pockets to be able to do a good marketing campaign for the holiday season and get new games developed. To get a higher volume of machines into the market, Atari reduced the price of the Jaguar several times. By 1995 it was under $200. Several more games came out, like the long awaited Rayman, a beautiful jump & run platform game. Atari announced at the E3 in April of 1995 a Virtual Reality helmet for the Jaguar and showed quite a number of CD based titles. The final release for the CD player add-on was scheduled for the summer of '95. Along with E3 came the introduction of the Sega Saturn into the American market. And by September, the Sony Playsation would follow. So far, Nintendo just showed smoke and mirrors. Richard Miller had left Atari that year to start his own company and John Mathison, one of the designers of the Jaguar chip set, now led the hardware engineering team in those days. His team was working on the Jaguar 2 chip set for a new machine to be able to compete with the next generation machines from Sony and Nintendo.   

Atari did ship the Jaguar CD-ROM in September and the Jaguar enjoyed a good software library by then. But sales still had not taken off and new competition was on its way. Since that summer, Ted Hoff ran the US division. He tried to introduce many changes. And for a short period of time, even Walmart carried the Jaguar. In October Atari laid off a number of engineers and announced it would start to focus on the development of PC game titles. Atari tried very hard to still make the Jaguar a success. A good number of new titles made it to market before Christmas.   

The last big appearance of Atari was at the Winter CES in Las Vegas in January of 1996. Atari Interactive introduced a couple of PC games, like Tempest 2000 and Baldies. But shortly after CES, 1196 Borregas was hit by a tornado again. Like in the summer of 1984. The Tramiel family had watched long enough the struggling of Atari and decided it was wise to invest the money elsewhere. That it would not make sense to try to compete against Sony and Nintendo. So there were more lay offs in those weeks. First one to go was Ted Hoff, who led Atari for about 7 months. Nobody knew what was going to happen until the fog lifted in the spring. Atari was to merge with the start up disk drive manufacturer JTS, which happened in August of 1996.   

But don't think for the story to be over. John Skrutch who has been with Atari since the early eighties is still heading the Atari division of JTS. Jaguars are still being sold and even a few more games like Iron Soldier 2 are being published. And John is very busy licensing those classic games we all love to companies who port them to new hardware. And as a pioneer of the video game industry Atari still holds a number of valuable patents. There are still thousands of STs out there being used today. And heck, I won't play a game other than on my 65XE, 5200 or Jaguar.   
Have you played Atari todayà
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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