The Atari Panther: The Death of Atari
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- Опубліковано 10 кві 2016
- HERE IS A LINK TO MY CUSTOM MADE 3D PANTHER IMAGES:
imgur.com/a/lbdFc
You may use these and spread these as you wish. The 3D models are based on the actual Panther design diagrams, found here:
web.archive.org/web/200312020...
The Atari Panther was once going to be Atari's answer to the 32-bit era. This powerful console would have been released in 1991 alongside the Super Nintendo and would have had specs more than 3 times as powerful as the then released 16-bit Super Nintendo.
Ultimately, the ill-fated Atari Jaguar would come to overshadow the Atari Panther entirely, and unfortunately, the Panther's development fell to the wayside as the Atari Jaguar became Atari's dominant console concept. As development on the Jaguar continued, the Panther development was cancelled, and Atari rushed their "64-bit" Jaguar to market - ahead of schedule, and in my opinion, unfinished. Due to this fact, the Atari Jaguar is now a forgotten relic, with the Panther itself relegated to an even lower position - a half remembered and always forgotten footnote of video game history. - Розваги
I enjoyed watching the video but I disagree with a big chunk of it. Having a competitive piece of hardware in the race is one thing but it means little if you don't have the software. Atari, as an American company, didn't have the ties with the Japanese game industry Nintendo, Sega and NEC had, and that's where all the cool stuff was happening back then. The Lynx did come out at the right time but the game library paled in comparison to that of the technically inferior Game Boy.
To put it simply: they couldn't compete with the Japanese. Simple as that. Their products were inferior and relied on aggressive, deceptive marketing. They didn't have the same business ethic. They did not have the cool mascots, and missed the fighting game craze entirely. I doubt they would have managed to invite the likes of Konami and Capcom to develop for their systems.
Yup. The Atari ST had tons of games available for it, and many inside ATARI wanted to build a CD-ROM Atari STE game console. It would have been much more powerful than the competitiand be backward compatible. Not only that, But that would have sold a lot more Atari STs.
I love that he recorded his audio commentary on the Atari Panther and converted it onto his computer, now that's dedication.
But seriously great content shame you can't be bothered making a nice slick video as you could seriously go far on here, your commentary is actually interesting, rare thing.
Paddy Mc Check my second video. I'm working on it. Thanks for listening
Please keep making videos like this. This is one of my favorite youtube videos. Keep it up!
if the Panther had a Lynx adapter to play lynx games on a tv that would be cool!
They gave the market share to Nintendo when they decided to release the 7800 in 86 , which should have came out in 84. If they had spent 86-88 developing a better system than the NES instead it would have came out at the same time as the Genesis in 1989. Third party developers would have went with Atari over Nintendo. This move would have given them another 3 years before the Super Nintendo came out to work on their next console.
I should note that the Atari 7800 is more powerful than NES.
The issue is it didn't have enough games. Which was the Jaguar's issue as well..
But yea 7800 can hold more moving sprites on screen, so it never has to use flicker tricks.
7800 also has more than 3X the available colors than NES.
The only thing it lacks in is sound, which is mitigated by adding a sound chip to the cartridge.
The original team working on 7800 "General Computer" were making an affordable cart chip, so developers wouldn't need the expensive pokey to add music to games, but after ownership changed they were let go. 7800 had a nice launch library since GC had made a bunch of games for it.. but since they had left before the systems launch Atari wasn't able to keep up with Nintendo's constant stream of new and exciting games.
Early Nintendo games weren't any more advanced than 7800, but then Nintendo started adding chips to the cartridges to make games even better. Which is something Atari could have done as well had their games division been stronger.
They were focused on the Atari ST computer, which was closer to the strength of Sega Genesis.
But it's funny how we seperate game consoles from home computers.. because in my mind it does seem like they went from 7800 to Jaguar.. as I've never been a computer person.
But ST has tons of games that were also on Sega Genesis.
I was a kid when I read in the magazine about the Panther and for the summer it was a pretty big deal to everyone that Atari was joining the 16bit wars then 2 years later the Jaguar dropped and Atari wasn't mentioned anymore.
The only reason these later gaming consoles were failures was because they actually made them before selling them. The new Atari has it right, first you sell as many as you can, then take that money and run!
Sloe Bone hahaha!
The Jaguar had a 64-bit blitter processor, object processor, and data path to memory, so Atari never lied about that. However, it's 32-bit RISC processor (DSP) was ignored because its Genesis-like 68000 was sitting right next to it, so easy to write code for in Assembly. Because that advanced hardware was so difficult for 8- and 16-bit developers to learn, the powerful Jaguar hardware was never put to full use. SONY learned this lesson and developed great software tools for the PlayStation and had extensive libraries and APIs built right in. SEGA did not learn that lesson, killed the growing Genesis market, and released an 8-processor Saturn that was even harder to write software for.
In 1990, when Atari started seeing that the Panther was behind schedule in development, they could've released an Atari Lynx console with the upgraded "Mike" 65SC02 processor running at 14Mhz, similar to the one in the SNES, but four times faster, a dramatically upgraded "Suzy" graphics chip, twice as much RAM (128KB, like the Genesis) and CD-ROM. That would be a perfect fit because the Lynx already had to load game data into RAM before working with it. It could've upscaled Lynx games to 320x104 while playing the new games at a PlayStation-like 320x224 showing 256 colors from its palette of 4,096, like many arcade systems. With the increased RAM and more powerful Mike audio chip, Atari would be back in the game with a powerful, 4th generation console--the only one with a CD-ROM at the time, and the ability to play music CDs, read CD-ROMs (encyclopedias, etc) and offer game developers of Myst, RPGs, music-based games, and others a very cost effective way to get games into stores without tying up millions in cartridge inventory.
And they'd have a great upgrade path for the Atari Lynx handheld.
Actually a Jaguar sold super well early on but they lost all their momentum because IBM who made the chips for them couldn't keep up and they had a severe shortage of product to sell. That in turn led to a smaller install base and kept third parties away. And Atari did not have the resources and programmers to support a console by itself they needed third parties
IBM only assembled and Q. A tested the Jaguar Toshiba and Motorola fabricated the Jaguar chipsets and initial production runs only got around 40% yields.
IBM couldn't build Jaguar consoles without the chips from third party suppliers.
Shame you're no longer making videos. I actually think this is a pretty interesting topic and a well thought out explanation. If you ever do make another video, it would be interesting to hear your take on a more moden failure like rhe Stadia or even the NGage, which was pretty ahead of it's time
The "TurboGrafX", was an awesome system, IN ITS ORIGINAL FORM (PC Engine), and was the first 16 bit system by a long shot. Then NEC's U.S. marketing people totally destroyed it, actively sabotaging the system and causing huge delays in the launch. The original console was very small, about the size of a portable CD player, had hundreds of games, dozens of controllers and peripherals, and extensive 3rd party support. I bought one Akihabara, Japan when it first came out (Navy), as well as the A/V adapter (RCA), and around 30 games. I still love it. The console had fairly short controller cables because it was meant to sit by the players. The idiot marketing people convinced NEC that Americans did not like efficient compact designs, and insisted it be completely redesigned for the U.S.! They had the electronics spread out to make the console almost 4x bigger, making it inconvenient to set by the players. They stupidly kept the short controller cables, though. Then apparently worried about grey market imports, they had the game card port and controller ports rewired to DELIBERATELY MAKE THEM INCOMPATIBLE with all the games and peripherals already out! Then they only selected a small number of games to convert to the new machine, DEMANDING they be all made kid friendly, despite the fact that the most popular games were aimed at teens and adults. By the time it released in the U.S., with poor advertising, they almost completely had lost the lead in 16 bit consoles. NEC still marketed it to little kids. If the PC Engine had been released in the U.S. in a timely manner with just minor tweaks like a U.S. spec NTSC tuner, multiple controller ports, and maybe A/V out standard, it would have completely dominated the 16 bit era!
mrnickbig1 Totally agreed
I had no idea it was that bad!
"Mistakes were made"
The Japanese PC Engine had better games than the shovelware offered for the TG-16 in the US.
If they demanded that all games be kid friendly, then why release Splatterhouse?
Lord Rayken, your videos are amazing, some of the best material i've seen in years, so thanks for that. Are you going to be making more videos? I would love to hear more from you. Thanks again.
Noah Z Yes sir
Awesome, what is your next topic on and when should I expect to see something? Thanks
You'll have to wait and see!
The big issue with consoles today that was already critical in those days was exclusive games. Sega had several popular arcade games that were the reason why they sold so well, the addition of EA sports continued to boost sales not only to Arcade fans, but sport fans as well. Nintendo, has and always had their world renown game icons that keep the systems selling even today...such as Donkey Kong, Mario, and Link. Atari, had who? They had exclusive rights to arcade games that were popular in the late 70s and early 80s. Besides this, who were their mascots? Pitfall Harry, produced by a disgruntled ex Atari employee David Crane? I agree with many other comments that as soon as Nolan Bushnell sold Atari it went from someone's idea and passion into simply a technology product, which started Atari decent into oblivion. The panther would do not attract as many developers as Nintendo or Sega, and would have nothing special to offer...look at the more powerful Jaguar. The best titles on the system were Amiga Motorolla 68000 ports, besides a couple of 3Dish games that were quite boring really. Please also keep in mind that I am a child-hood Atari fan, who owns everything from Super Pong through to the Atari STE...I love Atari, but after Nolan Bushnell, Atari owners lost the passion and vision of what Atari really was...it was imagination, fun and excitement at home. Nevertheless, this is really just opinions...great work on the video though, cheers.
SNES PPU was amazing though, a lot of what the SNES did that was just absolutely great was done because the architecture itself was amazing.
taitaisanchez the snes insides was a mess that took two steps back for every step forward it took.
i said the PPU was amazing. So was the sound chip. The raw specs just don't matter(and really haven't; if you look historically at how consoles have panned out).
Yeah the sound chip was amazing
Atari stopped being a game console company when Jack Tramiel bought it and decided to concentrate on being a computer company. He didn't really want to run Atari, he wanted to run the second coming of Commodore. By the time the PC platform had destroyed both company's computer markets, Atari's desperate attempt to survive by reverting back to a game console company was a well documented and disasterous crash-and-burn saga.
I heard that atari is making a comeback with the new atari vcs which made me so excited because i have always want it atari to make a comeback i still wish that sega made a comeback too i'm a fan of both sega and atari and maybe in another parallel universe the atari panther never got cancelled it can out and save atari and atari still would of been around back then and what if sega dreamcast did well that save sega too in another parallel universe but too bad the atari panther was unreleased cancelled in this universe
Hate to burst your bubble, but you should check out videos on UA-cam devoted to the failure of the Atari VCS revival.
It'd be cool to see these old console companies would come together if possible to create an actual competitor. Possibly done with an Atari VCS 2 with an exclusive deal between Google stadia who'd offer the online gaming ability. Probably never will happen but just a wild thought.
Their main issue was Atari did not finish the math. 32 + 32 + 16 (for the Moto). If they marketed as an 80 bit they would surely have won.
I honestly think that the way to save Atari is to have someone other than Jack Tramiel in charge of it and to just have a different line of consoles altogether. They would have to compete with Sega in Europe and Nintendo in America.
And keep in mind, changing things in the 1980's could change A LOT of the industry. Sony might not even join in on the market or might make a partnership with Atari if it's relevant enough. You also didn't consider 3DO, which sold 2 million units in it's day. Microsoft joining could be butterflied away.
Basically agree with you about 7800. If had come out, without delay when it was ready, it would have had a decent collection of games, and would have been the perfect successor to 2600, and would have kept it going well into the NES period.
If Atari was still relevant , the Sony and Nintendo deal would probably have happened
This is a really good point - I didn't even think to include this when I was making this video. If Atari had managed to stay around a bit longer, who knows what would have happened with Sony/Nintendo.
One of Atari’s problems that is often overlooked is that games had evolved. Games that had longer play investment times like the battery backup carts of Nintendo and codes continues on other systems is where a lot of my time and friends wanted to play. A re-re-release of centipede (no matter how fun it is) wasn’t where gamers minds where. By the mid 80s everyone I knew moved on to computer gaming and dumped their consoles. I didn’t buy another console until Sony.
Christ that's a lot of words!!! In 1994 I was 11 years old, around the time my friend got the jaguar, as easy as it is to amuse a couple of 11 year olds Atari failed. After more than a week of giving it a better chance than it deserved, he had his mom take it back to toys r us and use the refund to expand his Genesis and SNES game collection significantly. That was far better in our opinion than the jaguar, even with all games and peripherals.
Great research and sound argument, but my advise is to rework this good video using background music and a written script for a more polished feel to match you very well planned content in a modern attractive package.
Terry The 2D Maniac if only
well you got 16,894 views with such a small subscriber base meaning your content is very well made in theory and logic and ppl enjoy it, don't give up and start doing what others with content that's 10% researched compared to yours.
Thank you. I improved a little in my second video if you'd like to give it a watch. I'll try to be less monotone in the third video I'm making.
just to put the name of Atari into perspective for you , i was born in 1995 and i had many Nintendo consoles and many other cheap Nintendo knockoffs
yet at that time all we knew (where i lived) was that those consoles name was ATARI we had no idea about nintendo what so ever , in fact the whole video game console's in the pre-playstation era were named and widely known as ATARI , thats how powerful and authentic the name and the company behind it was
The atari lynx was great however
What's most ironic is that Sega died the same way, they co-created 32X AND Saturn, and because of that lost a lot of time on the market and obviously lost many games that never came to fruition.
It's interesting you should say that, because I've been working on a discussion video about that for nearly a year now. And it's finally up! Although it was the Neptune that ended up being their downfall, I've found. Many may disagree, however. Check it out.
ua-cam.com/video/Tl7U9GjEXSc/v-deo.html
By 1991, Atari had already split and didn't have much capital. This is probably why they never released the Panther. I don't think it was a strategic decision, I think they were forced into it by lack of money.
The 65c816 was faster on a clock per clock basis than the 68000. The higher color depth and sound meant it had to do more work which is why it comes off so much slower. Also, Nintendo was never afraid to put tech into the cartridge and so any game that needed more speed was able to get it in the form of co-processors in the cartridge.
Atari was dead way before the Jaguar debacle. Their lack of R&D and marketing killed them in the late 80s. There 8 bits were dead and there 16 bits which had tremendous potential died on the vine. They were pumping out products that never caught on, like the lynx and portfolio and Stacy. The Jaguar was a piece of crap from the first day and with Sony and Sega coming out with next gen systems it was all over.
Anyone else notice that the Intellivision and ColecoVision consoles shown at 0:32 are in fact not the real systems but the new Flashback plug 'n play versions??
I just now saw that. Thank you for pointing that out!
Great Review, Thanks for making the video.
Thanks for watching man.
The 32x happened because the Sega Japan CEO was scared from what he heard about the Jaguar circa late 93/early 94. So Atari inadvertently took Sega down with them.
Sega might still be here were it not for the 32X.
This story kinda almost matches the toy line ExoSquad. it's just coincidence really, but odd how they both got bosses that made some of the dumbest decisions ever and could have changed there respective industries if they didn't do what they did.
If you go back far enough, the downfall of Atari is really when Nolan Bushnell sold it to Time Warner. That's what caused the video game crash (Time Warner changed how the game developers were paid, which created Activision (they left Atari because of that) and then the whole 3rd party video game craze started out, and the pile of crappy games followed, causing the crash, also causing Atari to eventually be sold to Tramiel, who basically (as mentioned here) dropped the push for video game consoles. They didn't go back into doing game consoles until Sam Tramiel took over.
slaapliedje there you go, was it that difficult for this video to mention what you said. It paibt a different picture understanding wgat really happened.
Jack Tramiel took Atari into computing because he was pissed off that he got kicked out of Commodore. He wanted to take Commodore down, hence why he lent the Amiga team money in a loan that they could never pay off (in which case he'd just take the company as payment)
He _really_ got pissed off at Commodore when they bought Amiga up, paying off their debts in the process.
You could argue that Commodore's downfall could be traced back to Jack Tramiel getting the sack and that the Amiga kept them going purely was such a brilliant machine. After all, when Commodore finally went bust, their UK arm was still turning a profit and was looking to buy out the rest of the company... sadly, it wasn't to be...
If you want a truly forgotten name in gaming that needs more love and recognition... try Commodore.
Jack Tramiel was a "computer salesman" of the late 70s and 80s at a time when money could be made by pushing something flashy, yet affordable...the late 80s and 90s was a completely different market than when Jack had power over Commodore.
Atari would have never released the 2600 without warners help.
slaapliedje even wcw went downhill due to time Warner
can you do a video about saving the 3do
Saturn actually sold out initially, but the US release was completely botched (very limited supplies, only available at a few retailers) and quickly lost out to the ps1. Saturn was quite popular in Japan, though. Atari only had one truly successful console, the 2600. The Lynx had limited success in some markets, the 5200 was seen as a crippled Atari 400, and the 7800 was completely ignored.
Jaguar should have been CD based from the GET with the CART slot as a means to expand ram and resolution like the ram slot on the n64 and the Saturn. The hardware was quite nice but the 3d Performance was on par with a PC running say X-Wing Vs Tie Fighter and that wasn't enough to promote 3D games. The Playstaion 1 really was perfect in retrospect.
The PS1 certainly did a lot of things right. But that's because they had the power of Sony behind them.
Atari Lynx was made by Epyx and the Lynx name came from the ‘Comlynx’ up to 4 handhelds. The Panther and Jaguar were just named after cars. There was no ‘cat phase’ lol
At The Atari Xmas Show, Atari UK MD, Bob Gleadow announced the ST console to have a mass showing at the June '89 Chicago Show and Atari would spend 6 months working on software for it.
This would include repackaged top ST titles and coin-op conversions and Atari hoped to have between 30 and 50 titles ready for launch.
Retailer presentations would also take place in June, with Atari expecting retailers to have it in stores for September when as Gleadow put it, Windows were changed in the lead up to Christmas.
Systems did come and go but Atari will always be known as the grandfather of video games.
18:16 - the quantities are bad - the values are not during one year but during severals years.
Yeah, it's meant to be an overall sales number with the system launch year.
As interesting as this is, Atari Panther would not have been a blip on the radar when the Genesis and SNES was on the market. I have been a gamer through the 80s-90s-etc. Nobody thought about Atari except as a dying company. Atari focussed on selling Atari STs competing with Amiga which split their dev and prod resources - you forgot that part. If the Panther would have been released, it would have been absolutely ignored by gamers at the time. The Jag is a whole other story of failure.
Jaguar II would have completed directly with the also-unreleased 3DO/Panasonic M2 console. They had very roughly similar polygon pushing specs (700K-750K textured polys/s) both about 4-5 times more powerful than PS1, although maybe only 1/4 the power of the Dreamcast (3-4M textured polys/s)
1991 was probably even too late. If they'd wanted to stay relevant they should have released something not long after Genesis came out. The trouble is even if they had launched something, the quality of games on the 7800 (i once collected all of them), barring the arcade ports of early 80's games, was uniformly garbage. This makes me suspect that they wouldn't have had any good games for their system (much like the jaguar). Perhaps if they'd designed something that could bring modern Arcade games home better than the genesis they could have traded off of that, but in terms of original games, they stunk.
I don't know the best 7800 game came out later. Alien Brigade etc.
More historical news coverage:
A mere few weeks (June 1991) after Atari UK MD Bob Gleadow had told a press conference that the Panther was completed and an Xmas release was likely, if enough games were finished and ready for launch, Atari USA President of Software development, Larry Segal, wrote to software houses saying that Atari would now forgoe the Panther in favour of a spectacular game system that Atari felt would be capable of being the technology leader into the 21st century.
Those who had had placed time and energy behind Panther would be compensated, Atari had no intention of causing financial distress, Atari would give them every opportunity to adapt their development schedules to suit development on the new Jaguar system.
Craig Erickson, VP of software development, Atari USA, claimed Panther had reached the stage at which the casing was ready to go into production and the hardware engineering was complete.
The news article claimed at least 6 UK software houses were working on software at time of the announcement.
Atari was never going to win the console war, no matter what cat name they gave their product. As soon as two companies were able to make their own consoles along with really good games it was over. Atari was poorly run as a company, they didn't have the money to compete in the 90's. Above all their games were subpar. Nintendo had complete control of outside developers and the reason Genesis was able to compete was because they could make good games.
Panther would've had to overcome the same issue as the Jaguar did in '93, which was make their own games, and Jaguar games were a disaster.
As for the original ST console :
December '88 saw Bob Gleadow telling UK Press, Atari planned to launch a console based on existing ST technology at the next year's New York Trade Fair in January, with initial machines selling via high street stores in the summer, full roll out in the Autumn.
Atari were hoping to see the cream of existing, Arcade based ST games converted to cartridge, with any adventure, simulation etc type games that required a keyboard, ruled out.
Prices were set at £99 for the console and £25 for the games.
Gleadow was quoted as saying:
"We will be launching a 68000-based console in" 89,but there's no point in having full distribution before September. The idea is to launch it at the Toy Show and start selling it to multiples in May.
Press commentary was skeptical.. Why would Atari wish to launch such a system?
If it proved to be a success, it would only hurt the 520ST, if Atari weren't expecting it to be successful, why bother releasing it to start with?.
Cool video, thanks for sharing.
The CEO of Atari has become French and his name is Frédéric Chesnais!
Le PDG d'Atari est devenu Français et il s'appelle Frédéric Chesnais !
Sa photo / Her picture :
www.bing.com/images/search?q=PDG+Atari+Fr%c3%a9d%c3%a9ric+Chesnais&FORM=HDRSC2
Too bad he sucks
Atari 2600 was awesome for the time it was released. The 5200 and 7800 were huge failures. NES games still hold up to this day, nice 8-bit 2-D graphics and sound tracks.
Atari 2600 graphics you have to use your imagination and not any music really. Just high-pitched beeps.
If Atari Just sticked at Making the panther they could have became Successful then they can make the Atari Jaguar in the Future with a 64 bit processor
A game console is only as good as it's games. NEO-GEO was the gold standard of consoles, but was priced way out of reach for many gamers.
Whereas, the Atari Jaguar was a sad attempt to beat the SNES & Genesis in terms of next-gen gaming.
Who knows how the Panther would have turned out had they been given the chance.
Had one of the coolest logos though.
I doubt Atari being still in the running in 1999 would have really pushed what we know as the DC in the market. The DC was partly killed by it's disk format; a lot of people skipped the DC for the PS2, partly because Sony lied about it's (the PS2) power, and partly because the DC used GD Roms instead of DVD Roms. Unless the J2 used DVDs, _and_ supported DVD playback, Sony would likely have just said "Yeah you could go with those, or you could buy this games-capable DVD player that's cheaper than a real DVD player," attacking both of them instead of just the DC. The DC might be a nice console (I personally find the console and it's games rather appealing), but it suffers basically the same issue as the Jaguar does; it's format medium is outdated, it's power would be found to be lacking when it's competition was released, and it released early. (Edit) The Dreamcast, with a full size disc, manages to hold less data per disc than the Gamecube, which uses a Mini DVD.
That being said, I don't believe SEGA couldn't have managed to make consideration in pushing more hardware into the DC, say a DVD add-on for the DC. The expansion port (modem/lan port, not the Serial port) may actually be fast enough to attach a DVD drive to it (there's currently research being put into the port to load games via SD card IIRC), making the Dreamcast twice as tall, putting a GD Rom pass through booter disc in the console, and having it boot DVDs out of the new DVD subsystem.
My favourite atari is the 800XL
It's like an 8 bit Amiga...
But anyway...
It has some weaknesses (sprites particularly. - the 5200 is a consolised 800 by the way)
Minute 18:16 describes it very well how things were in those times. Sad but true, the Jaguar had hardly any chance to compete with the other consoles. I have since last week a Jaguar console with 2 joypads and Cybermorph, White Men don't jump and Tempest 2000. Connected thru TV antenna cable. Well, only Tempest 2000 makes a lot of fun. I like the hardware, the console is stylish and the joypad fits perfectly to my hands. But unfortunately there are only few interesting games to play. This is the reason why I ordered a skunk board as I don't want to pay a fortune for Jaguar games on eBay. What is really sad is that there is no unique game released only for the Jaguar that shows it's entire graphic and sound power. Maybe the homebrew scene will release one day such a game?
While the sms wasn't that popular in the US it was dominating in Europe and south America I remember the nes not being that popular in Europe...
calastan This is a us only focus on their market so a lot of what he says just doesn't apply to the rest of the world.
The SMS sold around 8 million units in Europe vs the NES' 6 million, that's hardly "dominating" and frankly Europe just wasn't a very large or important market at that time for a variety of reasons. As for Brazil (which is what i'm assuming you meant by South America) yes the SMS was very popular, but the overwhelming majority of units sold there came well into the 1990s when the developed world had long moved on so its entirely irrelevant to any discussion of the industry in the 80's/8-bit era aside from a goofy fun fact.
"The Super Nintendo's processor was half a powerful as the Genesises... the Genesi... however you say it..."
The MegaDrive's
And the Atari 7800 would have been better had they put the POKEY sound chip in the console and not the cartridge, leaving the console with just 2600 quality sound.
Also, Atari didn't sit out the 4th generation, they had an entrant with the Atari ST. The market wasn't just Sega and Nintendo, the Commodore Amiga was huge too.
This is why I take issue with the 1983 _North American_ Video Game Crash being referred to without the words North American and declaring Nintendo to be the One True Saviour Of All Gaming. Nintendo were nowhere in the UK, for example.
In North America gaming seems to have been console only and gaming on computers has only happened with the PC. Back in the third generation when Nintendo had a monopoly, Europeans were all about gaming on 8 bit micros, hence why the Amiga was so big in Europe, it was seen as a continuation of gaming on computers.
You, in the other hand, seem to talk as if no game was ever published on any computer ever until Windows XP came out.
Also, the Panther and the Jaguar being developed side by side. What were the specs of the Panther going to be? It would have made sense to concentrate on the more powerful console.
The Sony PlayStation had no install base, Sony was a name that never existed, Sony had no entrant in the 4th generation, they might have made an MSX computer in the 3rd generation .
Also, when the Jaguar was released, the competition was the MegaDrive, the SNES and 3DO. The Jaguar was more powerful than the NegaDrive and the SNES and cheaper than the 3DO.
The Jaguar wasn't done for until the Sony PlayStation came out.
And again Sony had *NO* history in gaming until then.
If the Atari Jaguar was made with outdated technology, then the Nintendo 64 was also made with outdated technology.
The Dreamcast was pwned by the PlayStation 2 having a built in DVD drive. It helped Sony that they were a consumer electronics company and not just purely a video game company.
The TurboGrafx had already been released in Japan as the PC Engine to compete with the NES.
Nobody was laughing at the Lynx or the Game Gear for that matter, the Nintendo Game Boy dominated because even though the Game Boy was black and white, it had a decent battery life.
Both the Lynx and the Game Gear were ahead of their time. My only regret is the Neo Geo Pocket Color didn't do as well as they should have done.
The big problem with the 32X is Sega of Japan sabotaging the efforts of Sega of America in selling the 32X because Japan was all behind the Saturn. The Dreamcast was disadvantaged because gamers and retailers were sick of Sega's shit after the 32X and Saturn.
"Megadrive's"
A much more effective display of ownership with an 's.
Or Atari could have just got out of consoles completely and focused on computers and coin-ops, both divisions that were still doing quite well in the late '80s. As much as I loathe Jack Tramiel, the man had a point, even though it was for the wrong reasons. Ultimately, it was going to be hard for American consoles to compete with their Japanese competition.
Jack Tramiel didn't buy the coin op division, that stayed with Warner Bros and was known for a time as Time Warner Interactive.
Jack only had the computer and console divisions, the 7800 was being held up by arguments between Atari and GCC who actually developed the 7800 and the Atari ST was quickly bundled together from off the shelf parts for the sole purpose of competing with the Amiga (where it failed)
As for the what ifs where one situation includes Atari doing well in Japan, I got a little laugh out of that one! Japanese customers only ever buy Japanese systems, the entire XBOX line has died on its arse over there, there was no way Atari were ever going to break the Japanese market.
See also, British 8 bit machines failing to crack the American market, American customers would only buy American systems.
Be sure to check out my newest content! Thanks for watching guys.
The Sega Neptune: The Death of Sega:
ua-cam.com/video/Tl7U9GjEXSc/v-deo.html
The Xbox Identity Crisis:
ua-cam.com/video/nWWkzV_nHz8/v-deo.html
Oh? The Neptune was never released. I'll have to check that video out.
I think the Panther paired with games is Narcos or xmen the arcade version and several other games like that it could have really been successful with the older audiences. For example the teens playing mortal Kombat at the time.
I think that if all the consideration needed was a look at hardware, you might be right... For a while. But history shows us that it's not always the platform with the best tech that wins - in this case, you have to hand it to Nintendo. To this day, they can ship non-competitive hardware and still make a decent profit at it because where else are you gonna go for that new Mario Bros. game? Or Zelda? Or Mario Kart? Or Super Smash Bros.?
Remember that in 1984, after the Tramiel purchase, Atari was a shadow of its former self, with most workers/developers laid off, and the focus taken from video games and put on computers. They had a done and dusted 'new' system in 1984 - that would have been the 7800. But it was years between negotiations with GCC (the real designers of the 7800) before Trameil saw Nintendo's success and attempted to throw the 7800 out there (with little or no support), two years later. See, to me, the 7800 wasn't a 'done' console.
Although the graphics were a step up with lots of sprites and color, the sound was still the same from the previous generation (2600). What a horrible, HORRIBLE thing to do! That should never have happened, and it didn't help when comparing the two systems. Nintendo with it's simple square wave multipart sound and micro samples was just orchestral in comparison. The 7800 was a machine for its day, but unfortunately it's 'day' was probably closer to 1983.
But the thing that hurt the most, and the thing that hardware alone couldn't have solved, was the lack of Super Mario Bros. People were buying that console just to have that game (much as they would later for their next console with Donkey Kong Country). People forget how revolutionary that game was. Remember that gaming didn't die in 1983 (the crash), it simply went underground to computers. Computers like the C=64 had the upper hand in graphics and sound and for a while THAT was where it was at.
But for younger players, being able to make that plumber run and jump, almost without limits, was a revelation. Nintendo was offering an experience not seen on any console or on any computer.
Another thing was the general mistrust people had for the Tramiels - especially Jack. He had a well-publicized habit of screwing his suppliers, or making outrageous deals (as with his acquisition of the Lynx from Epyx). In short, people didn't trust the guy, and even though Nintendo's publishing rules back then were restrictive, at least they were somewhat fair in comparison to some of the stories that swirled around Jack and his 'deals'.
Then there's the deep pockets. Atari only survived as long as it did on Tramiel's personal fortune and goodwill. But there was NO WAY his pockets were deeper than a Sony or a Microsoft. Remember that both of those companies lost hundreds of millions of dollars, putting MIcrosoft's financial future into some speculation and Sony's into near-bankruptcy. Neither Sega, nor Atari could have overcome that. And meanwhile, there was little ol' Nintendo, perhaps not as competitive tech-wise, but still selling a respectable amount of consoles from the N64 to the Wii. ...and more than a match for Atari.
I LOVE what-if scenarios, even though I'm not sure what would have helped Atari survive. To be honest, I think the only way post-1984 would have been for them to sign on the Nintendo deal. Imagine if Super Mario Bros. was branded 'Atari'! What if the Nintendo name was as unfamiliar to us as Panasonic's 'Matsushita' Japanese corporate name? Would Nintendo need to be wed to the Atari deal for their future consoles? Perhaps. It depends on how pervasive the Atari name 'stuck' to it. No guarantees there.
The funny thing is, and I didn't see this as a kid, this kind of thing had been happening ever since Space Invaders. I never thought of Space Invaders as Japanese. Nor did I with Pac-Man. Even Atari Games licensed games like Pole Position and Dig Dug from Japan. It wasn't until much later that I understood that Taito and Namco and Konami were behind some of the biggest hits of the arcade golden age. I was blindsided by the Japanese invasion as most 2600 games were domestically made in the U.S., along with most computer games.
"But the thing that hurt the most, and the thing that hardware alone couldn't have solved, was the lack of Super Mario Bros. People were buying that console just to have that game (much as they would later for their next console with *Street Fighter II).*
FTFY
Donkey Kong Country was a swansong for the SNES, released to show people that you didn't need to buy a PlayStation just yet.
But your absolutely right about Atari leaving out the POKEY chip from the 7800 (there was no way Commodore was ever going to sell the man they'd just sacked SID chips)
"People forget how revolutionary that game was. Remember that gaming didn't die in 1983 (the crash), it simply went underground to computers. Computers like the C=64 had the upper hand in graphics and sound and for a while THAT was where it was at."
Indeed, in 1983 and throughout the NES generation, gaming was all about computers in places like Europe, yet here you'll find gaming "historians" talk as if gaming on computers didn't happen until Microsoft released DirectX.
"Another thing was the general mistrust people had for the Tramiels - especially Jack. He had a well-publicized habit of screwing his suppliers, or making outrageous deals (as with his acquisition of the Lynx from Epyx)."
Yep, that's how he ended up owning MOS (the developers of the 6502) making that chip a Commodore part and why the SID chip was only ever found in Commodore computers. Though to be honest, the only Commodore entered the computer business in the first place was because Texas Instruments jacked up their prices for calculator parts to stiff their competition (Commodore were a calculator company before they became a computer company)
"Nintendo's publishing rules back then were *monpolistic,* at least they were somewhat fair in comparison to some of the stories that swirled around Jack and his 'deals'."
FTFY
And that's horseshit. Tramiel's business practices only affected the manufacture of the hardware, they had absolute no effect on software publishers.
If you wrote a game for the Commodore 64, there was nothing stopping you from writing it for the Amstrad CPC, Apple ][, Sinclair Spectrum, Oric 1 or even the IBM PC, you could source disks and tapes from anywhere and produce as much or as little as you wanted. You could also release as many games as you wanted.
If you wrote a game for Nintendo, you couldn't release that same game on any other console for two years, you had to pay Nintendo to produce the game on their cartridges and Nintendo decided how many cartridges they'd let you have. You also were limited on how many games you could release in a given time.
It killed competition and IMHO screwed gamers.
"To be honest, I think the only way post-1984 would have been for them to sign on the Nintendo deal."
Either that or if they didn't licence the Famicom and the NES failed in the US. Had Americans considered the possibility of using _computers_ to play games on, we would have seen Atari and Commodore battling each other... and who knows what would have happened from there (especially when the Atari 8 bit machines ran on a 6502... which was a Commodore part, a factor that would have also affected the BBC Micro as that also ran on a 6502)
"The funny thing is, and I didn't see this as a kid, this kind of thing had been happening ever since Space Invaders. I never thought of Space Invaders as Japanese. Nor did I with Pac-Man."
I knew Taito were behind Space Invaders, but I always thought Pac Man and Pole Position were Atari games as Namco used to licence their titles to Atari in the early to mid 1980s. After that, I was well aware of the likes of Data East, SNK and Taito especially.
The first I saw of Japanese games becoming dominant was on the PlayStation and that had its fair share of European and American games (partly because Sony had bought Psygnosis, one of the Amiga's best developers and based in Liverpool)
if the panther or jaguar back then were able to port samurai shadow 2, i think we would have a different talk..
If ATARI had released the Panther and had perfect ports of ATARI arcade games from the late ‘80s into the ‘90s...I think it would have done very well. I am a HUGE ATARI fan and had saved up my kid/teen/adult money to buy all my ATARI systems...VCS, Supercharger(include because I probably would have bought a 5200 if not for my Supercharger), 800XL, Lynx, Jaguar, Jaguar-CD. If ATARI had on the Panther perfect Xybots, Vindicators, RoadBlasters, Hydra, Hard Drivin’/Race Drivin’...etc. I would have bought it for sure(was hoping for these on my Jaguar even though I had versions of them on my Lynx)...and it would have been IN ADDITION to my already purchased in 1989...SEGA Genesis.
I am also a HUGE SEGA fan as well...Genesis, Dreamcast. All my systems were bought during their lifecycle.
ATARI + SEGA = ⚜️⚜️ Kings of the Arcades ⚜️⚜️
A few soundbites from a UK interview Sam Tramiel gave in the Summer of 1991:
We were working on 2 systems for our next console machine, 1was Panther, the other i will not tell you the code name for, other than to say it is a wild feline animal.
Panther was scheduled to be released first.
The crucial thing is that the new feline is an incredible machine, vastly superior to Panther.
Panther was a very good machine, better than the Megadrive,, like Super Famicom, a good 16-bit machine.
It wasn't a knock-your-socks-off machine. The new feline is most definitely a knock-your-socks-off machine. It is unbelievable.
The graphics and sound are quite simply miles ahead. It is just incredible.
So we did a very careful analysis of the situation.. things were going very well with the new machine and we just thought why should we cause confusion amongst Atari developers?
So we decided to put the Panther on hold and put all the emphasis on the new machine.
Panther was originally planned to release at the beginning of 1992 and then bring out the new machine 18 months later, but the other one caught up so well that we just had to put full emphasis on it and go full blast.
It's a shame Panther will not happen, but that's what happens. You have to have new developments and you have to make tough decisions sometimes.
The important thing is that we didn't want to be a me too...we didn't want a new machine that was just OK.
The new feline is stunning. I really can't explain it, you have to see it to understand what it can do.
We decided not to go into a fight with a 16-bit machine that is just comparable with it's rivals.
It would of been an OK machine, but we want to make WOW machines.
Development machines (that were in the hands of software houses) are now being recalled.
There will certainly not be an ST console,but there will be continuing expansions on the ST line.
This is awesome
@@LordRayken thank you.
You might like a read of this thread:
atariage.com/forums/topic/80735-panther/
I've interviewed a few people who worked on Panther games, collected soundbites from others, looked into claims Imagitec Design had games in the works.
Material from:
. Imagitec Design
ATD
DOMARK
TENGEN
JEFF MINTER
HMS
GUILDO H
Etc etc
Is Lord Rayken actually Maynard James Keenan?
cobes519 Nope
Cool design better than the jaguar for me.
Atari, always too little too late. This is a good analysis!
Dreamcast should have had a DVD instead a CD drive.
I bought CDi as I told my wife it would be a good CD player.
I had a dream cast and it was very impressive!
Maybe someone should release an Atari Panther based on Mister technology.
Why make a game system and NOT back it up with total and complete support ?
Zool looks better than any 16 bit platform. And I hate it that crap so much that never bothro play it. I do think all jaguar games run on 32 bit hardware. Yes, it would've been interesting for the Panther if it had been release to compete against 16 bit consoles. Great video. Liked and subscribed.
Have you played Atari today?
Yep!
let us not forget though, Sega in 1989 Sega was attacking the NES which was a four year console at the time.
I watched this video at the moment that is rich in pictures.
Without understanding since I am French ...
I think I have understood something. Atari Panther would be a prototype or a development kit for Atari Jaguar.
I do not know about you in the USA? But in France, the Jaguar was sometimes presented not as a 64-bit console but as a 2x32-bit console.
Otherwise in France (to my knowledge) the 3DO and the PC Engine have not been officially distributed! It was a mail order catalog that offered them for purchase. The well known catalog in France: La Redoute. Which hardly exists anymore since internet ...
In any case the Panther reminds me of a printer or a fax!
Thank you very much Lord Rayken for this video. Plus in 1080p it's nice to watch. :)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
J'ai regardé cette vidéo à l'instant qui est riche en images.
Sans comprendre puisque je suis Français...
Je crois avoir quand compris quelque chose. Atari Panther serait un prototype ou un kit de développement pour Atari Jaguar.
Je ne sais pas chez vous aux USA ? Mais en France, la Jaguar avait parfois été présentée non pas comme une console 64 bits mais comme une console 2x32 bits.
Sinon en France (à ma connaissance) la 3DO et la PC Engine n'ont pas été distribuées officiellement ! C'était un catalogue de vente par correspondance qui les proposaient à l'achat. Le catalogue bien connu en France : La Redoute. Qui n'existe presque plus depuis internet...
En tout cas la Panther me fait penser à une imprimante ou un fax !
Merci beaucoup Lord Rayken pour cette vidéo. De plus en 1080p c'est agréable à regarder. :)
The Atari Panther was the 32-bit system. They cancelled it and turned it into the 64-bit Jaguar.
Thanks for watching!
The problem was Atari had no footprint in US when the Jaguar released, they were still quite big in Europe but decided to release first to US and basically told us brits to fuck off, there could of sold a few million in the first year in Europe and that would have lead to more European developers releasing software for the Jag.
Excellent work lord. As a baron myself I say touche!
The Atari Panther could not have been anything more than a mono Karaoke machine with no microphone. It only housed a single 68000 general purpose processor. Communicating with the ES5505 sound signal processor would have used most of its available performance. There would have been some processing left to carry out a simple demo with the help of the object processor. The Ensoniq ES5505 OTIS made up a large bulk of the overall cost for the game console. It would have sounded great. Arcade audio quality. Although, games would have played terribly unless an extra 68000 processor was re-purposed and thrown into the system. Adding on costs was against the new "Tramiel Culture" at Atari.
The 68000 processor could have been replaced with a V60 and released very early. The price tag would have inflated to that of a digital word processor (expensive terminal but cheap computer). A cost-effective stripped down system with the performance needed to operate and process games was not available until the release of the 68EC020. That option would have turned the Panther into the first and cheapest 32-bit game console. But it would have postponed the system release date to February of 1992. Meaning that the Panther would have been discontinued within a year and a half of its release. All this was created out of the desire to produce the best sound system that money could buy. But no single CPU was available to drive it without breaking a sweat.
I'm not sure about that, but your specs do sound correct.
Yeah, you're right. It's just plain guess work. I was referencing the Time Killers hardware. It uses an extra 6809 CPU to help out with sending audio samples to the Ensoniq sound chip. Cheapest hardware that uses an Ensoniq chip.
The "Tramiel Culture" is just plain blind and egocentric. The Panther is a great retro fantasy console. It deserves a debate.
Atari had the resources and time to backward-engineer an old NEC word-processing terminal. Rip out the monitor. Stick in the Ensoniq chip. Slap on an Atari logo. Call it a day. No one would know.
techeadache yeah your research is a little off atari wouldn't of done any better with the panther than the jag.
they would of still had an issue with no 3rd party games other than 32 bit versions of lynx jag titles history would of been the same.
sega has sonic by this point and mortal kombat blood intact plus sports games, atari would of got a small mitch market, atari had nothing to get sports games or a descent sonic,Mario game
Yeah, you're right too. Most people just want the games to be fun and plentiful.
I was just wondering how the developers, at the time, were reacting to the idea that Atari was going to release a console with an Ensoniq sound solution. The leaked document related to the internal hardware states that the CPU was a 16-bit version of the 68K.
The prototype of the Panther should not function with a great deal of performance. Although, Panther Pong must have worked to some degree. The Ensoniq chip did need to be driven by something just so that it could make the slightest of noises. But if that something was the main CPU, standard 68000, then that would have made the Panther an under-powered platform.
Just as you stated, The Panther would have been a dog's breakfast. No 3rd party developer would have touched it. It was just another case of Atari being Atari and looking for the cheap way out.
But I think this video is about a hypothetical question; what if Atari was not Atari. Meaning that they cared about their products as much as everyone who bought or supported them. Could Atari produce "power without the price" and still keep a straight face?
techeadache yeah but atari was atari they had burned most retailers, 3rd parties etc.
atari owned some licence from the 2600/7800 days before atari arcade/atari home got slashed in half.
I'm guessing somehow atari got descent arcade games on lynx, but the panther would of got games made for lynx or sega genesis games converted over through the same way as jag.
the panther would of been 4th after turbo duo or 5th place after neogeo.
atari had. no sonic, mario, or bonk. no sports games, no Liscences to make fighting games outside of pitfighter.
I just don't see history changing much, the xe atari 7800, and 2600 jr may of hurt atari in the public eye, but sold a ton of leftover stock and kept atari going for 10 more years, gave them the money to launch lynx. jag, and atari final computers.
Well officially the reason the Panther never came out is that it was slated to come out in 1991 but it ran into delays. Meanwhile they made major headway with the Jaguar and it was able to come out earlier than projected, so it made more sense to them to just wait for that. A lot of Atari's failures rested on the fact that they kept passing on opportunities. The 7800 could have easily dominated the market (or at least in America and Europe) if Atari did a better job in distributing it. That said even with Atari's ineptitude it still outsold the Master System in America. The Lynx could have been more successful if it had came out sooner also, it was ready all the way back in 1987 supposedly but Atari again waited. If they would have waited on the Panther that too would have felt flat. I think releasing the Jaguar itself when they did was a smart move on their part, but their failings were elsewhere (poor development support, lack of monetary resources for higher tier games than what 16 bit systems largely had, delays on major titles like AVP and Rayman, etc.)
But you had some great speculation here and the Tramiel's just made mistake after mistake, perhaps diving head first into this would have made more sense for Atari.
"It's the Atari 7800, and we listened to you, the public; it's compatible with all your favorite 2600 cartridges!"
My thoughts exactly. Though maybe the Panther would have worked in 1992?
@@DonaldTubbs I think backwards compatibility was a good idea, but having to use special chips to not make your games sound like ass was a terrible one.
@@devonwilliams5738 I dunno, that would have been too late imo. 91 would have been the perfect year.
It had two 32 bit processors named “Tom & Jerry” that would link together so it technically was 64 bit
The Jaguar wasn't developed by Atari the panther was the development of the chip was done by (Flare Technology ) and was not good that is why they brought the Jaguar design from an English company (Flare Technology ) and the Atari Falcon killed Atari and there is a jag 2 one prototype
Or maybe a scaled down PC for kids in the 90's, something similar to what the original xbox was like, but in the early 90's. It would have been more expensive but something that could have made games like doom or wing commander more accessible.
A tip for people living in the USA that watch this video. Some figures he mentions in this video is the USA market and USA is not the world. The videocrash happened only in the US and Nintendo maybe was popular in the US but not in Europe..
John Davis The Video Game Crash affected the world. Don't be fooled
By the time of Jaguar, Atari did not have the money to secure the titles like PlayStation and franchises like both Sega and Nintendo did. I was a huge Atari fan and know this...Tramiel did not have the cash like their competitors did. In early 80s, Nintendo was going to release in North America, but Atari dumped the offer, thus started to nail their coffin shut from there.
I'm not sure though if Cybermorph and Trevor Mcfur were released for the Panther as launch games in 1991 instead of the Jaguar in 1993 would that really have made any difference to Atari's ultimate fate?
Wouldn't have mattered. Both those games stank on ice.
@@luisreyes1963 I suppose they did. Though you could say Cybermorph was the first ever 3D fully open world game there wasn't anything else like that in 1991. Trevor Mcfur was...well you'd have been better off playing Super R-Type on the SNES in 1991 for sure.
what is the point from 2600-7800 were 8 bit consoles the jaguar dual core 16 bit console which in reality only ran 8 bit games.
Not sure how you would get 64bit from what was a 16 bit processor ..
Atari lost the developers after 2600 this is why you see limited games release on both the 5200 and the 7800 because most of the games were inhouse games from the 2600..
if sega had of actually developed the 32x as a console rather than an add-on it might of made more market sense..
however playing what-if's today is pointless..
had Atari stuck into the Video games in the early 90's, it's possible that the landscape would be completely different. Nintendo might not have made it past the gamecube. There's a lot of ifs but the truth is TIme Warner who owned Atari did what all to big for their own britches companies do instead of taking an established brand and building it they took the people and then tried to milk the brand. Which never works. I believe if atari released the panther in 1991 Atari as a console maker would be a powerhouse today.
Good video, but please get a better mic. Sounds like a phone call lol! Keep up the good work.
Dat Cat in those hats I upgraded! Check out my new video
I would totally watch this and probably sub, but the mic quality is just way to bad for me to watch.
BIRI BIRI Try my second video
Thank you for this video. I appreciate it. Here are my thoughts on this topic:
1) Atari had a hard time developing the Panther. Their press release at that time stated that they were developing the Panther and the Jaguar at the same time, with the intention of releasing the Panther first. However, development of the Jaguar was faster than that of the Panther, so they decided to launch the Jaguar. With this info, I dont think the Jaguar would have been available by 1991 and perhaps would have been released rather late too. Other reasons why their release would have been delayed is that Atari took time to find a manufacturing partner (IBM), and when they did, their manufacturing partner took a lot of time to setup and make their console.
2) "The Jaguar might have competed with the Saturn..." Maybe. Again, my ideas are just as speculation are yours, so lets just have a bit of fun with them, this shouldn't be a serious debate :). Like the Jaguar, the Saturn had a complicated architecture and some people believe that the release of Sega's 32x was because Sega panicked when Atari released the 64-but Jaguar. If Atari had released a less powerful console (such as the Panther), Sega might not have been threatened so much and might not have been pressured to develop and release the 32x. The 32x eroded consumer confidence in Sega and was one reason why Saturn sales were poor. So yes, the Saturn did badly in tha market, but if Atari launched the Panther instead, maybe the Saturn could have been better developed and marketed.
3) One of the Playstation's greatest strength was its price. I doubt if Atari Jaguar 2 with CD will be able to match Sony's pricepoint. For one, with the Playstation, Sony introduced the concept of selling the hardware at a loss. Secondly, Sony OWNS the patent to make CDs, its players, and the equipment to make them. So Sony doesn't need to pay itself royalties for these, but Atari would have needed to do so (or Atari would have to pay the other company that owns the right - Philips). This means Sony can aggressively bring down their price to beat the nextGen Atari if Atari went with CDs.
Development of the Jaguar eclipsed the Panther so Atari canned the Panther.
Atari UK speculated that had the Panther of been released, there would only be a 9-12 month window, before Jaguar was ready to launch.
Panther was supposed to have a simultaneous release with the Lynx, but Atari didn't have the resources to support 2 flagship consoles, so Panther put back, so resources could be put on Lynx development.
Same happened with Falcon, development teams told to stop working on Falcon software, switch to Jaguar development instead.
IBM won the assembly and Q. A testing etc contract as they came in the cheapest, had surplus factory capacity.
The likes of Motorola and Toshiba manufacturered the custom chipsets, initial production line numbers were as low as 40% yields, so the chips were in short supply IBM couldn't assemble high numbers of Jaguar units without the essential components from outside sources.
Jaguar was intended to take on CD32, 3DO,CDi,SNES SFX etc, Jaguar 2 was to be the console to take on Saturn PlayStation and N64 and development work on the hardware was well underway.
@@thefurthestmanfromhome1148 ah yes, the Jaguar development was proceeding faster than he Panther. My mistake, it was a typo. Thank you for pointing it out
Great doc the jaguar wasn't that bad it just never got popular I still prefer snes even over today's PlayStations
Atari Panther vs GBA
Which will win?
Javonni Otero Atari Lynx
they should have released something to compete with the first NES if they wanted to stay in the game
Jaguar was awesome!! Still is. Learning to develop for it. It is a 64-bit system. What started killing Atari was the 5200, which remains my all-time favorite console. I never had issues with it. But lots of research ended up showing the truth. The 5200 cost Atari due to failed systems and controllers. There are also reports of the special switch box failing and blowing TVs up...all of which Atari had to replace. They never bounced back. Atari 5200 warranties actually lasted until Atari was sold off after Jaguar.
The Sega Saturn survived because of Japan, Sega was 2nd in that region beating out n64 in sales and third-party support, but n64 beat the Saturn in the US.
People think the Jaguar took atari down. It was a failure of course but the real issue was the decline in Atari Computer sales in Europe.
The rise of standard PCs took the Atari ST and other lines out of the market. That was Atari's main profit center in the late 80s and early 90s.
With that gone they didnt have the money to create or acquire the types of titles they needed. You also did not mention the Lynx which was Ataris 16 bit console even though it was a portable.
If you go further back to the founding of Atari corporation in 84 the splitting of the arcade and home divisions did hamper them down the road.
If Atari had exclusive rights to all Atari arcade titles from 84 onwards they would have been able to field a more productive lineup of software for home consoles to compete with just in those arcade ports exclusively. But as it was Atari needed cashflow to survive thats why the 7800 was marketed as it was. selling of older 2600 titles continued to keep atari afloat while they funded their computer tech that was their bread and butter. When standard microsoft powered PCs took over the computer market was less fragmented and that took Atari and Commodore out of the computer market more or less. So atari was forced to focus on consoles then and they gambled big on the jaguar. They even paid to acquire the rights to hit titles of the day like doom. In the end they needed more money regardless of what titles they put out on the system or how they marketed it. Microsoft not nintendo or sega was the real competitor that caused the death of Atari.
The TG-16 was stretching the truth as well. It had a decent graphics chip, but a terrible 8 bit main CPU. The CPU is slow and is one of the reasons it simply could not compete with either the Genesis or the SNES. IIRC, it was a modified z-80. It always reminded me of a NES with more colors. The sprites were usually much smaller than SNES or Genesis and the sound wasn't as good either. There is no way Atari could have released a next gen system in 1991 with an 030 or something and have it be cheap. That just was never going to happen. They were cash strapped. Another problem is that the Jag couldn't really have been worked out because it was not a 3d system.
November 1990 saw the UK Press annouce Atari had scrapped the rumored ST console (said Rumours had been doing the rounds for the previous 2 years) as Atari felt such a machine would of been behind the times.
Instead developers in Cambridge and Dallas were working on a new, Risc-based console, codenamed Panther, due for release in September 1991.
Atari UK Boss, Bob Gleadow saying it'd be superior to the Sega Megadrive and Commodore Amiga and that ST compatibility was no longer a priority.
He also went onto say Atari had a number of development options, any one of which could turn out to be the Panther console and 9 UK Software houses were aware of the firms plans and had begun software development for the machine.
Atari should of launched a games machine a year earlier, but a disastrous affair with US chain Federated, which cost Atari millions of dollars-coupled with the discovery of the handheld Atari Lynx, had caused delays.
The news piece once again quoted Sam Tramiel stating Panther would be "16-bit super graphics console, based on brand new technology"
A price tag of £140 was said to of been provisionally agreed (Atari suspecting Sega would reduce the price of the Megadrive from £180 to £150 by time the Panther was ready to launch.
#Sam Tramiel later went onto say I the summer of 1991:
'I know that in Japan, Super Famicom is doing OK, but nowhere close to expectations. It's basically too expensive and i can't see America paying $200 for a video game at this time, i just don't see it. "
There is 64 bit graphics chips in the Jaguar, it's very complicated!
There are two 32-bit chipsets.
Yes but inside both chips there are additional graphical chips that are 64 bit!
I am a former Jaguar developer and studied the hardware for well over a decade...Now hear this.....There are also two 64 bit chips in the Jaguar.... The OPL and the Blitter were fully 64 bits... the main bus was 64 bits wide. I coded for it.... stop believing the bullshit. Yes, the GPU and DSP were 32 bits because there was no reason for them to be 64 bits at all. If you think they needed to be, name a reason.....thought so.....The 64 bits was in the GFX power (Blitter and OPL) where it needed to be. The Panther was garbage...it would have choked itself trying to perform. The Jaguar choked it self because the coders were lazy and used the 68k which dropped the bus speed in half and the bus width in one quarter. The other issues is both RISC chips(DSP AND GPU) had their own private RAM which if coded properly all three processors( 68k, GPU and DSP) could have ran in parallel. Instead, most coders would run code on the 68k, stop the GPU, load it up with new code, holding up the system greatly instead of cleverly allowing the GPU/DSP to load them selves using the blitter and running in parallel with the other parts. TONS AND TONS of wasted cycles per frame. The unified bus did not help and the fact that they did not have true dual port ram on the GPU and DSP register set was another mistake. The most disturbing mistake was the 68k having any other purpose other than to boot the system. It should have been a 68020. The DSP only accessed the bus at 16 bits because it followed the main processor.... the 68k. Had it been a 68020, it would have worked at full bus width and full bus speed. Jaguar failed because Atari screwed it up in every way that can be screwed up. If properly coded and given useful tools The Jaguar could have competed with the PS1..less polygons per frame but competed nonetheless. The Jaguar, though not great with texturing(polygon count wise per frame), outperformed the PS1 texturing quality by leaps and bounds. It was hardware assisted and not locked hard features like the PS1. Just look at the texture quality of ANY ps1 game and compare it to the much higher quality texturing in Hover Strike.... no, I do not mean the frame rate or the number of polygons....instead, the quality of the actual textures. The Panther as it was proposed would have not even made it past the first 6 months on the shelves. IT would not have rivaled the Neo-Geo which had 214 k RAM on separate buses, Panther only had 32 k RAM on one unified bus. Choke fest. I've been coding directly to hardware for almost 40 years.... Panther would have been a bigger disaster than anything the Jaguar was. Actually take the time and download the jaguar developer documents.... they are available...ask me and I'll send them to you if you want...you will see that I am correct 100%.
Great read man! I love hearing this stuff! When did you start working for Atari?
Thank you I did several video's on the Jaguar trying to explain this but you just gave the best explanation if I ever get the funds together your the person I would higher to help me create a Jaguar game that could really show off it's potential!
Atari should have improved their lynx and made it more portable with connection to a tv
Also Atari didnt have the money to produce the consoles in just its first month it sold 100000 units they couldn't produce more units until they sold more games so by 94christmas they finally had more units to sell by then the Sega 32x had some hype so no one was interested in the jaguar plus its games look like shit
I find it funny that, even in 2016, there were people still saying that Atari claims that the Jaguar was 64-Bit is due to the combination of two 32-Bit chips (Tom and Jerry). Not true. Atari claims that the Jaguar is 64-Bit because it really has 64-Bit capabilities. You see , the Tom chip has 3 processors inside it: GPU (32-Bit), Object Processor (64-Bit) and Blitter (64-Bit). So you can say that Atari was a little misleading, since the main processors (CPU and GPU) of the Jaguar are not 64-Bits, but you can't say it lied, since the Jaguar actually has 64-Bit hardware inside it.
Misleading is the same as lying
Saying the Jaguar was dead is not really true in the final sense. If anyone ever played Area 51 or Max Force in the Arcade and maybe a few others then you played the Jaguar in its more evolved nature. The chipset was in fact called the Co-Jag. Also Atari was still alive in the late 1990's. Remember Rush 2049. People forget that even though the home pc and game divisions were dying the coin games division was still very much alive.
If you think about it Atari had many employees go off and start their own forms of competition like Activision, Amiga, Tengen, and Time Warner. When the Commodore owner bought Atari some influence was put into their Atari's home game pc's. So, Atari was a group effort that was made possible by international software publishers, gamers, programmers, and recirculated engineers that learned from others. If I had to blame anyone for the decline it is the senseless buy out of companies that see brands as nothing more than an object to liquidate or expand. I have seen many companies get bought out just to be shut down, or split. Time Warner did a good job of that. One also has to look at how many times and who bought the Atari company or brand and did what with its parts. In my opinion after Nolan sold it Atari started to go down hill. I worked with the Arcade industry I got to play the real thing for free, so as a result I didn't care for most of the home game consoles because it took people out of the Arcades and the home systems were dumbed down. As well as many software titles were mass produced multi platform. Even Nintendo and Sega got flooded with low quality games even though they tried to stop it. It also doesn't help when the chips you used were the same ones many others used because it was all that was there.