Source: https://forum.retrogamer.net/viewtopic.php?f=2&p=1101117
Timestamp: 2019-04-18 21:17:55+00:00

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All I did was correct a few things that you got wrong and give a couple of my opinions on things. I don't believe I was hostile in the slightest and I'm not sure why my comments seem to annoy you so much.
If that's the way I came across then I apologise, as somebody with Aspergers I tend to be very precise,straight to the point and matter of fact. It's not something intentional, it's just the way I am and I can't help that I'm afraid.
I do have lots of stuff that didn't make the most recent article, but there would be no point in posting it until after the article is published so it doesn't spoil it for anybody and people understand the context.
Now as my participation in this thread seems unwelcome and unwanted I will leave you to it.
Your input into this thread is more than welcome - as pretty much the only person here other than me that is the slightest bit interested in our favourite Atari flop, you could quite easily add some great info. Why wait until after the article goes to print and we all get to read it - there must be loads you have that aren't connected to what you've written!?
I have and tons of stuff, right now it would be finding the time to sort through it and post it.
I don't have a lot of free time right now as I'm trying to finish off a bunch of important projects. If I get some time free closer to Christmas I'll post something.
How is the Vega+ article for the mystery publication going? That is something I think more people will have interest in! Or was it that pulled youtube video?
It was the pulled You Tube video, take down after a certain somebody complained about an image of his face being in it.
Don't worry though, it's going back up very soon on an even bigger channel with even more subscribers!
Great! I didn't get a chance to watch it... any idea when it's going back up?
imo the Jag was a miss-managed product that also had some serious technical shortcommings and lacked support and market penetration.
Stronger than the popular 16-bit systems but not enough to really impress, weaker than the 32/64-bit ones that followed it so it couldn't host the more advanced 3D titles.
Lacking many key titles, from the ultra popular Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter II, to exclusives that could really push it into homes (AvP was fine but not enough, same with Tempest 2000 and Iron Soldier).
Having unique adds, but still being virtually unknown in many places.
It was the "Wii U" of it's time, except didn't have the flagship exclusives and recognizable brands to carry it.
With that said, I do think the system could have done better than it did, if only it had a bit better hardware setup, smarter advertising and better developer support.
But it would end in last place in any case, at the best it would be right behind the Saturn, which is not saying much as the Saturn also did quite poorly in the West.
The fifth gen war was already decided when Sony announced the price of the PS1 and became serious about investing some big cash into it's advertising and developer support.
Rebellion Software claimed that the Jaguar could definitely produce 10000 Gourard shaded, large, 65536 colour, any shape polygons per second and still play a 6 instrument score, but didn't mention if this figure would be the same when a game was tasked with running things like A.I routines, collision detection etc.
Jez San of Argonaut claimed whilst the 3D performance of the Jaguar, whilst stunning for a $200 game box, wasn't patch on a 486/66 PC's capabilities.
Jez:Atari are claiming about 6k polygons per second out of the Jag, lets be optimistic and say its really 20k. We get about 65k polys/sec on a regular 486/66 with no hardware assist. But if you do add hardware assist we can get substantially more.
Q. What resolution does BattleSphere run at?
Q. What color depth does BattleSphere run at?
A. The title and intro screens are full 24-bit (16.7 million) color.
game itself is 16-bit color.
Q. Are the ships in BattleSphere texture mapped?
shading, a technique 4Play calls "Decal-Mapping(tm)".
Q. Is there light-sourcing from weapons?
Q. What is the maximum number of polygons per ship model?
could be 1 polygon up to the limit per ship.
Q. How many different 3D objects were designed for the game?
over 400 different 3D models in the game.
Q. How far is the clipping "horizon" for objects?
disappearing, and those that aren't have NO clipping horizon.
Q. Does the rendering engine use load management?
Q. Uhhh... what exactly is load management?
A. Load management is a goofy made-up term for variable-detail models.
Q. Does the rendering engine use MIP mapping?
A. No. No great loss since, as noted above, texture mapping is minimal.
Q. What frame rate does BattleSphere run at?
Q. Does the starfield fly past when you're moving?
field of view would be contracted to a single point (see "Cosmos").
Q. Do the stars twinkle?
A. No. Twinkling is an atmospheric effect. BattleSphere is set in space.
Q. Is there real-time lens flare?
Q. Do ships become visibly damaged as you shoot them up?
Q. What are the explosions like?
64x64 frames in 16-bit color.
Q. Are there animated ships?
Q. Are there drive flares?
Q. Are there blinking lights on the ships?
Q. Are there exterior ship views?
Jaguar supporters quite often point to the likes of Phase Zero on Jaguar for a type of 3D the Playstation would struggle to pull off... a 'voxel' terrain but that is more of a trick graphics routine than anything else.
People including the press seemed to fall into the hype trap with Phase Zero , purely because it was using a different, but rather old, graphics routine on the Jaguar.
You've only to look at Atari's early tactics with major high street stores to see why retailers were wary of dealing with them.
In the UK they pulled the same stunt to try and stop UK retailers selling Commodore Vic 20 ' s.
By time of the Jaguar, Atari had simply lost the goodwill and faith of the very supply chains, distrubutors, publishers and media, needed to make the Jaguar a success.
Completely different Atari to be fair.
Warner Atari had a lot of sway, because they were not just dealing with Atari, they were confronting the might of Warner Brothers too.
Many of Atari Corp.'s problems came from Jack Tramiel, as a lot of people didn't like or trust him after stunts he had already pulled at Commodore, such the C64/home computer price war that left retailers earning tiny profits. A lot of people also found him to be brash, arrogant and hard to deal with as he was not exactly known for making compromises. One reason why well-liked people such as Bill Rehbock and Daryl Still were put at the forefront for the Jaguar, to give them a better public image, the shareholders insisted on it.
Supply chain and distribution wasn't an issue for the Jaguar, every major retailer was stocking it. The biggest issue at the start was the chronic manufacturing problems at IBM, it was a big mistake for Atari to partner with then and should have just built the system in China. You have to remember that the Jaguar had over 2 million pre-orders in Europe alone, yet they didn't get any substantial amounts until nearly a year after the proposed launch and by then nobody was interested any more, they wanted a PS1 or Saturn instead. They missed the boat there completely.
I'd just like to expand on a few points you raised in your earlier post, If that's ok with you?.
I appreciate you might have your hands tied somewhat as you won't want to take information away from your actual article but it would help clear things up somewhat.
You mentioned Darryl Still being put at the forefront of the Jaguar as a sort of P.R affair.That has left me questioning that somewhat.
Restructuring as i am sure you yourself know only too well, was commonplace within Atari UK and Atari Corp.Darryl simply took over from Atari UK ' s previous P.R Manager, Peter Staddon.
Peter had been the voice of Atari here in the UK, explaining why Atari were going with the Jaguar and not the Panther, justifying the UK Jaguar coming in at a higher RRP than Atari had promised and explaining that whilst Atari would indeed be embracing home VR with the Jaguar, there were risks associated with such a system and Atari had to ensure such a system was safe for the consumer market.
Bill whilst no doubt a decent chap from impressions i got podcast interview on Atari Age (shout out to Arcade Attack for that one) really didn't secure the type of support the Jaguar needed, from key European or US publishers, let alone Japanese (but Japan was a completely different nut to crack).The vast majority simply treated the Jaguar as they did the 3DO, lukewarm support at best whilst they waited to see which of the 2 if either, would get established in the marketplace.
Even Time Warner hedged it's bets (it had shares in 3DO) for the same reasons, which made a mockery of Atari's brash claims of it being a major supporter.
The point about Atari being a different Atari back in the 8 bit days..whilst that's true in terms of ownership (and we need to be clear, the UK and US retail markets are very different beasts to each other and you said Atari..which i assume means Corp and UK) Atari's tactics under the Tramiels echoed those of being under Warner.
There's been claims of Atari trying to force stores to carry the Lynx if they wanted the Jaguar.I guess old habits died hard?.
I would challenge the distribution not being an issue for the Jaguar...let's take Walmart as an example, a number of stores stocked it, yes, but not all.Estimates of around 1/5 of all Walmart stores stocked it and after a disastrous Xmas season for Atari, Walmart forced them to take back unsold units and that's just 1 chain.
That's not even taking into account that whilst officially, a decent number of stores agreed to stock the Jaguar on both sides of the Atlantic, many did it purely on a trial basis and weren't well stocked with hardware or software.Many reported big issues with getting these items and release dates for new titles from Atari, lines of communication were poor.
You also saw support and shelf space from HMV rapidly decline, Calculus and Rumbelows sink into administration.
You'd need detailed numbers from the likes of Babbages, Tower Records, Fed Co, Toys R Us etc for an idea of US retailer support alone.
The European Pre - orders comment raised an eyebrow.
Do you have a source for these 2 Million European Pre - orders? or is this just an suggested figure?.
It seems incredibly high considering that the global sales of the 3DO were around 2 Million, the CDi was around 1 million and the Jaguar only sold 250,000 units itself.
But Europe is a very large group of countries. ..nigh on 30 member states or something? If the 2 million is correct, it'd be interesting to see exactly where the demand lay and why it didn't equate to anything like actual units sold.
For example-It's been claimed that Sweden, which had a population of around 9 million people, only saw around 6,000 Jaguar's sold and of those supposed 6,000 owners, only 3,000 placed pre - orders for the Jaguar CD.We can take educated guesses at France, Germany and the UK but by doing the Math as Atari said, the suggested figures you put forward just don't add up.
My final question would be regarding having the Jaguar mass produced in China.
For starters that would take away Atari's Made In The USA marketing angle, an aspect they were very keen to push, and would of done nothing to overcome the issues IBM themselves faced with Motorola etc refusing to guarantee chip yields above certain numbers etc.
Your clearly very passionate about Atari and i wish more people could appreciate it the way you do, but your also a writer and i find myself hoping your article goes into greater depth and takes a neutral, buisness like view point, as the last days of Atari is a fascinating era to follow.
Thanks for taking the time to read my points.
Sorry in advance for this very interesting wall of text!
ATARI CORPORATION, Plaintiff, v. THE 3DO COMPANY, Defendant.
ATARI CORP. v. 3DO CO.
court grants defendant's motion to dismiss.
3DO produces and markets (through licensees) a multimedia home game system.
3DO's slogan is not an actionable statement as a matter of law.
favor of the plaintiff. Blake v. Dierdorff, 856 F.2d 1365, 1368 (9th Cir. 1988).
F.2d 530, 533 (9th Cir. 1984).
4) advancement of the public interest. Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum Comm. v.
sharply in its favor. Fong v. Lawn, 851 F.2d 1559, 1561 (1988).
which has the [*4] tendency to deceive the reader. In Sterling Drug, Inc. v.
in advertising to be "claims [which] are either vague or highly subjective."
Liehe, Inc. v. Northern California Collection Serv., 911 F.2d 242, 246 (9th Cir.
Inc. v. Northern California Collection Serv., 911 F.2d 242, 246 (9th Cir. 1990).
Corp. v. Sylvania Electric products, Inc., 242 F. Supp. 302, 308-09 (N.D. Ill.
would interpret this as a factual claim upon which he or she could rely."
"exaggerated as to preclude reliance by consumers."
that the alleged misrepresentation is inactionable.
As discussed above, the court has found that 3DO's slogan is inactionable.
law are raised and the balance of hardships tip sharply in its favor.
grants defendant's motion to dismiss.
judgment is hereby entered against plaintiff and in favor of defendant.
Atari Corporation its costs of action.
Firstly it's not going to be a history article, we did that for the last anniversary. So if that's what you want you will be disappointed.
Secondly the 2 million figure came from Darryl Still himself. He's repeated this many times in interviews and it was reported in a couple of magazines too I believe. Back in 1994 I was working for Game and in my store had pre-orders for about 120. For the entire Xmas period we were sent 10, they were gone the same day they came in.
Going back to Darryl I wasn't talking about him being a P.R. person, he was European Product Manager and also ended up being European Development Manager too and produced titles such as Mutant Penguins and Zero 5. Bill Rehbock said Darryl's industry contacts were indispensible for getting all the Euro devs on board.
The "Made in the USA" brag was pretty much ignored and didn't have the impact Atari hoped. It was obvious it wouldn't really, as nobody had any problem with Sega or Nintendo who had about 90% market share between them. Bill admitted to me that it was a big mistake as had they built the Jaguar in China they could have produced it cheaper, in far greater quantities and released it earlier too.
Erm...just sticking with that 2 Million European pre - order figure. .it just doesn't tie in with Atari's own manufacturing plans. .
Are you really stating there were more pre-orders than IBM could hope to make and Atari sell?
agrees; "We rather sell 1 million Alien Vs. Predator than 250,000!"
on the ball with the Jaguar."
I'm merely repeating what I was told by people who would definitely know.
You indicated Darryl, along with Bill made for better P.R people than Jack Tramiel (in terms of having a much better skill set in dealing with people, more warm and encouraging compared to Jack ' s ruthless Buisness Is War type approach) and whilst both indeed worked tirelessly with the limited resources they had, you can't escape the fact even they couldn't work the miracles Atari needed.
Peter Walker ran Atari UK whilst Darryl was there and both he and Darryl answered to Bob Gleadow.
Hopefully we will see some insights from them in your article.
I've seen Darryl reference inital demand outstripping limited supply and reasons why, but he doesn't seem to state any specific numbers.
I'm again not sure why your getting so defensive over this, your a writer of some standing and experience, so it stood to reason you'd have checked claims from Atari UK next to those of Atari Corp..the machines Europe needed were coming from Atari Corp after all.
I just found it an odd statement when Atari Corp were issuing statements like the one I just posted.
I apoligise if it came across poorly.
"Ran the European development studio with Al Bodin (now X-Box games guru). Games included : Fever Pitch Soccer,Attack of the Mutant Penguins, Zero 5. justclaws.atari.org/jagsite/atarilad.htm has an interesting take on it!"
Are you saying Al wasn't avaiable to comment for the article?.
That's a shame if he wasn't, it would of been great to hear his insights.
Of the titles Darryl lists..do you think Fever Pitch and AOTMP were the kind of titles people expected from the newly founded European Development Studio?
Zero 5 looked far more impressive.

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