Why Atari Jaguar Got COMPLETELY DESTROYED! - Video by "Lady Decade"

[RickR]

Or maybe it's just the gigantic fall of Atari from industry leader to nothingness in such a short time.  Instead of taking the bigger picture view of how that happened, it turns into potshots at the last gasps from Atari.  I guess it is an easy target and although it is lazy, it probably brings in the viewers. 

Mattel, Coleco, Commodore, and many others suffered the same fate, but didn't go out punching like Atari did. Therefore, it isn't so easy to kick them so hard. 

 

Edited September 1, 2023 by RickR

[- Ω -]

Interesting, I posted a comment saying her video caused some discussion, and provided a link to this thread.  The message is gone.

[Paul Westphal]

On 8/29/2023 at 6:31 PM, Justin said:

 

 

Something about her tone of voice and pious demeanor reminds me of Kai Winn. I think our Star Trek fans will appreciate what I mean 🖖

"...But the Atari Jaguar got COMPLETELY DESTROYED ®, my child. Just as the Prophets had wished it. Like and subscribe for more." - Winn Adami

 

I know, right? I evaded that video for a while but eventually watched enough to know the familiar tone.

[Justin]

On 9/1/2023 at 12:11 PM, RickR said:

Or maybe it's just the gigantic fall of Atari from industry leader to nothingness in such a short time.  Instead of taking the bigger picture view of how that happened, it turns into potshots at the last gasps from Atari.  I guess it is an easy target and although it is lazy, it probably brings in the viewers. 

Mattel, Coleco, Commodore, and many others suffered the same fate, but didn't go out punching like Atari did. Therefore, it isn't so easy to kick them so hard. 

I hear what you're saying, that's absolutely a plausible theory. It's still weird to me, though, how Atari is always the one to be singled out. Nintendo never suffered the same fate as Atari, falling from industry leader to nothingness... but Nintendo did suffer through some darker times. N64 sold about half as well as the Super Nintendo, and the GameCube was no where near as successful as either of those. I can remember seeing mainstream nightly news reports (Tom Brokaw) reporting on 3rd party publishers dropping support for GameCube and how Nintendo was facing challenging times. Wii turned everything around, and then Wii U sold one-tenth as well as Wii had. Fortunately Switch is a hit, and regardless of Nintendo's hardware or sales, they have always had their IPs to fall back on. Mario, Zelda, Metroid, Mario Kart, Pokemon, and others will always be good sellers. However Nintendo has been kicked from the top spot more than once, and in all my years of being a classic gamer, even working at Toys R Us during the early stages of Nintendo's misfortune, I've never heard Nintendo spoken of the same way Atari has. I'm willing to bet there are more YouTube videos with clickbaity titles about how the Atari Jaguar was "COMPLETELY DESTROYED" than there are about how the Wii U was "COMPLETELY DESTROYED".

Who knows, I could be wrong, this is my perception and I've never understood the scoffing mean-spiritedness behind Atari discussions. At best the comments are "I loved Space Invaders but Pac-Man and E.T. killed the video game industry!" - which is a valid view to hold, but still not a positive conversation.

[Justin]

On 8/29/2023 at 8:38 PM, socrates63 said:

What little I know about the Jaguar is because of the I/O. I didn't know about the Jaguar when it was originally released, and I only learned of its existence a few years ago. I bought one because I wanted to take part in the I/O high score challenge. I sincerely hope the I/O community continues to keep the Jaguar love alive.

@socrates63 I'm surprised how often I've heard this, even today. It speaks volumes not just about the Atari Jaguar's lack of mainstream popularity, but about Atari's incredible lack of marketing and advertising at the time. When you say "Atari", so many people in the world think of Atari 2600 (or possibly Atari 8-Bit computers) but rarely does the general population think of or are even aware of the Atari Jaguar (both today, and even at the time the Jaguar was being sold. Similarly for Lynx and Atari 7800)

There might've been one generic print ad during the Jaguar's run, that you could search for in Next Generation Magazine or Die Hard Game Fan Magazine. Every other advertisement was something for Super Nintendo or Sega Genesis and they were all memorable. "Sega Does What Nintendon't" etc. Most of the ads were for new games from 3rd party publishers that were pushing their games for almost every system BUT Atari Jaguar. The whole thing made the Atari Jaguar feel "niche" at best, and "left out" when you really thought about it.

 

On 8/29/2023 at 6:39 PM, Atari 5200 Guy said:

It was not marketed in my area at the time.  The only reason I knew it even existed was by an ad mailed out by Go Atari.  I don't even know how they got my address.  If not for Radio Shack I would not have received one.

 

On 8/30/2023 at 4:40 AM, Atari 5200 Guy said:

If it wasn't for that ad showing upon the mailbox about the Jaguar I would have never known about it.

This proves my point. Imagine this sort of advertising for Nintendo or Sega. What was Atari thinking???

[socrates63]

1 hour ago, Justin said:

@socrates63 I'm surprised how often I've heard this, even today. It speaks volumes not just about the Atari Jaguar's lack of mainstream popularity, but about Atari's incredible lack of marketing and advertising at the time. When you say "Atari", so many people in the world think of Atari 2600 (or possibly Atari 8-Bit computers) but rarely does the general population think of or are even aware of the Atari Jaguar (both today, and even at the time the Jaguar was being sold. Similarly for Lynx and Atari 7800)

There might've been one generic print ad during the Jaguar's run, that you could search for in Next Generation Magazine or Die Hard Game Fan Magazine. Every other advertisement was something for Super Nintendo or Sega Genesis and they were all memorable. "Sega Does What Nintendon't" etc. Most of the ads were for new games from 3rd party publishers that were pushing their games for almost every system BUT Atari Jaguar. The whole thing made the Atari Jaguar feel "niche" at best, and "left out" when you really thought about it.

You're totally right about what "Atari" means to people. They're usually thinking the 2600.

To add more salt on the Jaguar wound, I had known about the Lynx and had even seen one back in the day. Maybe it was because I had the OG Game Boy that I paid attention to handhelds. I should also add that I only found out about the 7800 a few years ago as well when I was looking to get back into playing 2600 games.

[Justin]

1 minute ago, socrates63 said:

You're totally right about what "Atari" means to people. They're usually thinking the 2600.

To add more salt on the Jaguar wound, I had known about the Lynx and had even seen one back in the day. Maybe it was because I had the OG Game Boy that I paid attention to handhelds. I should also add that I only found out about the 7800 a few years ago as well when I was looking to get back into playing 2600 games.

It's on our shoulders to change the narrative and foster a stronger, more optimistic conversation about Atari, and that is my primary goal in creating Atari I/O.

It's okay to acknowledge these were niche systems, enjoy them and play them until their ICs pop. It's okay to play different!  

[MistaMaddog]

12 minutes ago, Justin said:

It's on our shoulders to change the narrative and foster a stronger, more optimistic conversation about Atari, and that is my primary goal in creating Atari I/O.

It's okay to acknowledge these were niche systems, enjoy them and play them until their ICs pop. It's okay to play different!  

I do wish you and everyone well luck with that.  It's really tough all because of the Nintendo Narrative that many 90's gaming mags have repeated, and the overall influence on a whole generation of gamers...especially all the AVGN-wannabes on YouTube.

 

And I'd be very surprise if anyone still watches LadyDecade since she lost all credibility after the whole e-begging scandal.

[RickR]

Sega too though?  Look at the scathing reviews for 32x, SegaCD, Saturn, and even Dreamcast. 

Ima go play some Jaguar and forget all this nonsense 🙂  

[Justin]

27 minutes ago, RickR said:

Sega too though?  Look at the scathing reviews for 32x, SegaCD, Saturn, and even Dreamcast. 

Ima go play some Jaguar and forget all this nonsense 🙂  

Scathing reviews, yes. Venomous mockery at the level of Atari, no. That wasn't my experience at the time. 

[RickR]

I gotcha.  Undeserved mockery is the key. 

[Justin]

1 hour ago, RickR said:

I gotcha.  Undeserved mockery is the key. 

And the nastiness of it, the clickbaityness of it, and the amount of it. All game systems and platforms are open to criticism, particularly the disappointing ones. In my experience Atari receives its own level of trolling and mockery especially from people who don't really know much about Atari.

[RickR]

Interesting fact.  The Intellivision, Colecovision, and Atari 5200 all sold about the same...right around 3 million units.  To prove Justin's point, which one is deemed a "failure"?  Why is that? 

Some common reasons you hear:

• The controllers are bad.  But are they really?  Are they any better or worse than those for Intellivision or Colecovision?  Absolutely not.  They are all so similar.  5200 sticks are probably the most functional of the three.
• It didn't sell as well as the 2600.  So what?  Nothing else did either until much later. 
• Only 69 games were made.  Yes, the library was small.  But most likely because Warner Atari pulled the plug too soon on the 5200. 

The 5200 and Colecovision were the two systems that should have survived the crash.  But bad management decisions doomed both. 

 

 

Edited September 3, 2023 by RickR

[Justin]

26 minutes ago, RickR said:

Interesting fact.  The Intellivision, Colecovision, and Atari 5200 all sold about the same...right around 3 million units.  To prove Justin's point, which one is deemed a "failure"?  Why is that? 

Some common reasons you hear:

• The controllers are bad.  But are they really?  Are they any better or worse than those for Intellivision or Colecovision?  Absolutely not.  They are all so similar.  5200 sticks are probably the most functional of the three.
• It didn't sell as well as the 2600.  So what?  Nothing else did either until much later. 
• Only 69 games were made.  Yes, the library was small.  But most likely because Warner Atari pulled the plug too soon on the 5200. 

The 5200 and Colecovision were the two systems that should have survived the crash.  But bad management decisions doomed both. 

@RickR These are all excellent, excellent points that I could respond with paragraphs about. Totally agree! There's some strange Atari paradox where some people - some in the general public, some on YouTube, some gamers, some trolls - love to kick Atari when they're down. I don't know why things turned out that way, but my guess is it's not just one thing, it's a perfect storm of things, and it's like hitting your elbow at just the wrong spot.

[Jinroh]

I am glad I could try the Jaguar at the toy store. I found out about the Lynx in Boy's Life Magazíne.

Maybe to some credit for Atari, Intellivision, Coleco, NeoGeo AES, Phillips CD-I, etc. aren't hated on as much, is because the general public mind, most has no idea about them, so they are not worth it. 😂

At least if you talk about the Atari machine. People understand the company you are talking about, even if the topic is not favorable to Atari. The rest maybe sent to the dust bin of history except for what die hard fans they still have.

Similarly is when people crow about the Amiga over the ST like there is not even a contest, or do not know about the ST even existed. Another poor marketing on North America Atari. Amigas were given away as prizes often in Nickelodeon game shows. So you know people knew about those. 

Edited September 4, 2023 by Jinroh

[phoboz]

I can understand that people find it motivating to earn money on their favourite hobby (by making these videos), I just whish they were more informed about the topic.

The message that all of these so called retro video game influencers repeat about the Jaguar has been heavily inspired by a satiric episode that the angry video game nerd made a while ago. I can understand that having seen this episode before even knowing about the Jaguar, they may not be aware about how this have affected their judgement (and the intention of that episode was to be entertaining, not nessesarily accurate)

For me, who was a teen (buying new game consoles and playing games at that time), I can only speak based on my personal experience about how it was in my region back then.

To be honest, the Jaguar was quite hyped as the first 64-bit console at the time and most of me and my friends had the SNES, Amiga or Megadrive. A few of us had the oppurtinity to play Wolfenstein 3D on a PC (which was widely perceived to be a 32-bit machine). The Jaguar version was far superior in terms of graphics, so everyone were quite convinced about the Jaguar's power. So it was quite a step up from the 16-bit consoles, and most of us wanted one for some time before Sony came along.

Due to Sony's huge budget, aggressive marketing and it's ability to attract 3rd party developers, they basically blew everyting else out of the water (even Nintendo became uncool for a few years) So what happened after was something that none of the competitors could protect against, Nintendo just survived because of it's size, and SEGA's gradual decline as a console provider started here. Not even the fantastic Dreamcast could save them later. Not to talk about all the other forgotten consoles of that generation.

Edited September 4, 2023 by phoboz

[Atari 5200 Guy]

On 9/2/2023 at 11:19 PM, RickR said:

Interesting fact.  The Intellivision, Colecovision, and Atari 5200 all sold about the same...right around 3 million units.  To prove Justin's point, which one is deemed a "failure"?  Why is that? 

Some common reasons you hear:

• The controllers are bad.  But are they really?  Are they any better or worse than those for Intellivision or Colecovision?  Absolutely not.  They are all so similar.  5200 sticks are probably the most functional of the three.
• It didn't sell as well as the 2600.  So what?  Nothing else did either until much later. 
• Only 69 games were made.  Yes, the library was small.  But most likely because Warner Atari pulled the plug too soon on the 5200. 

The 5200 and Colecovision were the two systems that should have survived the crash.  But bad management decisions doomed both. 

 

 

You know...I had a ColecoVision for a short while when I started collecting video games.  Had a bunch of fun games with my favorite being Pepper II. Played the crap out of that game...as long as my controllers wanted to work.  I had so many issues with the joystick portion that I was constantly having to fix them as best as I could.  I had less trouble out of my 5200 controllers then.  I sold off the CV and kept my 5200 obviously.

There might be only 69 games but those games tell a story.  Unlike the 2600 the 5200 got games that were mostly arcade ports.  It got very few non arcade titles. I have accepted the fact that it wasn't a huge success like the 2600 was. But the games it got tell the story of what games were in the arcades at the time.  I have a copy of the unreleased Sinistar.  It, Jr. Pac-Man, Super Pac-Man, Millipede should have been released as a last hurrah. Even if system production ceased at least release this last batch of games.  

If you think about it, after the 2600, Atari had nothing but issues. In my opinion it seems the 2600 somewhat helped keep Atari afloat. It was produced until 1990s. That's a long time.  I really believe Atari under Jack did not understand the business they were in.  The video game industry is very much like the movie industry. One bad production spells disaster for a while and can take a company with it.

[Jinroh]

12 hours ago, Atari 5200 Guy said:

I really believe Atari under Jack did not understand the business they were in.  The video game industry is very much like the movie industry. One bad production spells disaster for a while and can take a company with it.

Exactly that. I heard 1000 times, Jack hated games, which for buying Atari was certainly not the best opinion. 😅I admire the hell out of him though for surviving Auschwitz, starting from Typewriters, and building a computing empire, even if that empire eventually crumbled. I really admire the drive to give the common man a powerful computer with the beautiful ST line at a fraction of the price of everyone else. From all accounts though he was a nice guy, but also disagreeable and bull headed if you didn't play ball his way.

Like you said one bad game can spoil the batch, or the reputation of the company. That goes with another problem. Atari would have guys like Shiraz who make amazing machines, but then....not follow up and support that hardware. Software sells machines, which I don't think they understood. The one caveat to that was the 520ST pack that came with a ton of software, but I think that was mostly just getting old budget stock out the door honestly. 😅

When they had the software, in the case of the Jaguar, they didn't push it the right way. At this point it's hindsight blah blah, but still I am thankful we have these beautiful machines. They are the one gift that Atari (from all 3 eras) has given us.

Edited September 6, 2023 by Jinroh

[Atari 5200 Guy]

I agree, Jack did give us nice machines.

[- Ω -]

On 9/2/2023 at 9:19 PM, RickR said:

Interesting fact.  The Intellivision, Colecovision, and Atari 5200 all sold about the same...right around 3 million units.  To prove Justin's point, which one is deemed a "failure"?  Why is that? 

Some common reasons you hear:

• The controllers are bad.  But are they really?  Are they any better or worse than those for Intellivision or Colecovision?  Absolutely not.  They are all so similar.  5200 sticks are probably the most functional of the three.
• It didn't sell as well as the 2600.  So what?  Nothing else did either until much later. 
• Only 69 games were made.  Yes, the library was small.  But most likely because Warner Atari pulled the plug too soon on the 5200. 

The 5200 and Colecovision were the two systems that should have survived the crash.  But bad management decisions doomed both. 

 

 

I will not argue with anyone who has issues with some controllers on different units.  Now that said,  I like my Atari 5200!  I like it even more with the UAV video mod plugged into a HDMI converter along with the RetroGameBoyz joystick and the AtariMax.

[alucardx]

I find that she often gets facts wrong and I don't think it is intentional but seems to be more that she is glossing over or missing details that someone more acquainted with the Jaguar might actually pickup on. I don't think I'd discredit her completely over it, personally.

[Justin]

8 minutes ago, alucardx said:

I find that she often gets facts wrong and I don't think it is intentional but seems to be more that she is glossing over or missing details that someone more acquainted with the Jaguar might actually pickup on. I don't think I'd discredit her completely over it, personally.

I totally agree, but I also don't think the Atari Jaguar should be discredited completely for clickbait views and YouTube clout, beyond the reputation the Jaguar has earned for itself.

[alucardx]

Just now, Justin said:

I totally agree, but I also don't think the Atari Jaguar should be discredited completely for clickbait views and YouTube clout, beyond the reputation the Jaguar has earned for itself.

I think that is a completely valid viewpoint. I'm not sure which I dislike more, the click bait or the million videos that show up of someone filming their television as they play a Jaguar game. Either way, I'd like some better stuff showing up.

[Bob]

For what it's worth, I feel the need to say something here that no one else seems to want to admit. But before I say it I'd like to preface it by telling everyone who may see this, that I am an avid gamer and not just someone who wants to put in his "2 cents"! I have been playing games since before the heyday of the Atari 2600. I fell in love with video games right after I played Pong at a bar in 1973! Four years later in 1977, I bought an Atari Video Computer System - which is what the Atari 2600 was called, at the time. Since then, I was eager to plunk down my money for each and every new system that came along offering improved graphics and gaming performance. Starting with the Intellivision in 1979 and just about every new game system after that (with the exception of a few), I've managed to collect and enjoy most of the gaming consoles across those decades. In fact, they are all still in working condition, as I write this commentary. Included in that bunch were several from Atari, in addition to the above mentioned VCS. I even still play games, occasionally, on the Atari 800 computer (circa 1979).  Anyhow, that was a different time in "videogaming".  Home computers were still in their infancy, at least those that were affordable to the masses. We didn't have the plethora of choices or anywhere near the level of technology that's available today. It was also a time when Atari could do no wrong. The very utterance of the name was synonymous with video games and often used as a noun, as in "do you have an Atari at your house"? 

From 1976 on into the early 80"s Atari was "king". Not even the superior Intellivision or the Colecovision was able to supplant it. And then things began to change! At the turn of the decade, if you still did not own any kind of gaming console or system, your mainstream choices were either the Atari 2600 or the Mattel Intellivision. Even though I had both, for most people, especially larger families, it was a matter of affordability. By this time, Atari, already feeling threatened by the more advanced Intellivision cutting into the sales of their own 2600, began developing a successor, that was even more advanced than this newcomer from Mattel. Of course, I'm referring to the Atari 5200... and it is here, where things begin to go horribly wrong for Atari. And it is here that I will say that it was Atari, as a company, who is largely to blame for their own eventual downfall. It was not the videogame crash of 1983, nor was it bad luck, or even the fickle nature of consumers. It was dumb management decisions at the uppermost tiers of the company!  Before I go into further detail, let's fast forward for the moment. Over the course of the next decade and a half or so (mid 90's), Atari will have launched three consecutive consoles/systems that either ultimately flopped or were not well received - those being the 5200, the 7800, and the Jaguar. Actually, it's 4 consecutive failures, if you count the Lynx (between the 7800 and Jaguar). One might ask, is Atari a glutton for punishment? Or are they just plain unlucky when releasing new consoles.  It's neither. They have a penchant for sabotaging any potential success with repeated illogical business decisions, poor product development, and corporate infighting! 

So now we back up to 1981-82 again. The 5200 - already shown to have problematic controllers and other design issues during development but before actual release. Top tier management was aware of these issues but blew them off and moved forward with production. Along with too many games that already existed and re-released with slightly better visuals, a very poor pack in game and overall unimpressive launch games lead to the eventual demise of the console as it was also being outsold by the Colecovision, released at virtually the same time. Soon after came the 7800 which was actually in development prior to the so called crash of 1983.  Next big mistake came after the crash when Nintendo surprised the world with their NES in 1985- bringing videogaming back to front and center. By this time, Atari has readied the 7800, in an attempt to erase the 5200 blunder. It was actually ready to release in 1984 and could have had nearly a two year head start on the yet unreleased NES. Though slightly less powerful than the NES overall, it may have done well enough to at least offset some of the huge financial losses that Atari was incurring. Except, by this time, former Commodore head, Jack Tramiel, who now called the shots at Atari, somehow decided it made more sense to put all 7800 inventory, which was ready to ship, in warehouse storage. Then, he trumps that mistake by launching it in 1986 to go up against the NES, which by this time had gained at least a full year and a half head start!  And to make matters worse, it was obvious that the 7800 launch titles, which were largely unimpressive, didn't measure up to Nintendo's machine at all. 

Now move forward to 1991 or so and Atari reveals its plans for a console to beat all consoles. They begin touting it being 64 bit, even though the Playstation and Saturn systems set to arrive in a few years are only 32 bit.  Again, it was the Tramiel brain truss at Atari, who thought they could dupe gamers by touting this system as something it's not. Not to mention, that development of Atari's next marvel, kept running into problems and bugs that would eventually severely hamper the quality of software that could be written for it. But did Atari care? No. Did Atari do all they could to get working development kits out to software houses in advance? No. Did Atari make it a priority to lock up 3rd party software developers? No. Did Atari have any plan whatsoever to ensure that there were a fair number of quality titles at launch? No. So even if the Jag was 64 bit (it wasn't) and even if they somehow worked out all the problems/bugs encountered during development (they didn't) and even if Atari still had a modicum of credibility as a company (they didn't), the Jaguar was destined to fail. Why? Because Atari habitually exaggerated or outright lied about forthcoming products, because they made questionable, if not downright stupid corporate decisions time after time and because they always cut corners in all the wrong places, resulting in unreliable technology being dumped on consumers. Their corporate greed was their undoing and they got exactly what they deserve!  R.I.P. Atari! 

For the record, I still have my Jaguar and play it from time to time. I have a half dozen games, including Tempest, AVP, Power Drive Rally. The only other games that I may try to find are Cannon Fodder and Iron Soldier. IMO, there are probably less than 10 games that are worth playing. I've seen enough YouTube videos of all the available titles to know that I see no reason to buy them as they are pure crap! How ironic it is that the Jaguar CD add on, when inserted into the console, resembles a TOILET!

[Justin]

15 hours ago, Bob said:

For what it's worth, I feel the need to say something here that no one else seems to want to admit. But before I say it I'd like to preface it by telling everyone who may see this, that I am an avid gamer and not just someone who wants to put in his "2 cents"! I have been playing games since before the heyday of the Atari 2600. I fell in love with video games right after I played Pong at a bar in 1973! Four years later in 1977, I bought an Atari Video Computer System - which is what the Atari 2600 was called, at the time. Since then, I was eager to plunk down my money for each and every new system that came along offering improved graphics and gaming performance. Starting with the Intellivision in 1979 and just about every new game system after that (with the exception of a few), I've managed to collect and enjoy most of the gaming consoles across those decades. In fact, they are all still in working condition, as I write this commentary. Included in that bunch were several from Atari, in addition to the above mentioned VCS. I even still play games, occasionally, on the Atari 800 computer (circa 1979).  Anyhow, that was a different time in "videogaming".  Home computers were still in their infancy, at least those that were affordable to the masses. We didn't have the plethora of choices or anywhere near the level of technology that's available today. It was also a time when Atari could do no wrong. The very utterance of the name was synonymous with video games and often used as a noun, as in "do you have an Atari at your house"? 

From 1976 on into the early 80"s Atari was "king". Not even the superior Intellivision or the Colecovision was able to supplant it. And then things began to change! At the turn of the decade, if you still did not own any kind of gaming console or system, your mainstream choices were either the Atari 2600 or the Mattel Intellivision. Even though I had both, for most people, especially larger families, it was a matter of affordability. By this time, Atari, already feeling threatened by the more advanced Intellivision cutting into the sales of their own 2600, began developing a successor, that was even more advanced than this newcomer from Mattel. Of course, I'm referring to the Atari 5200... and it is here, where things begin to go horribly wrong for Atari. And it is here that I will say that it was Atari, as a company, who is largely to blame for their own eventual downfall. It was not the videogame crash of 1983, nor was it bad luck, or even the fickle nature of consumers. It was dumb management decisions at the uppermost tiers of the company!  Before I go into further detail, let's fast forward for the moment. Over the course of the next decade and a half or so (mid 90's), Atari will have launched three consecutive consoles/systems that either ultimately flopped or were not well received - those being the 5200, the 7800, and the Jaguar. Actually, it's 4 consecutive failures, if you count the Lynx (between the 7800 and Jaguar). One might ask, is Atari a glutton for punishment? Or are they just plain unlucky when releasing new consoles.  It's neither. They have a penchant for sabotaging any potential success with repeated illogical business decisions, poor product development, and corporate infighting! 

So now we back up to 1981-82 again. The 5200 - already shown to have problematic controllers and other design issues during development but before actual release. Top tier management was aware of these issues but blew them off and moved forward with production. Along with too many games that already existed and re-released with slightly better visuals, a very poor pack in game and overall unimpressive launch games lead to the eventual demise of the console as it was also being outsold by the Colecovision, released at virtually the same time. Soon after came the 7800 which was actually in development prior to the so called crash of 1983.  Next big mistake came after the crash when Nintendo surprised the world with their NES in 1985- bringing videogaming back to front and center. By this time, Atari has readied the 7800, in an attempt to erase the 5200 blunder. It was actually ready to release in 1984 and could have had nearly a two year head start on the yet unreleased NES. Though slightly less powerful than the NES overall, it may have done well enough to at least offset some of the huge financial losses that Atari was incurring. Except, by this time, former Commodore head, Jack Tramiel, who now called the shots at Atari, somehow decided it made more sense to put all 7800 inventory, which was ready to ship, in warehouse storage. Then, he trumps that mistake by launching it in 1986 to go up against the NES, which by this time had gained at least a full year and a half head start!  And to make matters worse, it was obvious that the 7800 launch titles, which were largely unimpressive, didn't measure up to Nintendo's machine at all. 

Now move forward to 1991 or so and Atari reveals its plans for a console to beat all consoles. They begin touting it being 64 bit, even though the Playstation and Saturn systems set to arrive in a few years are only 32 bit.  Again, it was the Tramiel brain truss at Atari, who thought they could dupe gamers by touting this system as something it's not. Not to mention, that development of Atari's next marvel, kept running into problems and bugs that would eventually severely hamper the quality of software that could be written for it. But did Atari care? No. Did Atari do all they could to get working development kits out to software houses in advance? No. Did Atari make it a priority to lock up 3rd party software developers? No. Did Atari have any plan whatsoever to ensure that there were a fair number of quality titles at launch? No. So even if the Jag was 64 bit (it wasn't) and even if they somehow worked out all the problems/bugs encountered during development (they didn't) and even if Atari still had a modicum of credibility as a company (they didn't), the Jaguar was destined to fail. Why? Because Atari habitually exaggerated or outright lied about forthcoming products, because they made questionable, if not downright stupid corporate decisions time after time and because they always cut corners in all the wrong places, resulting in unreliable technology being dumped on consumers. Their corporate greed was their undoing and they got exactly what they deserve!  R.I.P. Atari! 

For the record, I still have my Jaguar and play it from time to time. I have a half dozen games, including Tempest, AVP, Power Drive Rally. The only other games that I may try to find are Cannon Fodder and Iron Soldier. IMO, there are probably less than 10 games that are worth playing. I've seen enough YouTube videos of all the available titles to know that I see no reason to buy them as they are pure crap! How ironic it is that the Jaguar CD add on, when inserted into the console, resembles a TOILET!