Released in 1993, the Atari Jaguars entered the video game home console market when the competition was quite fierce. The two top consoles on the market at the time represented the battle between the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) and the Sega Genesis. The run for the Atari Jaguar was bookended by that console war, along with the releases of the Sega Saturn, the Nintendo 64, and the original Sony PlayStation.
For the Atari Jaguar, things didn’t end well. Here are 5 fascinating Atari Jaguar facts.
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- Developers had a difficult time producing games for the Jaguar, which led to many top titles to miss the console completely. (source) The mult-chip architecture that was used in the Atari Jaguar proved to be a major headache for many gaming developers. Because of this, many developers opted to pass on releasing their top titles on the Jaguar, instead shifting their focus with these games to consoles released by Nintendo, Sega and Sony.
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- The Atari Jaguar sold less than 250,000 units, making it one of the worst-selling home video game consoles of all-time. (source) Atari had seen previous success with the Atari 2600, which was released in 1977 and sold around 30 million units. It was considered to be a massive commercial failure, and was even described as “an unfortunate system, beleaguered by software droughts, rushed releases, and a lot of terrible, terrible games,” said Rob Bricken of Topless Robot.
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- The Atari Jaguar had a CD add-on for the console, but it was released much too late. (source) Later in its life cycle, the Atari Jaguar found itself competing with the Sega Saturn and Sony PlayStation, which had disc drives, which had become increasingly popular with gamers at the time. Atari would rush to release a CD add-on for the console, but it was too late to make an impact and change Atari’s fortunes with the Jaguar.
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- Arguably the most popular game released for the Atari Jaguar has not been seen on any home video game console since. (source) Released in 1994, Alien vs. Predator was a first-person fighting game, and it quickly became one of the premiere games for the Atari Jaguar. However, despite the game having incredibly strong reviews and great diversity in its gameplay, the game has not been released on any other platform since.
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- When the Atari Jaguar was released, it was bundled with a Cybermorph cartridge, one controller, and all together the cost was $250. (source) Cybermorph was the pack-in title for the Jaguar, and it was met with very harsh reviews and criticism, as it was said to have several design flaws and a very weak color palette, which didn’t do Atari any favors in terms of future sales. Before the collapse of the console, Atari had actually been planning to develop the ‘Jaguar II.’
The Atari Jaguar is perhaps one of the most forgotten home video game consoles ever released. Did you ever own or play the Atari Jaguar back when it was released? Let us know in the comments below!
Featured image photo credit: Evan-Amos, 2012. Originally found on Wikimedia.org. Image was resized and cropped. Creative Commons 3.0.
