The Atari Jaguar was a video game console released in the US in November 1993 as the first 64-bit system. The Jaguar initially sold well, substantially outselling the highly publicised 3DO system, which was also released during the holiday season of 1993. However, the Jaguar's cartridge game media had limited storage space, and failed to utilise the abilities of the Jaguar fully, and after several dismal launch titles, the console soon gained a reputation for having poor games.
The company tried to boost sales by emphasising the console's 64-bit capabilities under the slogan: "Do the Math". However, detractors claimed the Jaguar's principal 64-bit coprocessors were simply graphics accelerators that required external control from the Jaguar's primary processors; the primary GPU executed a 32-bit instruction-set, whilst the remaining CPU was only a 16-bit unit. Atari then ran a number of early morning infomercials using enthusiastic salesmen to extol the game's powerful system. However, this was not enough for Atari to sell the remaining stock of Jaguar systems, and the system was discontinued after selling only 250,000 units. The failure of the Jaguar prompted Atari to leave the hardware business.
Games
The Jaguar gained a poor reputation for the quality of its games, partly due to the high number of 16-bit ports from other systems, and partly due to the almost total lack of third party support (the system was seen to be hard to develop for). However, the system did have a number of hits, such as Tempest 2000, Wolfenstein 3D and Doom. The Jaguar's most successful title was Alien vs. Predator, which is often considered the system's defining game. Other popular games included the following:
Although Atari announced a number of add-on peripherals for the peripheral, only two of them ever materialised; the JagLink (a simple device that networked two consoles) and the Atari Jaguar CD drive.
The 1995 Jaguar CD drive was a CD-ROM unit that plugged into the cartridge slot of the console, with its own cartridge slot to allow cartridge games to be played without removing the CD drive. The unit featured a double speed drive and built-in Virtual Light Machine (VLM) software that provided a sophisticated video light show when an audio CD was played in the machine. Two games came packaged with the drive (Blue Lightning and Vid Grid) along with a Myst demo disc and a music CD (Tempest 2000 soundtrack).
Although the CD games could include as much as 790MB of data (much more than conventional CD-ROMs), interest was already growing for the 32-bit CD based Sega Saturn and Sony PlayStation consoles. The Jaguar CD drive came too late to save the console, and only 9 other titles were released. These were:
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