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The Atari Jaguar was the first 64 bit video game console system ever released. It came out in November 23rd, 1993 in North America, and at that time I saw a lot of commercials about it. The most memorable commercial was one about do the math, because this was the only 64 bit console system in existence. Do the math like 32 bit and 64 bit. It looked like a very promising video game console, and the price was also quite reasonable being $249.99 when it was released.
In reality the CPUs that the Atari Jaguar used were two Motorola 68000 32 bit processors, and it came with 2 mbs of ram. Oddly enough, this system used rom cartridges, like the other video consoles that came before it, like the Atari 2600, Colecovision, NES, SMS, and the Sega Genesis. By the mid 1990s, CD-ROMs were beginning to be used in computers, console systems, and home stereo systems. Even the 3dO Interactive console came with a CD-ROM drive and a $700 price tag in 1991. This system was upgradeable and there was talk about a CD-ROM drive which could be added to this machine; however, that really never materialized.
As for games, it didn’t have a lot of games, and most of the games developed and produced for this system was by Atari. Any successful video game console has a lot of titles, many publishers, and developers. This was not the case for the Atari Jaguar, because Jack Tramiel made it difficult for developers to get licenses to produce games for this system. As a result, you didn’t have a lot of titles for this system. You can think of a video game console as being a platform for developers to produce games, just like Youtube would be a platform for people who produce videos to have a platform. Just like Amazon and Ebay are platforms for people to sell their products. Never the less, some good games were made, like Alien vs. Predator.
The timing for the Atari Jaguar was bad, because one year later Sony released the Playstation video game console, and Sega released the Sega Saturn. Both systems were a lot better than the Atari Jaguar, and they came with CD-ROM drives which enabled the games to store more data. The hardware for the PS-1 and the Sega Saturn were better than the Atari Jaguar as well. If you saw some of the games, like Virtua fighter for the Sega Saturn it was almost arcade like.
All in all, the Atari Jaguar wasn’t a success, and it lasted about 3 years. Atari sold about 250,000 units, and the failure of this system lead to the demise of Atari. Coupled with the technical issues, and buggy UART made it difficult to program. As a result, not a lot of software was developed for it, and the games that utilized 3d graphics were very rough. You can buy Atari Jaguars on ebay for a reasonable price, and they are abundant even now.
You can download the emulator on this link
| Content | Link to Video |
|---|---|
| Atari Jaguar: Virtual Jaguar Tutorial | Link to video |
| Alien vs Predator 1994 Atari Jaguar | Link to video |