Why has there been no crash like in 1983

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ptdebate1
Posts: 909
Joined: December 31st, 1969, 7:00 pm

Why has there been no crash like in 1983

Postby ptdebate1 » February 3rd, 2015, 2:55 pm

Jon, just to reiterate, the Jaguar never was planned as a 2D system. 3D was all the rage, and as we both agreed, most of the system's library consisted of 3D games.

The Jaguar didn't fail as a piece of hardware because of inept developers, but rather because of its own gimpiness. The Jaguar's CPU had a flawed memory controller that prevented accessing code properly from RAM. It also had a buggy UART and totally lacked ram dedicated to audio. All of these problems are documented at the below link:
http://www.netlibrary.net/articles/Atari_Jaguar

The flawed 32-bit RISC CPU meant that developers ended up having to use a coprocessor, such as the much weaker 68000, to drive game logic since the CPU couldn't actually access ram directly.

Jon1
Posts: 378
Joined: December 31st, 1969, 7:00 pm

Why has there been no crash like in 1983

Postby Jon1 » February 3rd, 2015, 4:34 pm

I've read that it was later figured out that it was possible to get past those problems, such as having to rely on a less powerful processor, but that's for another conversation. To me, the failure of the Jaguar was indicative of the direction the industry was going. For whatever reason, there was a push to derail the 2d genre. And it started a heck of a lot earlier than the PS1. By 1993 there had been a huge revolution in technology and now it was possible for a cost effective 2d machine that would far surpass even the Neo Geo. Again, look at footage from Native (especially the short clips). But, it was never realized. It didn't have to be the Jaguar, anyone with means could have made a cost effective ($200 probably) system that would be the best 2d graphics ever seen, way better than even the Neo Geo, my favorite system. So that would have been 1993. Let's say it took the Jag a year to put out consistently good games that took advantage of the hardware. That means that by 1994 the SNES and Genesis would have been obsolete, and their respective companies would have been in crisis mode. How much better the games would have been on the Jag (or any system that took advantage of the technology) would have made those 16 bit systems look so ridiculous. It's really hilarious that by 1996 the SNES was on top of the industry.

Oltobaz1
Posts: 1605
Joined: December 31st, 1969, 7:00 pm

Why has there been no crash like in 1983

Postby Oltobaz1 » February 3rd, 2015, 5:04 pm

Had devs properly harnessed the Jaguar capabilities, we might have seen better looking games for the system, yes.
Still... The absence of Konami, Capcom, Taito, Namco, Sega... the lack of Japanese franchises, yet another reason it
was doomed from the start.

ptdebate1
Posts: 909
Joined: December 31st, 1969, 7:00 pm

Why has there been no crash like in 1983

Postby ptdebate1 » February 3rd, 2015, 5:06 pm

Jon,

I wholeheartedly agree. If I recall correctly, Sony and Sega's America divisions actually had an anti-2D policy, such that only a certain quota of 2D games could be released yearly. I would imagine that their reason was, from a marketing standpoint, to wholly differentiate their hardware from the competition by capitalizing on 3D graphics as a keystone of the new generation. 

What these policies meant in practice was that many great 2D shmups, fighting games, and RPGs for those consoles were released very late or not at all in America.


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