I've done a lot of thinking on this topic, and I'm starting to realize that Atari and Sega killed one another.
In a vain attempt to capture the "32 bit market," Atari was threatened by the Sega Saturn, or by Sega in general, and Sega was worried about the Jaguar, stupidly enough. Maybe wise, in this case, though.
Both companies rushed into production their 32 bit consoles, as upgrades to their previous generation 16-bit or whatever bit consoles. The 7800 and Genesis in these cases.
They were the Atari Panther and the Sega Neptune.
Atari foolishly devoted too many resources to the Panther and then simply cancelled it for the Jaguar, while Sega went ahead and fucked over their Neptune to produce a shitty addon that fucked over Sega's perception, made worse by the Saturn being piece of shit.
Both console manufacturers insured one another's demise in the hardware industry in one way or another because of their failed 32 bit excursions.
If both companies had simply let their 32 bit machines cook, and released them both, and gave their proper 32 bit/64 bit consoles more time to develop, we could've had much stronger proper consoles from Sega and Atari and the Jaguar and the Saturn could have been much more powerful and a much more worthwhile investment.
Instead both were horrifying to program for and used mutilated dual processors that couldn't be harnessed.
>>3108412
You're an idiot. PlayStation was the big bogeyman of that time. Sega and Atari didn't give two shits about each other. Look up exec interviews and try to find then even mention one another.
Jaguar was never a contender, Atari was a forgotten company by the time. If they had the Panther so they don't end up missing the 16bit era, then it might have survived a bit longer, but I doubt it.
Saturn could've lived fine, its problem was that the company managing it was completely retarded. The surprise launch alone was a gigantic blow, and then they gave the machine stupid marketing, and stopped releasing games on it after two years.
If it had a proper launch and the marketing wasn't so stupid, then it could've been a close second to the Playstation and easily survive until 2000. Even in Japan it could've done so - they launched the Dreamcast too early and pissed off many devs with that too.
>>3109210
Not OP and while you're right, it was Sony that delivered the deathblow, OP is correct in that Sega at least lost a lot of momentum and probably money too on 32x. Where I think he's probably wrong is to believe there was direct competition from Atari. Atari had been fucking up for a long time before that and if Sega was even aware of Jaguar they probably would have seen it as a warning since Atari had long proven to be foolish with their console designs.
Saturn sold 10million
Jaguar sold 250K
They weren't in the same league.
You could say that Jaguar took away market share from the 3DO (2million sold).
But even if the 3DO had a perfect launch:
200$ cheaper initial price for the critical holiday season of '93
Better controller (at least 5 face buttons, and shoulder buttons that click inwards, not outwards)
240p (instead of linedoubling into 480i) to give more smoothness
Games packaged in standard CD cases instead of boxes (giving the impression of cheaper software)
A killer app: furry mascot game like Sonic and Crash for Murka, New RPG series started for Japan.
It would still get swept away by the Playstation.
>>3109503
>A killer app: furry mascot game like Sonic and Crash for Murka,
I do think it had one or two of those. I might be thinking of Gex, though.
>New RPG series started for Japan.
Japs wouldn't touch it with a 10 feet pole because it was not a Japanese console. Just look at the Xbox 360 - it had DOA, Blue Dragon, shitload of shmups, and still sold horribly.
>Sega worried about Atari
Atari was fucking dead by the time...
>According to former Sega of America producer Scot Bayless, Nakayama was worried that the Saturn would not be available until after 1994 and that the recently released Atari Jaguar would reduce Sega's hardware sales. As a result, Nakayama ordered his engineers to have the system ready for launch by the end of the year
oh fuck. I never knew this.
>>3109523
Gex was released in 95. 3DO needed a mascot by 94.
The mascot also needed to stay exclusive to the 3DO.
Gex was also on SS, PS, N64,GBC and Win9X.
The most common versions of the 3DO were made by Panasonic whose real name is Matsushita. Sanyo also made 3DOs.
The most popular sport in Japan is baseball. Maybe a baseball RPG would have captured the Japanese market.
OP here.
Sega rushed out the 32x and rushed out the Saturn because of their fear of Atari. Some other anon already posted it here
>>3109532
I personally believe if Sega had released the Neptune as a standalone, upgrade console, and then released the Saturn a little later instead of rushing it out at a super expensive price point with hard to program for technology, they would have been a much larger contender during the Playstations run. At least large enough that they could've survived past the Dreamcast.
Atari, on the other hand, fucked up royally by not introducing their straight forward and, for the time, incredibly powerful 32-bit system to finish up the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis era properly, while developing their big Playstation/Saturn/N64 contender to be released later on instead of so fucking early it could barely handle proper 3D gaming.
The rush of this 32-bit technology was definitely the failure of Atari and definitely the end of Sega's relevance and trust in the gaming community.
Sega Genesis and Sega CD should have been phased out for the Neptune, which should have been the hold-over until the Sega Saturn was released as a proper Playstation competitor with a proper price point.
Likewise with the Panther to the Jaguar.
Both companies made similar mistakes, regardless of whether or not Atari was relevant, had the Jaguar been honed and focused it could've sold more and survived.
I swear to god both companies were managed by the dumbest motherfuckers on earth during this time. At least SEGA was still capable of making good games.
>>3109601
A solid Sega Genesis + Sega CD release with a standalone Neptune would have helped, I think, as a segue into a later launch of the Sega Saturn, which would have ironed out issues and possibly lowered the price. Neptune would have also boosted the perception of Sega, because it would look like an actual console that was an alternative as opposed to a waste of time add on that didn't do shit.
As for the Panther, Atari really needed it. They were going to launch it in 1991 to compete with the Super Nintendo, and they had no console from the 7800 to the Jaguar. So that was a span of 1990 to 1993 where they had nothing in the market and that was on top of the 7800 already being pretty unheard of.
Panther was a much needed "boom" to introduce the 32-bit market to Atari while they cooked up their 64-bit or whatever Jaguar for a 1996 or 1997 release, alongside the time when the Saturn should have been launched.
So the timeline would have been something like...
1991 - Super Nintendo
1991 - Panther
1994 - Sega Neptune
September 1995 - PlayStation
Proposed "true" console war:
September 1996 - Nintendo 64
1996 - Sega Saturn
1996 - Atari Jaguar
>>3109649
Proposed "true" console war:
September 1996 - Nintendo 64
1996 - Sega Saturn
1996 - Atari Jaguar
That timeline would have probably seen a much stronger Nintendo, Atari, and Sega. The public perception of the PlayStation would have also probably been a little derailed from the 3 "dominant" system manufacturers resurfacing in a new war. The "war" would have brought relevance in competing marketing and raised public awareness of the brands. It would've made all of them stronger much like the Super Nintendo vs Genesis war.
Hindsight is always 20/20.
If I could go back in time I would assassinate the idiots at Sega who pushed the 32X and Saturn.
>>3109689
Well it was really the 32X that fucked the entire thing up, and they rushed the Saturn and it was way too expensive.
But it's hilarious that they rushed those because they were worried about the fucking Jaguar.
The Atari Jaguar controller was supposed to be the Panther controller, as well. You can see it is very clearly a 32-bit controller versus a 3D controller.
>>3109659
Holy fuck that would've been awesome.
>>3109707
And, they tried to rectify it at the very end with the Jaguar Pro Controller. Notice the button layout, the improved buttons, the grip, the shoulder buttons, and the D-pad, which I hear was much better and could translate into diagonals much better.
The 32x was a direct response to the Jaguar. They didn't want to lost console presence that holiday since Saturn needed more time before the US launch.
>>3110084
Then they launched the saturn at the same time anyway. Oops.
Atari always fucks things up.
>first the '80s gaming market crash
>then the Jag failing miserably
>now being a patent whore
k
>>3110132
K... KEEP ME POSTED
>>3108412
Yeah
>>3109601
>Sega rushed out the 32x and rushed out the Saturn because of their fear of Atari
Yeah, no, that's bullshit. Give us a real source.
>>3109601
No one feared Atari by this point. They were the laughing stock of the industry.
The 32x was a response to chip-enhanced SNES games. Sega made one Genesis game with an enhancement chip (Virtua Racing), but ultimately decided on the 32x.
Nobody cared about Atari.
