Atari's 64-bit
Jaguar came out in
1993 to compete against the popular 16-bit
systems,
Super Nintendo and
Sega Genesis. Hoping for a market
coup Atari wanted many games available quickly and as a result many games were just
quick ports of 16-bit games that didn't show the true potential of the Jaguar. The most interesting feature of the basic Jaguar unit is the 17 button controller which was completely
unorthodox in the
video game console world. The Jag featured built in hardware for scaling,
object skewing, and
rotation. Creating
polygons and
texture mapping them was done well as well as the ability to show 16 million colors on screen during play. The Jaguar got a reputation for poor games and was eventually unable to complete with the newer technology and huge marketing budgets of
Sony and
Nintendo. Awaiting the release of Nintendo's
GameCube the Atari Jaguar is the best
bang for the buck available as many systems and games can be found cheap.
Add-Ons Both real and never released:
- CD-Rom - Played a small library of Jaguar CD games
- Virtual Reality Headset
- Jag Voice Modem - Play games and talk over it
- Catbox - Network 16 Jaguars
- Team Tap - Play with 4 controllers
- Pro Controller - More buttons!
- Jag-Link - Network Two Jags
- Infrared Jag Link - Network via infrared
- Radio Jag Link - Network via shortwave radio
- Steering Wheel
- Flying Yolk