Atari announced this week that their 5 millionth Jaguar 64 had been sold
in the US, adding a further boost to stock market prices for Atari Corp.
Atari UK meanwhile are expected to release their 6-monthly sales later this
month, and Atari UK shares are already rising on expectations that European
sales will be equally as good. The Atari/2 64 is also selling well, but at
this time no figures are available. It is known, however, that Atari recently
renewed a manufacturing deal with IBM and Motorola have brought on-line a
second Jaguar chipset manufacturing plant amidst reports of further licensing
of the Jaguar chipset.
Creative's PC Jaguar-Blaster Now Available!
Creative Labs announced this week that their much-delayed Jaguar-Blaster
PC upgrade card is now available. As well as providing a full Jaguar 64 "classic"
on a PCI expansion board, the board also acts as a video graphics accelerator,
with custom drivers and joypad support, plus multi-channel DSP surround sound
facilities. Drivers are available for Windows/95, and OS/2 Warp. The board
is expected to retail for $149, and Creative Labs hope that it will be the
number one best selling product next Christmas.
Atari buys back Atari Games!
Atari this week bought a controlling share in Atari Games from Time-Warner
Interactive. Atari Corporation shares have been riding at an all-time high
since the Jaguar became the world no.1 best selling console, and cash-rich
Atari decided to unify the Atari name again after years of disagreements.
The moves corresponds with the recent agreement by Nolan Bushnell to rejoin
the company as CEO for Network Gaming and Arcade Development. Atari Games
are now expected to adopt the widely used Co-Jag chipset for future games,
with plans to use Co-Jag eXtreme already under-way. The deal will further
strengthen the Jaguar family position with a string of arcade licenses for
owners.
Sega in talks to license Jaguar chipsets!
Sega have confirmed reports that they have been talking with Atari about
licensing the Jaguar/2 chipset for their Saturn/2 project. Sega have been
evaluating a number of technologies, with the PC platform 3D/FX and Power/VR
chipsets having been strong contenders. The reason why Sega, who now own
a 10% share of Atari Corporation, and are currently in the process of writing
games for the Atari Jaguar/2 64 should consider this is that their own engineers
believe the Jaguar will remain a dominant platform, and this compatibility
would be a useful boost to the flagging Sega Saturn family.
Atari promise a "Yaroze beater" for Jaguar!
The "Atari Underground" movement has finally persuaded Atari that they should
counter Sony's move to launch a cheap game development system for the video-games
hobbyist. Bill Rehbock, head of Research and Development at Atari claimed
Atari had always planned to make the Jaguar systems more "open". "In our
dominant position we do not need to worry about letting people know how good
our hardware is.", he said. No details of the system are known as yet, but
sources close to the company report that development is proceeding in parallel
with the rumoured Jag-Store Zip/100 which will offer Jaguar gamers 100Mb
of rewritable storage. Atari bought a controlling interest in IoMega last
year.
Atari Promise Future DVD Support!
Matsushita are still claiming that their M2 video-games development system
is still under development, and will use DVD. Sam Tramiel, CEO of Future
Projects for Atari said that the Jaguar will not fail to meet future challenges,
and if the market demands DVD, Atari will deliver DVD. Many market analysts
believe DVD/RW will be widely adopted in the PC market, but there are still
doubts as to performane with video-games.
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