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[goodcow]

http://www.goodcowfilms.com/farm/basement/ga-archive/jaguar-08-19-2000.htm

NG: The Sega deal means that you can release any of its titles (excluding Sonic) on the Jaguar. What Sega titles are going to appear on the machine?

Sam: We haven't decided yet.

What was the whole patent issue about in the first place, and then after seemingly winning, why didn't they actually do anything with it?

 

[doncale]

because Jaguar was a POS and Atari makes Sega look totally competent ? :lol

 

[wobedraggled]

I remember when this went down.... And Atari had a goodamn chance to do something, they had a good long list of devs lined up, this were looking good.

Fear, became Tetrissphere, when N bought that dev out, then they went away.

Core was making a new game called "Tomb Raider" for the Jaguar, we know where that ended up.

It's a shame, because the Jag is the closest thing to a console Amiga, as it's a few of the same guys that cooked it up, the the Tramiels screwed it up like anything else that they touch.

grrr...

/rant

 

[FitzOfRage]

http://www.goodcowfilms.com/farm/basement/ga-archive/jaguar-08-19-2000.htm



What was the whole patent issue about in the first place, and then after seemingly winning, why didn't they actually do anything with it?

Atari realized they were sitting on various patents for video game hardware and software that Sega and Nintendo had violated. And apparantly Sega was the worse offender of the 2. I don't recall a lot of what they were disputing but I remember part of it was Sega's controller port design on the Master System and Genesis somehow violated Atari's patents.

Nintendo ended up paying like $2 million, while Sega ended up paying $90 million, which included buying $40 million worth of Atari stock and $50 million to cover past and future uses (until 2001) of all Atari patents issued between 1977 and 1984.

Atari and Sega also agreed to cross-license up to 5 games per year until 2001 (so it went both ways), but I don't think they had free reign, or had to license any at all. I'm pretty sure they both had to agree on the games that would be used.

 

[FortNinety]

I always assumed it was due to arrogance on the part of Atari prez Tramiel. I'm sure he felt such a move was a sign of weakness. Hell, if the guy could release a Nintendo made game on his system, he still would have passed it up.

 

[Argyle]

I always assumed it was due to arrogance on the part of Atari prez Tramiel. I'm sure he felt such a move was a sign of weakness. Hell, if the guy could release a Nintendo made game on his system, he still would have passed it up.

Maybe he was arrogant too - but I always chalked this up to incompetence on Atari's part...

...we ARE talking about a company that launched a full color portable video game system against the Game Boy with print ads. In newspapers. In black and white.

 

[PC Gaijin]

Sega ripped off Atari's nine-pin joystick port design.

Hell, if the guy could release a Nintendo made game on his system, he still would have passed it up.

See Mario Bros., Donkey Kong, and Donkey Kong Jr. all released (or re-released in new packaging) for the 2600, 7800, and XEGS all after the Tramiels took over Atari. When they had the license, they made use of it. As FitzOfRage mentioned the cross-licensing deal required both parties to agree on the titles to be released, which is why nothing came out of the deal (except perhaps Tempest 2000 on the Saturn, but IIRC that happened after the Tramiel Atari was dead anyway).