Atari Jaguar, why is this cat so hot?

[retroman]

So I have owned a Jaguar and Jaguar CD since the late 90s and have always been a fan. I will admit it does have its fair share of stinkers for games, but also some brilliant games as well. I would like to know your view as to why you think this Cat/CD is now the most sought after retro console on the market fetching a average price of $500-600 easy and the Jag CD even upwards of $1000. Who owns one? Who wants one? What games do you love for it and why? Memories you may have had? Or is it the homebrew scene that is booming on the Jag driving this beast. I would for sure and others to as well would love to hear your thoughts, and stories.

[Pr3tty F1y]

I think it's a bubble combined with rarity. I highly doubt it's direct nostalgia as, for most of us, the Jaguar is the console we never had. For me, it's the console I'm thankful that my Mom stopped me from buying for $35.99 at K-B Toys I really wanted Alien vs. Predator for it, but I don't remember K-B actually having that game. I think they just had a handful of crap ones in their clearance bin at the front of the store.

As far as the bubble, I would partially blame some of this on Rich Whitehouse's Jaguar emulator work on the Atari 50 Collection and his subsequent release of BigPEmu. You now have folks actually being able to play Jaguar games that they likely never played. I also think that overall game collecting has reached such a fever pitch that all of the common stuff has already become super expensive, so folks are moving into more exotic collecting with consoles that probably weren't as expensive (but now have reached a fever pitch).

Given the crap reliability of the CD-addon, finding working one would be rare. However, the games for it are limited and not that great (at least in my opinion). To me, getting one is collecting for the sake of collecting. It's not like you're getting one to get access to some premium gaming library

I'm in the same boat that I really don't understand the desire for the Jaguar and, despite it's heated defense on places like Atari Age, I personally don't think that the Jaguar even holds a candle to the 32X as far as playability. The library - compared to all consoles past and present - is really a bit lacking. Also, despite the heated defense, the Jaguar can't hold a candle to the Playstation or Saturn - despite claims of it being some secret power house that no one has ever figured out to tap. So, yeah, I find the Jaguar to be an awesome novelty and BigPEmu has highlighted some great potential that the Jaguar had (I'm looking at you Phase Zero - if all Jaguar games were on this level of graphical fidelity and this actually made it to market earlier in the Jaguar life span, it may have actually had a chance).

However, none of the more recent homebrew seems truly amazing. It's been trickling out since the late 90s and I think the better unlicensed stuff was the earlier releases of the items that were in development during the Jaguar's lifetime, but never made it to market (again, Phase Zero ).

So I think it's just a symptom of collecting for collecting's sake, excess disposable income, folks branching out into nostalgia-adjacent consoles. And all of that combined leads to a bubble of overly priced stuff.

[retroman]

Do you think that the bubble will burst? Or will it stay strong like the NeoGeo or Turbo?

[Pr3tty F1y]

Do you think that the bubble will burst? Or will it stay strong like the NeoGeo or Turbo?

Personally, I think it will burst - but probably not for the CD-addon. It's rare and finding one in working condition is difficult so I believe that will continue to fetch a high price. However, collectors seem to hit a storage space limit once they collect enough and the low console on the totem pole is likely to be the one to go, and I think we'll see folks divesting themselves of Jaguars regularly in the coming years.

My primary experience in collecting is not consoles, but strategy guides. I long ago decided that I didn't want to deal with consoles and CRTs and wires and everything that goes into the setup in addition to the expense, but strategy guides - that I could do. So I ended up accumulating a full set of Nintendo Player's Guides as well as Nintendo Power-branded guides. Being that I started this collection during the pandemic, I was likely paying a slight premium - but these guides weren't really a huge collector's item. That being said, it looks like the market has cooled a bit. May be 10-20%.

However, I didn't get into collecting the guides for an investment. They were nostalgia for me (plus a bit of collecting fever - you know, gotta catch 'em all ).

From where I grew up in the US, I didn't know a single person who had a Jaguar. Neo-Geo was always something special - that unattainable console (and, to a large extent, still is). And then there is the hype around the PC-Engine/TG-16. It has a classic shooter library, and a very robust Japanese market to tap.

I actually just looked up what a boxed copy of Myst would go for on the Jaguar CD a few nights ago and I was surprised to see how reasonably priced it was for CIB/sealed. I fired it up on BigPEmu to see how it held up as I originally had Myst on the original Playstation. I didn't have a PC at the time that could handle it and, for whatever reason, high school student me wanted Myst at the time

So, I'm not sure if I'm representative of most folks, but I do find the Jaguar as a fascinating curiosity. It definitely had potential to rival Nintendo/Sega, but - as with so many American game products - American art direction in games at the time SUCKED. I mean, I'm not a fan of the "European" amiga-style art work either, but it was better than what American studios were putting out at the time. And I think that, for a large part, did in the Jaguar. Cybermorph - despite being impressive technically - is mighty ugly not a particularly enthralling game Star Fox ran at a fraction of the framerate but multiple times the fun.

I do fire up Phase Zero regularly, just because I do find it so interesting. It would have blown me away in the early 90's if they could have gotten it out. To me, it's the standout Jaguar title. Aliens vs. Predator just reminds me of a poor man's Wolfenstein, but maybe I'm not appreciating the multiple characters enough.

I just see the Jaguar market calming back down. Game prices will probably will never be as cheap as they once were as collecting is now a well defined market for games, but I would not be surprised to see Jaguar stuff cool off significantly in the coming years. But maybe I'll be wrong

[Niku-Sama]

I got my Jag shortly after new sales stopped and there were still some clearance units floating around. I still got mine used, all cords, system, 2 controllers and Checkered Flag for $25. I dont know why i remember it so vividly, probably because it was so soon after it was done and it was so cheap and i always had a curiosity about it, it was at the beginning of my collection aside from games i already owned. Wiki says it stopped in '96 so i think i got it late '96 or '97. I was twelveish and i remember i would get $20 a week for lunch and often times i wouldnt eat (the beginning of cheap ingredients in the school system by me, i.e. gross) so i would keep the change and save it up and get games with it. often things on clearance or something from a used store (game crazy, thrift, stc)
I wanted to try it but at the same time i only had checkered flag which was pretty meh, so in my mind its been pretty meh. it was about 15 or more years before i found any other games "in the wild" and it was a handful of decent games for the system AvP, Doom, Tempest 2000 and some others. I still couldnt shake that meh feeling about it though, one of these days i'll try it again, i still have it all, but just like some day i'll play my odyssey 2 and conquest of the world. it just keeps not happening...

Hell no would i pay the prices that they are now, i dont get it, but i've noticed all other atari systems, intellivision and colecovision libraries are way up too so its not anything specific to the jag. it seems like not that long ago 2600 stuff was dirt cheap, most games were under $5 and systems might be $40 but probably less but lately it seems like loose 2600 sytems are upwards of about $100 and a lot of the games are trending up too

[Gameguy]

I didn't realize the prices for the Jaguar were so high now, that really feels high for what the console is. It seems I'm out of touch with pricing if most older consoles are getting expensive as they really were cheap for the most part, I still remember finding bags full of Atari 2600 games for just $1.99 at thrift stores, today any old game would be priced individually and kept in the show case.

I've never found a Jaguar so I've never got to play one but I've hoped to find one at some point to try it out. What I remember is the Highlander game for Jaguar CD as that Spoony reviewer covered it well over a decade ago. I honestly don't have a good opinion of the games as a whole as they all seem either mediocre or bad with maybe just a few exceptions.

[Greg2600]

What classic consoles haven't skyrocketed in price? Jaguar was always a tad high price wise, I think it's a fairly collectible system, cool artwork. It's also the last true Atari system. I have the GameDrive by RetroHQ UK and don't play it that much. It's just not a good system, most of the games were poorly developed, whole nine yards. I managed to get one for $125 about four years ago, and even that took a few years of losing auctions.

[Spartacus]

I did this Jaguar collection 4 years ago, just before the pandemic. Used Jaguar consoles were in the $200-$300 range with boxed versions $400 and up then. I never look back with collection values, but it does look like Jaguar console prices are on the rise. So is the price of a gallon of gas and a dozen eggs. This particular collection took me 6 months to accomplish and I don't recall unavailability a problem with Jaguar collecting, other than the CD unit.

I always start with a boxed console in display condition whenever I begin a new collection. The one I found (for $450) had been recapped by the owner. I never intend to use the display console, only as a last resort, and really just have one for friends and family to be able to pick it up and examine what it would have been like to have one back in the day. I always get myself what I call a "beater" to play games with. Just a good working used console, cosmetics be damned. After two attempts to buy a cheap beater Jaguar, both of which the sellers had listed as "working but untested", I returned both and gave up. One had no sound, the other blinked the screen on and off while playing. I became very suspicious of the build quality of the Jaguar and having only 20 or so games for it, decided to abandon finding another and moved on to other gaming projects. I never even considered finding or affording a Jaguar CD and even though it's library is incredibly small, I envy those fortunate enough to have one.

I've never been excited about playing arcade games, which the Atari library is full of. It seems like they extend game play just by killing off the player as soon as possible. I find games that have no ending, high score games, unsatisfying to play.

The Jaguar reminds me of my very first game console, the Atari 5200. They both use a controller that has more buttons than were necessary. My favorite Atari 5200 games were Activision and LucasArts games, not Atari. Same with the Jaguar. I had a better time playing third party games than Atari games.

I wonder if a casual gamer could even name a single Atari game these days? Just about anyone would know of Mario or Sonic. Maybe even Bonk or Crash Bandicoot, but Atari? Would it be Pong?, Missile Command?, I don't know.
What would you say is the best looking Atari game on the Jaguar? Perhaps Trevor McFur in the Crescent Galaxy? Frankly, I've seen better looking side scrolling on previous generation consoles.

But it's the 3D games that define the Jaguar. I love playing modern 3D games more than any 2D games I have ever previously played and though the fifth generation consoles did them poorly at the time, I appreciate them for the direction they were taking gaming.

I followed my Jaguar collection with an Amiga CD32 collection. As I collected Amiga games I recognized the connection that Amiga had with Atari. The Amiga CD32 is filled with nothing but European developed games and I recognize many European third party games on the Jaguar. Cannon Fodder, Sensible Soccer, Worms, Zool, ect. Frankly, since the Amiga CD32 correctly chose to use the CD format as opposed to carts, they are the superior versions of those games.

I think having a Jaguar and physical Jaguar games a rare honor, nonetheless. I did not realize the uptick in Jaguar homebrew games the OP spoke of and after looking on Atari Age, I see some I might like to have. Thanks!

[Az]

I finally got a chance to check out BigPEmu and a dozen or so Jaguar games last night. Prior to that I had never played a Jag before, all I knew was 30 years of screenshots and hype from Diehard Gamefan. I didn't play much of the library, but I walked away disappointed.

I hoped Kasumi Ninja was going to be a fun time with a bad game, instead it's pretty much unplayable. Ultra Vortek was slightly better but not by much. Both make Way of the Warrior look like MK2 by comparison. Fight for Life was as awful as I expected it to be.

Club Drive was beyond rubbish, Checkered Flag was a bit better but not by much when compared to Genesis Virtua Racing. The Hang-On style 2D motorcycle game (forget the name) looked amazing and played well. It and NBA Jam:TE were probably the best of what I played. Alien VS Predator may have been good as a console FPS during the time, but nowadays isn't worth my time being that I have no nostalgia for it.

I think to genuinely appreciate the Jag and enjoy the games you probably needed to own one at the time and also have an affinity for the European microcomputer style of visuals and game design. I have neither, so it's definitely not for me. But, I'm a huge 32x fan, so what do I know.

[Greg2600]

The Jaguar reminds me of my very first game console, the Atari 5200. They both use a controller that has more buttons than were necessary. My favorite Atari 5200 games were Activision and LucasArts games, not Atari. Same with the Jaguar. I had a better time playing third party games than Atari games.

I wonder if a casual gamer could even name a single Atari game these days? Just about anyone would know of Mario or Sonic. Maybe even Bonk or Crash Bandicoot, but Atari? Would it be Pong?, Missile Command?, I don't know.
What would you say is the best looking Atari game on the Jaguar? Perhaps Trevor McFur in the Crescent Galaxy? Frankly, I've seen better looking side scrolling on previous generation consoles.

But it's the 3D games that define the Jaguar. I love playing modern 3D games more than any 2D games I have ever previously played and though the fifth generation consoles did them poorly at the time, I appreciate them for the direction they were taking gaming.

I followed my Jaguar collection with an Amiga CD32 collection. As I collected Amiga games I recognized the connection that Amiga had with Atari. The Amiga CD32 is filled with nothing but European developed games and I recognize many European third party games on the Jaguar. Cannon Fodder, Sensible Soccer, Worms, Zool, ect. Frankly, since the Amiga CD32 correctly chose to use the CD format as opposed to carts, they are the superior versions of those games.

I think having a Jaguar and physical Jaguar games a rare honor, nonetheless. I did not realize the uptick in Jaguar homebrew games the OP spoke of and after looking on Atari Age, I see some I might like to have. Thanks!

Most of the Jaguar homebrew are Atari ST ports. CD32 is a system that is simply unaffordable.

I finally got a chance to check out BigPEmu and a dozen or so Jaguar games last night. Prior to that I had never played a Jag before, all I knew was 30 years of screenshots and hype from Diehard Gamefan. I didn't play much of the library, but I walked away disappointed.

I hoped Kasumi Ninja was going to be a fun time with a bad game, instead it's pretty much unplayable. Ultra Vortek was slightly better but not by much. Both make Way of the Warrior look like MK2 by comparison. Fight for Life was as awful as I expected it to be.

Club Drive was beyond rubbish, Checkered Flag was a bit better but not by much when compared to Genesis Virtua Racing. The Hang-On style 2D motorcycle game (forget the name) looked amazing and played well. It and NBA Jam:TE were probably the best of what I played. Alien VS Predator may have been good as a console FPS during the time, but nowadays isn't worth my time being that I have no nostalgia for it.

I think to genuinely appreciate the Jag and enjoy the games you probably needed to own one at the time and also have an affinity for the European microcomputer style of visuals and game design. I have neither, so it's definitely not for me. But, I'm a huge 32x fan, so what do I know.

That is a great emulator.

[Gamevet]

I would hope that anyone that has ever heard of the Jaguar, would associate it with Tempest 2000. I got that game and AVP, after getting a new Jaguar from Tele-games, bundled with an extra controller, Pinball Dreams and Troy Aikman Football.