hpr-knowledge-base/hpr_transcripts/hpr2474.txt

Episode: 2474
Title: HPR2474: Open Source Gaming #3 The Atari Jaguar
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr2474/hpr2474.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-19 03:47:14

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This episode of HBR is brought to you by Ananasthaus.com.
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Okay, the dude is here, and this is another episode of HBR15.com.
This episode of open source gaming, sorry that I've been absent for the last month for two months, not sure if I made an episode in November or not.
I know I skipped December, unfortunately I got really busy there that month, but here we are continuing open source gaming, number three.
And today we're not necessarily talking about a game, we're talking about a platform and open source platform, which is the Tauri Jaguar.
Now this is the software like the operating system, like developing games for the system, not the hardware itself, so at least I don't think the hardware for it.
So I'm just basing this off of something that's on Wikipedia, which leaked me to Atari age and usually Atari age knows their shit when it comes to this.
So apparently in May 14th 1999, Hasbro Interactive who bought Atari during that time, I'm not sure what the company's called now, it's probably Atari to be honest, but anyway, Hasbro Interactive announced that I released all rights it may have.
To the vintage Atari hardware platform, the Jaguar Hasbro acquired many rights, many Atari properties, including legendary centipede, Missile Command, Palm Games, and in March 1998 from the JTS Corporation.
Alright, the announcement will allow software developers to create and publish software for the Jaguar system to obtain a license agreement with without having to attain a license agreement with Hasbro Interactive for such platform development.
Hasbro Interactive caution, however, that developers should not use the Atari trademark or logo in connection with their games or present the games as authorized or approved by Hasbro Interactive.
This was like in quotes from Richard Cleveland, the head of marketing of Hasbro's, Atari Business Unit, and he stated that Hasbro Interactive is strictly focused on developing and publishing entertainment software for the PC and next generation game consoles.
We realized that there is a passionate audience of diehard Atari fans who want to keep their Jaguar system alive, and we don't want to prevent them from doing that, we will not interfere with the efforts of software developers to create software for the Jaguar system.
So, I have to say this is pretty cool to actually find that out, if you don't know, the Atari Jaguar is the last game called Selena Atari made up until now with the Atari box, but it was a big flop.
There was speculation if it was really 64 bit as they claimed, and it kind of was, it kind of wasn't, it was a really hard program for, but the problem was basically the system didn't sell well, and it got killed before its potential was shown.
And with Hasbro being cool in releasing the development rights or whatever, just basically make it an open source console to work with that we can actually see how the potential of the console is.
I really want to see someone develop a game and push the console to its limits, to see how advanced the system was for its time, because it was very, very underutilized, it got pretty much killed by the PlayStation and the 3DO at the time, and also the Sega Saturn.
There was also a couple other problems that the system had, like the CD add-on was notorious for not doing, not being the most reliable machine, also the fact that most of the games were 2D because people would rather work with the Motorola chip inside, that was a 16 bit processor,
because it was just easier to program for than trying to get the Tom and Jerry processors to work together, so, like I said, the potential of the machine was not used, and it flopped, it flopped a big time.
And, but that's not to say that there wasn't any good games for the system, although there was a few, there was a lot of bad games, notoriously bad games for it, such as cyber horror, which was featured on AVGN, but there's also a few good games, such as the Doom ports amazing, although it doesn't have any music.
Alienware's Predator is a really good game for the system, and you really have to check it out, it's a very misunderstood machine, and I really encourage, you know, people that want to kind of get into game developing to really see, like, what could have been.
Because it always intrigued me, like a lot of like the older obscure consoles, such as, you know, the FM Towns-Marty, which I was shocked to know that you can run alone in the dark on the damn thing, like, like, until I found out that, I thought the 3DO was the only game console to actually have a port of alone in the dark.
And, what do you know, the FM Towns-Marty actually could do that, but anyway, that's really all I got to say about that part for the Atari Jaguar.
I also kind of briefly want to touch upon Atari's current console, which also has an open source element since using Linux, so it's an open source operating system.
So there's that to it, but I wouldn't really hold my breath or be too excited about it because there's a lot of shady things that are going on with it.
It also seems like a uya type console that has Linux running on it.
And the only other console I could think of that did that was the Evo Smart Console, which came on in the market and it disappeared, and I haven't seen Jack crap on that.
So it seems very, very, very shady, like, back to that point, but we'll have to see where things go with that.
Hopefully, the Atari Box is actually a good machine, but I don't expect it to, even if it is a good machine, I don't really expect it to sell very well since it's obviously digital games.
What really bugs me about when somebody releases like a retro console hashed where it's just basically a bunch of games on a chip or like in the case of the Atari Box, well, you can download the games off the internet and stuff.
Literally, I really want to see someone that go after the nostalgia market by making a console that plays the physical games.
You can't tell me that won't sell.
I mean, Atari games are super, super cheap online. You can get them for like a couple dollars, you know.
Just have something with the system that I can play Atari games on that can be hooked up to a modern TV without buying a whole bunch of damn adapters or upscalers so that way you can stream online with the damn thing.
Just having a console that could just play the original hardware would be really, really nice.
And also with being able to play newer games as well.
And that's really what I want to see when they try to go after like the nostalgia factor, which is what Nintendo did with their NES thing that they had, the NES classic.
And I didn't buy one because I'm like if I'm going to buy like something that has NES on it, I'm going to buy an actual NES system so that way I can play the damn games.
It's simple as that. I'm not going to play like an NES system that just has a bunch of games on a chip.
And I can't play anymore damn games besides the stuff that's on the console itself.
I like to, you know, acquire my library and make it bigger, but that's just me.
On that, there isn't really much to say.
That's really what I got right now.
Hopefully you've got to try to continue into this series next month.
Maybe try to do like more like the music theory.
I have to re-watch that episode so that way I know where I left off.
It depends on how much time I have.
But other than that, keep on gaming, guys, and hopefully this meltdown slash specter problem that those security flaws don't affect everything for too long.
If not, well, I guess we'll have to bring out the old Commodore 64 or Atari ST or any computer with a CPU that is made before 1995.
Anyway, see you guys.
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