I had a Jag, had some decent games - Tempest obviously, AvP was decent and imo it had the best (until that point) version of Theme Park.

Did anyone ever get the CD add-on for the Jaguar? I don't think I've ever even seen one of those in the flesh.

These, for me, represent the heart of the reason that people ever bicker over which console is the best. The reason there are fanboys.

The fact is, people want to know that they have spent a couple hundred quid on a well-supported, popular console that will provide them with years of quality entertainment that they will eventually look back on fondly. The fact that this brings a bit of tribalism is an unfortunate side-effect.

What they don't want is to spend a couple hundred quid on a total abomination that has no games, nobody developing for it: a purchase you'd regret.

The fact is, we've been spoiled for the past two generations by the success of the big three. The PS2 and 3, the XBox and 360, the Gamecube and the Wii, have all been top quality and had a decent number of games. Compare those to the 3DO, Jaguar and CD-32 and you can see how far things have come since the early/mid-90s.

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The late 80s and 90s were ridiculous for the amount of 'me too' consoles, surely must've confused non-gamers and dented their confidence in buying gaming products.

With only 3 consoles this current generation (7th generation) has the fewest options ever.

I remember my local Comet in the 90s, there was a wall of consoles you could play:

SNES
MegaDrive
32X
Jaguar
3DO
CD-32
Neo-Geo

Absolutely ridiculous!

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For some reason, everyone and their dog thought they stood a shot at the console crown that generation. In a sense, it was largely Nintendo and SEGA's fault: They were making so much money hand-over-first with the Megadrive and SNES that everyone with an electronics division thought they could make some (seemingly) easy money.

A lot of companies learned a number of very hard lessons that generation. Perhaps the strangest thing is that most of them failed for entirely different reasons.

SEGA US and JPN were too busy fighting each other for the same components they needed to make their own followups to the Megadrive. Atari just never really had enough money to get back into the game, proper, and were chasing the SNES. Commodore were repeating all the same mistakes they'd made with CDTV. Nintendo were chasing perfection with the N64.

Sony just blind-sided everyone with the PS1. Their failed CD-ROM drive put them in exactly the right place at the right time. They ate a lot of good European developers who were on the brink due to expensive software development costs, and in conjunction with their eastern developers, they had exactly the right hardware and software at the right time and at the right price.

It wouldn't happen these days as the big 3 are huge corporations that can't be competed with.

There is OnLive, but it's found a gap in the market by being a truly unique product.

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thats interesting, i'd say probably the biggest failure, on the fact its games were piss, but what they were trying is actually what we have now was the philips CDI.

a machine that could play games, movies, CDs, was a karaoke machine, basically THE multimedia machine of its time.

they did the CDI thing, movies on CD, a new way of watching films, and tbh much better than VHS, i have a few, each chapter or scene in the movie is basically a track, the movie itself is not digital from what i know, so the quality is that of video, but it doesn't degrade after years of repeat viewing, it has the bonus of being a CD, no rewinding, instant pause, chapter select (well track select), small and fairly inexpensive, it should have taken off, its the logical step, VHS to CDI to DVD, but few have even heard of it.

best i know is that it failed because it was insanely over priced, had no games, had woeful advertising, as they didn't know what to market it as and one of, if not the worst controllers of all time. That said its the most interesting system i own, the games are strawberry floating awful, and strange, but i like the early 90's multimedia side of it, watching topgun on CDI like a hero.

it looks nothing like a console either, its a huge gray box (210) but i think they made console ones that then didn't play the movies , which was a stupid move as the games side of the CDI was the weakest side of things.

i still think it was ahead of its time, its what we have now, in a very basic form, tried to bring a new video format to the market, not unlike what sony have done, and did more for your buck than be just a video game system, alass it is a forgotten footnote of history.

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Hard to believe the Philips CD-i wasn't discontinued until 1998

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seriously?

i didn't think it was followed that well, i know theres a bit of a CDI culture in the netherlands, homebrew games and the such, but 98 seems like a huge life for a console that only sold something like 500K consoles world wide IIRC.

best game i have for it is mirco machines, and its the worst mirco machines game i've ever played.

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I know its the wrong generation (though it kind of feels like it fits with this bunch), but I actually really wanted a Nuon when they were announced. If only for Tempest 3000 I think it would have been worth it.

You and much of the rest of the world. I think it would have sold modestly well as a dedicated Tempest machine, to be honest. Certainly better than it actually did as a DVD player.

The CD-I was aimed at the same market segment as Commodore's CD-TV had been. That was determined by the cost of the hardware: It was simply too expensive to be a traditional videogames console. So expensive that it simply couldn't be aimed at the kids market, it HAD to be for the adults.


You can see the similar styling of the CD-i and the CDTV here.


Though, the Commodore's home computer roots were clearly visible with many of the optional accessories that almost, but not quite entirely failed to make it compatible with the normal A500.

Commodore did a little better with their CD32, because they managed to cost-reduce it so that it wasn't appreciably more expensive than the Amiga it was based on, and it had a better compatability rate with normal Amiga software than the CD-TV managed back in 1991.

The thing is, even the A1200 was starting to show it's age by then. Commodore was struggling financially and then failed, leaving the poor Amiga and CD32 in a limbo of manufacturers who did nothing to improve the hardware or software, selling old stock at increasingly ludicirous prices.

true dat.

but again, going towards the failure of the CDI, as you say it was aimed at adults, then almost all its games were for young children, mostly educational games or basic platformers. atleast the 32CD has a decent range of games.

bizzaro CDI info ad... i own the tennis game featured in this ad, its the strawberry floating worst tennis game i've ever owned i probably wasn't interactive enough for it.

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Ah, 90's infomercials.

What was that "good" CD-I game again? Burncycle?

yeah. the Aprentice too, with tbh is like one of those old NES games like kid icrus, you just going up through a maze, not very good for a next gen game.

chaos control isn't bad either, what really lets it down is the strawberry floating controller.

hotal mario is supposed to be good, and when i say good, its good for the CDI, one of the worst mario games of all time though.

personnally i don't mind the 7th guest, its an old point and click type of game, its the game i've played the most...



this tenis game is the worst i own, there are no controls, it does what it wants, strawberry floating horrific.

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The thing about 7th Guest is that it's actually far more famous as a PC CD title.

Never had a CD-32 and never wanted one.

Still have my Panasonic 3DO which is a sexy piece of kit and my Jaguar which isn't

Jaguar had the only ever console version of Doom actually developed by id though so it wins.

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I had friends who had these when I was young:

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www.samgwilliam.com

God, that looks horrendous! And the music sounds like some nightmarish FM-synthesis reincarnation of Come As You Are.

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www.samgwilliam.com

ah, the GX4000

burning rubber

i love that game, have it for my amstrad 464+

would love a GX4000, robocop2 was pretty good IIRC on it.

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Wasn't it just a CPC in a cut-down form factor? The only 2 games my mate had were Burnin' Rubber and Barbarian (or maybe it was the sequel - either way it was dire).

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www.samgwilliam.com