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Getting Started |
Welcome to the first issue (and article) of The Atari Times originally printed in May of 1996. The goal of this newsletter has always been to give Atarians something the other big publications haven't been: Coverage!
In my humble opinion, the magazines have never given Atari a fair shake. They may claim to be un-biased, but we just aren't convinced. Especially when they can't even get the sales figures right! (For proof of this bias, check out the EGM JagDoom review!)
You may recall back in mid- 1995 Atari released the now famous 150,000 Jaguars sold figure. Since then Atari has dropped the price of the Jaguar to $150 and more recently to $99. Now, wouldn't any reasonable journalist assume the 150,000 figure would be surpassed? Especially after 8 months and two price drops? Of course! But one writer even said Atari had only sold 50,000 Jags! Duh! What a moron!
My guess is after these many months and price drops Atari has sold 300,000 units or more. It's not the "stellar" figures of the other next generation machines, but it is still a respectable number. The next thing the mags complain about is the lack of Jaguar software. Yet when games do arrive, they don't even bother to review them! Or they wait until the game has been on the shelf for two months leaving you to make a guess as to weather it's a good game or not.
What's worse is their reviews of games are 90% based on the graphics and 10% on funfactor. A prime example of this is BattleMorph for the Jaguar CD. This game is great fun, but because it's not totally texture mapped, some mags gave it crappy reviews!
I find it totally unfair how these magazines show disrespect to the founding father of video games. How many times do I have to read a contemptible article concerning Atari? How often has someone questioned the 64-bitness of the Jaguar? Aren't you sick of these mags kicking Atari when they're down?
Enough of this negative talk. Atari is what we're all interested in, and that's what The Atari Times is about. The reviews we give will be fair, and not automatically negative like the other publications. So trash those magazines who do nothing but kiss up to Sony, Sega, and Nintendo. The Atari Times is all the info you need for your hardware of choice!