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The Atari Jaguar and the Bit Wars

The Angry Video Game Nerd is back, and he's kicking off his resurrection with a two-part series on the Jaguar. Part one offers a brief history of the Jaguar, but doesn't explore its impotent game library at any length. Instead, the Nerd talks about how the Jaguar helped loosen a very powerful advertising ankle trap: the “Bit Wars.”

Putting it simply, if you were a gamer and conscious in between the years of 1985 and 1996, you were led to believe that more “bits” in a console equals a better system. You also fell for it, at least until certain truths started to leak out from pores of the 32/64-bit system race.

The NES was a huge improvement over the Atari 2600. The Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis were a huge improvement over the rinky-dink graphics on the NES. 32-bit systems were capable of orchestrated audio, anime cutscenes and 3D graphics. And that's where the waters started to muddy up.

Before the 32/64-bit race began in earnest, I was going through a small obsessive fit with Capcom arcade games. In particular, Street Fighter Alpha, and (sigh) Dungeons and Dragons: Shadows Over Mystara. I thought for certain I'd see ports on the N64, because, duh, Nintendo's system was going to be the most powerful one in the console race! Why wouldn't it happen?

I posted the question on my high school's BBS and was laughed at by a lot of angry video game nerds who predated the Angry Video Game Nerd.

about the blogger

John Constantine, our superhero, was raised by birds and then attended Penn State University. He is currently working on a novel about a fictional city that exists only in his mind. John has an astonishingly extensive knowledge of Scientology. Ultimately he would like to learn how to effectively use his brain. He continues to keep Wu-Tang's secret to himself.

Derrick Sanskrit is a self-professed geek in a variety of fields including typography, graphic design, comic books, music and cartoons. As a professional hipster graphic designer, his recent clients have included Nerve, Pitchfork and MoCCA, among others.

Amber Ahlborn - artist, writer, gamer and DigiPen survivor, she maintains a day job as a graphic artist. By night Amber moonlights as a professional Metroid Fanatic and keeps a metal suit in the closet just in case. Has lived in the state of Washington and insists that it really doesn't rain as much as everyone says it does.

Nadia Oxford is a housekeeping robot who was refurbished into a warrior when the world's need for justice was great. Now that the galaxy is at peace (give or take a conflict here or there), she works as a freelance writer for various sites and magazines. Based in Toronto, Nadia prizes the certificate from the Ministry of Health declaring her tick and rabies-free.

Bob Mackey is a grad student, writer, and cyborg, who uses the powerful girl-repelling nanomachines mad science grafted onto his body to allocate time towards interests of the nerd persuasion. He believes that complaining about things on the Internet is akin to the fine art of wine tasting, but with more spitting into buckets.

Joe Keiser has a programming degree from Johns Hopkins University, a tiny apartment in Brooklyn, and a fake toy guitar built in the hollowed-out shell of a real guitar. He writes about games and technology for a variety of outlets. One day he will stop doing this. The day after that, police will find his body under a collapsed pile of (formerly neatly alphabetized) collector's edition tchotchkes.

Cole Stryker is an American freelance writer living in York, England, where he resides with his archeologist wife. He writes for a travel company by day and argues about pop culture on the internet by night. Find him writing regularly here and here.

Peter Smith is like the lead character of Irwin Shaw's The 80-Yard Run, except less athletic. He considers himself very lucky to have this job. But it's a little premature to take "jack-off of all trades" off his resume. Besides writing, travelling, and painting houses, Pete plays guitar in a rock trio called The Aye-Ayes. He calls them a 'power pop' band, but they generally sound more like Motorhead on a drinking binge.