Can Atari Meet Demand? (Nov.19,1993)










From: Atari SIG (xx004@cleveland.Freenet.Edu)

Date: 02/20/94-01:33:44 AM Z









From: xx004@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Atari SIG)
Subject: Can Atari Meet Demand? (Nov.19,1993)
Date: Sun Feb 20 01:33:44 1994


                            SILICON TIMES REPORT
                            ====================
   November 19, 1993                                             No. 9.47
   ======================================================================


           Atari Jaguar Intro'd, Can Atari Meet Demand? 11/09/93

 SUNNYVALE, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A., 1993 NOV 9 (NB) -- The Atari Jaguar,
 introduced last Thursday in New York, has impressed Wall Street, but may
 not be able to meet demand. The enthusiastically received $250 video-game
 player is priced hundreds of dollars below the competing 3DO product and
 has the backing of IBM and Time Warner.

 About 50,000 Jaguars are expected to ship before Christmas, with 10,000
 slated for the European market and the remaining 40,000 divided between
 stores in the New York and San Francisco areas. But Newsbytes sources
 said already the machines are almost sold out and manufacturing more, in
 time for a planned national rollout in January, could be difficult. IBM
 is contract manufacturing the Jaguar at its facilities in Charlotte,
 North Carolina.

 Atari said the Jaguar runs on a 64-bit chip and can display over 16
 million colors as well as three-dimensional (3D) objects. A compact disc
 read-only memory (CD-ROM) drive can also be added. Several well-known
 game developers announced support for the system including: ID Software,
 Virgin Interactive Entertainment, Accolade, Interplay, Microprose Ltd.,
 Microprose US, Gremlin Graphics Ltd., 21st Century Software, and UBI
 Software.

 The Jaguar is targeted to bring Atari back into markets now dominated by
 Nintendo and Sega. Atari has faced hard times, but Wall Street appears to
 be enthused about the company's comeback, as the stock price has climbed
 from dismal levels of below a $1 per share in April to close Friday at 11
 and 3/8.  The company is publicly held with the chairman holding 46
 percent and Time Warner holding another 25 percent.

 (Linda Rohrbough/19931108/Press Contact: Monique Marchi,
 Cunningham Communications for Atari, tel 408-982-0400, fax 408-
 982-0403)
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