Concerning _Jaguar Dead (Again)?_, Rodney Rudd said to Troy H. Cheek in
ST_PROG:

 TH>> *not* the time to hear that Atari has laid off its workforce and
 TH>> closed its doors, then go out of town for a week and leave your
 RR>
 RR> I didn't hear any rumor *that* drastic.  Where did that one come
 RR> from?

Saw it over on VID_GAMES, supposedly originating on the Internet.  Atari had
laid off over 100 employees, everybody from the CEO on down, including the
cleaning staff, and was no longer answering their phones.  Even Ted Hoff's
position was in doubt.  To hear some people talk, Atari was down to a few
Tramiels and Jeff Minter, who was finishing up the games in progress. Atari's
promotion on the next Friday's USA Up All Night was cancelled, and several
former Atari employees were having a forum on Compu$erve that night to air
their gripes.

"that Friday" being one of the ones that I was out of town and far away from
my computer and my cable, of course.

But I did read a message when I got back that the USA promotion went ahead as
scheduled, and that the employees showed up on GEnie instead of Compu$erve,
and basically confirmed Atari's version of the recent events.
And according to Don Thomas, Atari will be showing at this year's E3,
contrary to rumor.

(I knew, but had forgotten, that Atari has had far fewer than 100 actual
employees for some time now.)

 RR> The average Christmas shopper is not aware of stock price or
 RR> corporate rumors.  The Jaguar's target audience has never heard these
 RR> false rumors.  Only people who closely follow this and are highly
 RR> interested in any shred of detail even know about this.

I'm not so sure.  A lot of people are on the Internet these days, or know
someone who is.  And though they may not all see the Jag rumors firsthand,
they'll surely hear about them as the flitter about.  And while the rumors
are hot stuff, the boring reality isn't.  I'm still running into people who
claim that Atari's not answering the phones is proof they've shut down, even
though anybody can dial 1-800-GO-ATARI and get an answer.

 RR> they can handle.  Nobody of any statistical importance is going to
 RR> "wait and see".  The public will buy or not buy based on their
 RR> impulses, the price, and advertising.

At least one member of the public has said that he was about to buy a JagCD
when he heard the rumors and decided to "wait and see".  That's what spurred
my little editorial.  I *hope* he's an exception.

 RR> anything like the Playstation games (actually, the screen shots Atari
 RR> displays in their ads are so brief, it almost looks like they're
 RR> trying to downplay that aspect of what they're selling).

Price is the big selling point these days, in spite of some people's (Hi,
Terry R! :-) claims that price is moot.

 RR> Well, people predicting Atari's demise were never going to really buy
 RR> a new Jaguar anyway.  They might claim they were going to, in order
 RR> to appar objective.  But really they never were.

That's not what's bothering me.  What's bothering me is that, with thier
false rumors and nay-saying, convince people who intended to buy a Jaguar not
to.

 TH>> across some poor sucker who fell for the rumors and is dumping all
 TH>> his Atari stuff.
 RR>
 RR> I like those suckers - they subsidize my computer hobby.  :-)

To a certain extent, mine too.

... /|\tari Cowboy -> Hyper Force + TBA + ? + TBD + Comp. West

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