Here’s something very cool: a rare look so far behind the scenes of how a video game console is made that you’re seeing the very beginning. The injection moulds used to actually make the plastic components that came together to become an Atari Jaguar.
To recap: the Jaguar sucked, it died a horrible death, and it brought Atari down with it. But we’re not here to make fun of a dead 90s console. We’re here to marvel at the machinery that made them, a set of injection mould “tooling packages” that reportedly cost Atari around $US250,000 to design and build.
From these boxes, and with the necessary plastic, you could make the casings for the console itself, a cartridge, buttons and even the exterior of the Jaguar’s add-on CD drive.
In 2012, the lot of them were sold for $US4500, via this eBay auction.
So what the hell were they doing still around and in one piece so long after the console ceased production? Well, that’s quite the story. The moulds were sold this week by a company called Imagin Systems. Who, in a fit of brilliant opportunism, bought the kits off Atari and used them to make dental equipment.
Atari Jaguar Injection Molds [Game Sniped]
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