Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!think.com!mintaka!geech.gnu.ai.mit.edu!rjc From: rjc@geech.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Ray Cromwell) Subject: Re: What the heck IS "Interactive TV"? (long) Message-ID: <1991Apr11.143222.13728@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu> Sender: news@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu Organization: The Internet References: <1991Apr11.090415.5276@ncsu.edu> Date: Thu, 11 Apr 91 14:32:22 GMT Lines: 32 I'm going to play Devil's Advocate here and say that I don't think interactive TV will be the next revolutionary home device. People are used to being passive watchers/listeners. People usually don't interact with TV/CD Players. It may be a 'neat' thing, but I think I-TV players will collect dust in the majority of American homes. Kids may use it to play games, or education. The family may use it for a library, but most people will still prefer to watch normal TV. I think I-TV players will mostly be used for games and information retrieval. This is where CDTV steals the market. The Amiga has by far the best games on the market. This library can be ported easily. Game programmers in the past have written games for 512k 1 drive A500's. They usually crammed all the graphics they could onto 2 880 disks. Now imagine CDTV games made to run in 1meg using 600mbs of disk space! Sure CD-I has better specs, and is backed up by major Japanese companies. So what? The C64 stood up to the same kind of opposition, and won! Another major benefit is CDTV is OUT! It will have atleast a 6 month lead on CD-I (to be released in September, but I bet it will be delayed a few months). If Commodore advertises it well (Television, Radio, and large print media) it will get an installed base that will give it an advantage, like Nitendo had over Sega, TurboGraphics, Neo Geo, etc. Remember, the consumer doesn't base purchases on the spec sheet. I don't know whether CDTV will succeed or not, all I Know is I want one. -- /~\_______________________________________________________________________/~\ |n| rjc@albert.ai.mit.edu Amiga, the computer for the creative mind. |n| |~| .-. .-. |~| |_|________________________________| |_| |________________________________|_|