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Scientific-Atlanta Mulling Video Game Set-Top Box
NickNiel writes "According to Yahoo, Scientific-Atlanta (a digital cable set-top box manufacturer) is 'planning to develop television set-top boxes with high-performance video game capabilities, which could compete with game consoles such as Nintendo's GameCube and Sony's PlayStation 2.' My favorite quote, from CEO James McDonald: 'I can give (game players) the same performance you get out of those game boxes," he added. 'There is no question that games is one... market we will be in.'"
Most people don't buy their cable boxes. They rent them from the cable company as part of their bill. If the cable company adds video games to the cable box and still charges you the same ammount per month for the box, most people won't say no. That means he get in for free. If you make the games a sensible price (and GOOD, which is the most important part) he could make some money. I don't think he'll ever be a real part of the video games industry with this thing, but he could still do a decent business and make some money.
He has a chance to break into the market becuase he'll be in the home. Now if you have to pay extra money for the box (like $200 up front), or the rental fee is higher, or the games suck or cost too much, he's dead. But if he does things right, he's got a chance to do decently.
But I can't see this EVER being any real player of any kind in the industry unless his boxes are so popular that nearly every cable company is willing to use these boxes.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
It's a moronic ad (obviously), but I'm curious Scientific-Atlanta sees a similar (completely wrong) future, where people toss out their Xboxes, Gamecubes, and PS2s because they now have this all-in-one unit.
It shows a complete misunderstanding of games and gamers. Unless you're in Japan, people I know don't have much interest in replacing two or three devices with one all-in-one, jack-of-all trades device (which is usually very expensive).
People like buying things modularly because it seems cheaper and also you can get the best of each modular component.
CEO James McDonald's comment: I can give (game players) the same performance you get out of those game boxes exemplifies his misunderstanding... performance is perhaps 10% of what is important in games (I'm talking frames per second, load times, etc). What this guy should be giving is the same games or experience.
Put this right up there with the Phantom for game decks we will never see.
God Bless America. Why? Did it sneeze?
I don't know. I remember being in a hotel and having the original super mario bros and a few other games available to play on demand. I assume the cable box was responsible for the emulation, but I can't be certain. If it was and this company was responsible for that box or even has a similar offering (obviously wild speculation on my part), then I assume they have a few engineers working there with an idea of what it would take. Of course, emulating a nintendo is a far cry from creating a next generation console, especially if the emulation was all done by Nintendo, which I assume is also very likely.
So, I agree that most likely this will be vaporware or at best on par with a playstation or nintendo64, but I will at least give them the benefit of the doubt for now. More than I can say for the phantom anyways.
Actually the original exporer was pitched to cable companies as a game delivery device along with all the other feature sets. The companies were more interested in video on demand and services like that (94-95). So no effort was made to continue to develop that feature. I believe they did have some demo games at the time. I don't recall if they actually worked though. SA also had one of the first cable modems on the market (along with Motorala and GI). They did some trials with US west with the cable modem and the explorer and I thought at the time games were part of the test. It was a long time ago and my memory is not very clear on that. It was very clear that SA and GI wanted to enable cable companies to be able to deliver games over cable back in the mid 90's. It turned out the big cable companies could only digest one new technology at a time and so video on demand was adopted. I was working on this stuff back in 93 and it looks like this is the next technology the hardware manufacturers want to push on cable companies. If it works it will sell alot of set top boxes and head end equipment. I don't believe they were or are now interested in a stand alone set top game system that you can go down to the store and buy the latest game for. Remember SA makes money selling to Time Warner and the like not you the consumer.
The truth suffers more from convictions than from lies.
Sega/Pace Dreamcast Set-Top-Box Revealed.
I think it is this one, but there isn't much information on the games:
IP420
I remember this as one of the great, "let's throw the disgruntled say-it-ain't-so Dreamcast fans a bone so they won't realize they've got a dead platform" stories that the Dreamcast sections of game magazines were running when it was clear that time was running out for the Dreamcast.
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
I'm curious couldn't a company make an X-Box that downloaded games rather than sticking in a DVD? Would anything major have to change? You could either just ship the games to the console overnight as they were released or download the next level as they were playing the current one. It doesn't seem like much of a leap to me. Can anyone fill me in on the technical difficulties here?
The nice thing about a cable company console, is that the cable companies will pay a much higher price, and charge their users monthly rather than the hardware companie at best breaking even on the early consoles.
Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.