by Mike Peck
(Page 2)
by Mike Peck
(Page 2)
Others in our office don't get it. They ride us for constantly playing the same game. We get a decent assortment of free games for the SNES sent to us, but after trying them, we almost invariably go back to playing Street Fighter. Only Super Metroid and Super Punch Out have distracted us. The others, no matter how well marketed or how loudly proclaimed, just aren't fun.
And it makes me wonder what that means for the future platforms -- Sony's PlayStation, Sega's Saturn, the 3DO player, Atari's Jaguar and Nintendo's upcoming Ultra 64. If you're anywhere near the target market, you've already seen the Sega spots featuring the bald woman touting the Saturn. And come September, Sony will join the noise, followed by Nintendo in April.
But what of it?
The big game companies want you to buy a new system. If you're not currently playing games, they want you to start. And despite the opinions of all the pundits, many of whom are highly paid consultants and executives, no one's really sure if you're going to or not. The industry is too young for anyone to stand up and say "I'm a genius and I'm 100 percent sure of what will happen" with any conviction. At least, it's too young for anyone to say it and have me believe it.
A brief videogame history goes as follows: Atari started the craze, which died. Nintendo picked it up again with its eight-bit machine and, in what's viewed as a classic display of shortsightedness, ignored Sega as a threat when Sega introduced its 16-bit Genesis machine. Nintendo was wrong and Sega had it for lunch for a while, until Nintendo introduced the SNES and the two companies began their current neck-and-neck battle for domination.
Now the next phase has begun. Sega pulled a sneak Saturn introduction at the recent Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles, debuting the machine in various outlets at a list price of $399 to $449 and bundling it with a copy of Virtua Fighter and a video sampler of 20 other titles. When consumers send in their registration card, they receive a sample CD of Panzer Dragoon plus a music sampler disc. Other available titles include Bug!, Clockwork Knight, Worldwide Soccer, NHL All-Star Hockey, NBA Action, Grand Slam Baseball, Black Fire, Ghen War, Astal and Gale Racer. The company says the machine is shipping briskly.
