Nintendo reinvents the video game
Apple develops a low-cost 'appliance'
May 16, 1996
Web posted at:11:15 p.m. EDTFrom Correspondent Dennis Michael
LOS ANGELES (CNN) -- Video game giant Nintendo changed the rules of the video game business when it unveiled its new video game system Wednesday at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles.
Sample new games
(693K QuickTime movie)
The Nintendo 64 will hit store shelves for the first time in the United States in September, ushered in by a multi-million dollar market campaign.
The startling technology behind Nintendo 64 comes from Silicon Graphics, the computer company that brought tornadoes and dinosaurs to the movie screen.
"It's really a chip set from a $100,000 work station and reduced to deliver that same computing power for the home market," said Peter Main, executive vice president of Nintendo America. "And what it allows us to do is create games that do the images on the fly and allow you as a game player to go wherever, however you want to go and not follow the prescribed notions of a programmer."
Now, a much more three-dimensional Mario can move in any direction. The viewer can choose a number of different camera angles from which to watch the action.
See Mario
(828K QuickTime movie)
The high quality images come at a high price for a video game: $250 at retail. But it buys startling real-time images.
Nintendo said its new system will put to rest any idea that the console game business is about to be swallowed up by the computer game business.
"They're having their own struggles," Main said. "Four thousand titles out there, nobody can figure them out. Ninety-eight percent of them aren't selling very well."
Meanwhile, beleaguered Apple Computer Inc. has provided the technology for another new and unique product: the Pippin, the computer for people who do not want a computer.
"Actually we'd rather call it an information appliance," said Satjiv Chahil, Apple's marketing vice president. "And we'd rather people think of it as the Model-T of information appliances because it will democratize the access to information, education and entertainment for everyone."
The Pippin displays its information on a TV set rather than a monitor. And instead of a keyboard and a mouse, it has a videogame-like control paddle. The Pippin will easily browse the Net and will run Macintosh-format CD-ROM products. Apple hopes the $500 to $600 price tag will attract a large market.
"On a global basis it could quite easily be the same size as the PC market," Chahil said.
The electronic entertainment industry seems to be in the midst of re-inventing itself ... again.
Related story:
Related sites
FeedbackSend us your comments.Selected responses are posted daily. |
|
![[Imagemap]](/SHOWBIZ/images/9601/navbar.gif){kind=small}
Copyright © 1996 Cable News Network, Inc.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
External sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive.
