From: jkh@whisker.lotus.ie (Jordan K. Hubbard)
Subject: Re: Why I bought a CD-I yesterday and what Commodore needs to do about
Organization: Lotus Development Ireland
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1992 00:26:24 GMT

In article <Steven_Hurdle.00s1@amusers.UUCP> Steven_Hurdle@amusers.UUCP (Steven Hurdle) writes:

   About a year ago, the first CD-I unit appeared in a local shop here.  It
   was there about a month or so.  It left soon after, and was replaced by a
   CDTV unit.  To this day that store stocks CDTV units and titles.  They
   didn't sell any CD-I units, not a one, and no stores have any interest in
   bringing it in.  CDTV has won here by default.  There isn't even enough

Well, that was obviously a mistake on the part of your local distributor
as the CD-I was NOWHERE NEAR ready a year ago.  None of the good titles were
available, no significant advertising was done, they might as well as placed
a bucket of horse manure there with a sign saying "delicious horse products"
stuck in it, for all the chance they had.  I think the situation is very
different now - they're ready, and they're going for it.
   in the first place.  CDTV does not NEED to rely on this, as it can always
   fall back on the Amiga enthusiasts if there proves to be little market for
   multimedia appliances.

I completely disagree.  Many Amiga enthusiasts have seen that CDTV is
NOT the "amiga" to buy, since it offers little more than an
underpowered (and practically unexpandable) A500 with a CD ROM drive.
One would be far better off buying an A600 or A1200 and sticking a
CDROM drive on it when drives become available.  A CD is nice to have,
but not THAT nice - there's really not that much you can't get just as
easily on floppy disk.  I'd say anyone opting for a CDTV instead of an
A1200 on the strength of the CD drive alone is bound for disappointment.

   grabbing sounds on demand or you must fill-up a lot of available RAM with
   dozens of digital-audio snippets for every conceivable sound.  Ridiculous.

Well, to be fair, if you look at your average Amiga game, most sounds ARE
digitized - what do you think the Paula chip likes, anyway?  There's enough
memory to keep most oft-used sounds around - I really don't think this is
anywhere near the showstopper you make it out to be.

     The controller I won't comment on, as some love it and some hate it. 

It's not great, no.  I've seen something called the "CD-I joypad", but
I haven't chased it down and looked at it in detail.  There's also
that monster trackball thingy for kids - actually not a bad idea, if
you look at how most 6-10 year olds treat controls.  Look at the available
titles and you'll see that the CD-I is very much aimed at education.

      BTW, did you notice that Magnavox (the company who was to be the first
   distributor of a CD-I machine) has abandoned CD-I and is now involved with
   VIS (which forced Phillips to market the first machine themselves).

*Bzzzzt*, wrong, but thanks for playing.  (Phillips owns Magnavox and CD-I
not being distributed under the Magnavox name was due to totally different
reasons than implied above).

   Also, now that CD-I is being marketed in some places as a game machine, and
   other places simply as a Photo-CD delivery device, don't you feel it's
   reasonable to think that the rate at which new "serious" titles, such as
   you listed as being your favourites, might be slow in coming from now on?

No, they're actually just now ramping up.  Note:  They *very well may still
die* and I'm not saying they won't, I'm simply saying that it's way too
early to be calling in the embalming team.  Wait and see.

					Jordan
--
Jordan Hubbard		Lotus Development Ireland	jkh@whisker.lotus.ie
I DO NOT SPEAK FOR LOTUS - IT HAS PLENTY OF LAWYERS TO DO THAT FOR IT ALREADY