🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <na.49507a480e.a70420kraisee@argonet.co.uk>, Ross Tierney
<URL:mailto:kraisee@argonet.co.uk> wrote:

> > No software, though.
> 
> But Eddie, isn't that your job? :-)

Yes, but the point is that potential buyers (people who want to buy a
*games machine*, not an internet thingy) are going to be put off by the
lack of software.  Mind you, a lot of people will have one anyway and will
play games on it if they are available (and the PC games market absolutely
exploded in about 1994 for precisely this reason ...)

> *IF* the NC's do take off, then you personally are in a great possition
> to take advantage of it. Lets hope that the new SA's are gonna make
> their way into the various NC's so give you more to play with. I'm sure
> there are others out there who would be very pleased indeed to find that
> ARM NC's are becomming popular - and I'm sure they keep an eye open in
> case the situation ever arises.

My pitch is you can't have a modern computer that *doesn't* play DOOM <g>

The interesting thing from a commercial point of view is that the internet
allows the publisher (and that can be the old bedroom programmer) to charge
for games in many different ways - e.g. free demo, pay-per-game, pay-per-week,
buy outright, etc.  One cunning plan (related to me at OLM back in '95) is
to charge a huge price the day the game comes out, and then drop it to normal
over the course of a month.  Evil stuff for parents!

The interesting thing from a technical point of view is that most games (e.g.
DOOM) transfer megabytes of information from disc to RAM when loading.  Doing
this from server to RAM via a modem is going to be sloooooooooooooooow.
Potential solutions, anyone? ;-)

-- 
Eddie Edwards (eddie@powerslv.demon.co.uk)
Games & Entertainment software for RISC OS/ARM/N64