ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE - ISSUE 5.03 - JUNE 2000

The Graying of E3
(continued from page 2)

Platforms
Microsoft/Nvidia — X-Box. Okay, my question is: when is this thing REALLY available? If you can believe this, by November a graphics engine with more than three times the graphics performance of the newest-generation game consoles will be offered! Co-developed with experts at Nvidia, the custom-designed graphics chip will deliver more than 200 million polygons per second. However, the video engine being developed for generation two is going to handle a fill rate of 3 billion polygons per second, or roughly ten times (that’s 1000 thousand percent) more graphics playback ability than the first generation model. Or 10,000 percent what the average PC player has available to them today. If true, the X-Box is about to turn the interactive/Internet game world on its ear.

Nintendo — On the game scene it is very tough to ignore a force like Nintendo. They own seven out of the top ten selling titles for 1999. When you consider the heady combination of their consoles like Game Boy Color (I’m getting one) and N64 andenhanced versions of games like "Pokemon" or "Donkey Kong" being ported to their product, they are to the game industry what GM is to the auto industry. A giant with which to be reckoned. Which is precisely my point. I have come to view these guys with the sentiment I do GM. Lumbering, bloated. Stodgy and middle-of-the-road. Unwilling to take big chances. Oh, well, let us just say they are comfortably numb. They may be formidable, but they are not necessarily innovative. And that can be death in this industry. Watch out for Game Boy Color, though. Nobody can compete. With Sega Game Gear dead, they are alone in the handhelds for now.

Sega — Dreamcast. Very interesting platform. Most games ported to this format are smooth. By all means own one if you are an Internet gaming freak. With the $50 rebate, the price point on this device drops to $149 to get into the game (provided you do a two-year signup with your friendly ISP). Genesis and Saturn continue to have interesting games ported to them, but this company suffers from wanting to do too much too often. Say goodbye to Sega CD.

Sony Playstation — Playstation 2 is nothing short of a breathtaking marvel of technology. Argue what you will about Sony and its irascible sense of "being above it all," but these guys have made some serious inroads in the console game industry that up to now has been primarily Sega and Nintendo. I saw a game called "Fear Effect: Retro Helix" (by Eidos Interactive- see above) played on the Playstation and I wanted it REAL BAD. I’m sure the PC version is gonna be very neat, but seeing it made me want a Playstation, not just the game.

Let’s Go Home
Well, this about wraps up what is useful and newsworthy, though it’s reasonable to say that I could only cover a tenth of what really went on at the show. I didn’t stick around for anything else mainly because my publisher, forever the curmudgeon, wanted to get out of there. I couldn’t blame him this time. I too had had enough.

Needless to say, I got my T-shirts. I got lucky and snagged a few on my way out to the car. Someone outside the Convention Center was handing out some bitchin’ orange and yellow ones.

Eric Huelsman is the over-paid, underworked er -- that's underpaid, over-worked -- guy in charge of the Friedman 3D computer animation program.
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