>There are more than two issues I think. Support of hardware that has
>become a defacto industry standard falls in between these two
>extremes. By analogy imagine if games until a year ago still used the
>ancient PC speaker/squaker. Real sound cards were just invented a year
>ago, and now almost everyone has one. You've played other games with
>real sound, and you love it - it's very hard to go back to games the
>squaking. In this case you'd certainly want sound support in your
>existing games - especially if 95% of other developers on the planet
>have already updated/patched their games to support it.
Your scenario is missing a few details, though. It turns out that
there are (at least) two competing "sound card" standards. A year
ago, when they were introduced, both seemed quite viable. Papyrus
made its commitment to one at least six months, and probably more like
a year, prior to that. One standard has moved ahead of the rest in
the past six months or so (speaking in terms of support, not just
technology). So what is Papyrus doing about it?
* N2, released almost a full year ago, is being patched, maybe by
Christmas.
* SODA is also getting a patch (even though it did use the superior
sound card in an inferior manner [D3D]). I think sales of SODA vs.
N2, as well as the interest in NROS, make it a no-brainer as to which
gets patched first.
* ICR2 has been a dead issue for over a year. Get yourself a good
book for $20 and be happy. ;)
* All future Papyrus releases are planned to use the new technology.
Aside from getting Papyrus a subscription to the Psychic Friends
network, how would you have altered their decision making process in
the last two years?
BTW, I made my choice (an Intergraph Reactor) 13 months ago and
have been quite happy with it (ICR2 & N2, to a lesser degree). Only
now am I starting to see games (racing sims) that make me consider
3Dfx (CPR, GPL).
Funny, I'd say the same thing about Rendition ICR2. :)
Before you send me UCE, I know what you're thinking... Did he complain
to five or six postmasters last month? Now, you must ask yourself one
question: "Do I feel lucky?" Well, do you, punk?
