Some people ask the question a little differently: They ask where will it all end. That one is easy to field—it just won't end. I don't think I have to lecture you on the subject: Home TV Games will broaden and branch out in step with LSI technology advances; there will be low end, low cost machines like the past year's crop for years to come; newer, more complex games will fill the middle level needs for the next two years or so, and microprocessor controlled Home TV Games which had their start with Fairchild's VES, will get more and more ubiquitous. You know all that. We all read the same articles in Electronic Engineering Times and probably hear the same open secrets from various IC manufacturers representatives. So in the main, I'll try not to bore you by rehashing that same collection of real facts and lesser "facts" and do some prognosticating about areas which haven't been talked to death as yet.
Just to make sure we are all at the same starting line let me summarize very briefly where I think the Home TV Game industry is headed in 1977.
(1) First of all there will be another rash of AY-8500 GI chip-related games. This year's lower AY-8500 price and other P. C. board and component cost reduction efforts by reputable manufacturers will certainly result in well under $40.00 pricing for these staple games. Also at the low end of the scale, there will be some offerings put together from TI's T2L game chips.
(2) Next there will be more GI AY-8500 types of games with color added, i. e., colored backgrounds, distinctively colored paddles and ball like this year's Odyssey 400,–not just rainbow background colors–my guess is that these games will be slotted in the same price ballpark in which this past year's GI chip black-and-white machines were selling.
(3) A larger number of manufacturers will offer accessory devices such as the target pistol and rifle, in conjunction with a basic paddle game chip unit and the accessories will perform better. For example, rifles will be less susceptible to ambient light problems, pistols won't pop off when Junior waves them past Mother's reading lamp, and so forth.
(4) Next, the new generation of GI, MOS Technology, Inc. and other standard and semi-custom chips with user dictated PROMS will show up in the $50 to $100.00 retail slot. Among these will be GI's new joystick controlled ball game chip I already mentioned a while ago. If you haven't had any contact with this device before, I think you'll be startled by the game action it offers–like a Hockey Game with realistic ball action and such game features as passing and bouncing the ball between the net and the fence. Then, there will be surprising new games which take advantage of MOS Technology's chip with its customer specified on-chip PROM. A number of these are presently in the works–however since they all have PROM's with customer
Fingertip control of game action was demonstrated at Gametronics by I Corporation.
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