Editor's Warning: The following information contains not only information about Macintosh industry news and information, but also information about MS-DOS, 3D0, Genesis, etc. Readers who get squeamish when reading about other non-Mac platforms should skip this section.
• Cool stuff for 3DO! You’d better believe there are plenty of goodies to play on this platform. Check these out: Myst™, Doom™, Doom II™: Hell on Earth and Primal Rage™. Other awesome titles that are scheduled for completion in 1995 include: Flying Nightmares from Domark Software; GEX™ from Crystal Dynamics; Heart of the Tiger™ from Origin Systems; Immercenary™ from Electronic Arts; Killing Time™ from Studio 3DO; Cyberia™ and Kingdom: The Far Reaches™ from Interplay Productions; Policenauts from Konami; Return Fire™ from Prolific Publishing; The 11th Hour: Sequel to the 7th Guest™ from Virgin Interactive Entertainment; Wing Commander® III; and fun ‘n games™ from Panasonic Software Co.
• Acclaim is pleased as punch . . .the company has reported a 26 percent increase in revenues for its 1Q, ended November 30th, 1994. The totals were $161 million. Net income was just over $15.5 million. The same period last year saw net income at $12.3 million.
• American Laser Games has signed an agreement to acquire Quantum Quality Productions (QQP). QQP will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of American Laser Games and will continue to operate from their Flemington, New Jersey, site. QQP was founded in 1990 by Bruce Williams Zaccanino and their first two programs, The Perfect General and The Lost Admiral, won several computer game magazine awards. Currently, American Laser Games has seven titles for PC, 3DO, Sega CD and Macintosh CD platforms.
• In the nick of time, Apple has finally released QuickTime v. 2.0 for Windows. This will now enable the sharing of multimedia files ‘tween Macs and Windows-based PCs. Support for MPEG, full-screen video and full-motion is included with this new version.
• If you’re an eWorld subscriber, it looks as though the time is just about nigh for Apple to spin off their online effort. One company purported to be interested in forming a partnership with Apple for eWorld is U.S. West, Inc., who could sink as much as $50 million into the service for a percentage of somewhere between three and 16 percent. eWorld currently has approximately 50k subscribers and has required Apple to spend about $100 million in development funding. A drawback for eWorld making headway into businesses and homes is the continued lack of a Windows client.
• Don’t think that Atari is about to be outdone by the other video game platforms. As you’ll read below, there are tons of great games enroute for most of these home-based machines. Now Atari is reaching a similar level of excellence as they improve their title list with: Alien vs. Predator, Batman Forever, Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Kasumi Ninja, Iron Soldier and Tempest 2000, Fight for Life, Space War 2000, Hover Strike, Ultra Vortex and Rayman. Expect as many as 50 new titles by this summer!
• Within the next 3 to 4 months, you could see the new AT&T Interchange Online Network launch. Currently around 6k testers are working with this puppy. As many as 50k are expected to be involved in the final testing before this service actually goes live.
• Channel Marketing Corporation has stated that personal computer sales have climbed 35 percent from the previous year during the period November 15th through Christmas of 1994. Multimedia computers (platforms equipped with CD-ROMs, enhanced graphic displays and at least 16-bit sound boards) accounted for sometimes as much as 95 percent of these sales. For more info, contact Channel Marketing at 214-417-0840.
• Interest in the Internet continues to spread like wildfire, often dwarfing the service itself with hype and hyperbole. Now Columbia Pictures has announced their commitment to a nearly $30 million film that deals with cyberspace entitled The Net. Stars are Sandra Bullock (Speed) and Dennis Miller (Saturday Night Live).
• The new Wave Blaster II has arrived from Creative Technology. This puppy is a general MIDI wave table synthesis daughterboard that attaches directly to the company’s Sound Blaster 16 audio card. The EMU8000 from E-mu Systems is the audio digital signal processor used by the board, also found on Creative’s Sound Blaster AWE32. WaveBlaster II offers 2MB ROM of samples, plus 128 instruments and sound effects, with over 400 percussion sounds as well. There’s a 32-note, 16 channel polyphony plus support for General MIDI, Sound Canvas, and MT-32 sound sets. Users’ll also cheer the special effects, such as chorus, reverb, pan and QSound. Bundled with Wave Blaster II is Cakewalk Apprentice for Windows, which is a 256-track, graphic MIDI sequencer. You can edit and view music in a piano roll effect, complete with event list and staff notation. There’s even a MIDI adapter cable included so you can connect MIDI instruments directly to Sound Blaster 16 cards.
• And about time, too . . .Electronic Arts has finally acquired Bullfrog Productions of Surrey, England. Bullfrog is best known for their fantastic strats and sims, including the likes of Populous, Powermonger and Syndicate. Bullfrog has had a seven year history with EA as a strategic partner in game design. They’ve produced a total of eight tittles, with six consecutive hits to their credit. Outstanding move by EA!
• But there’s more concerning Electronic Arts-now Capital Cities/ABC, Inc. has joined EA to form a joint venture to develop and publish interactive software for PCs and video game machines. Called ABC/EA Home Software, multimedia titles for education and entertainment markets for children will be produced, as well as information and reference products for families. Capital Cities/ABC will contribute programming content and product support from ABC News, ABC/Kane, ABC Children’s Entertainment and other operating units of the company. EA will contribute properties from EA*Kids™ and EA World™ brands, including early learning titles using the Sesame Street® characters and the newly released interactive 3D Atlas™. EAC becomes the exclusive distributor of all this venture’s interactive titles in the retail channel.
• Fujitsu is about to launch a new, multimedia online service in the United States. Watch for the US-localized version of the company’s Habitat online fantasy game to appear in April-at least for trials. Already packing a 10k sub base in Japan, this graphic interface offers a variety of features, from the game to educational services to other online info. If you STILL don’t believe online is an important mix in any entertainment /computer / hardware / software manufacturer’s mix, why does Fujitsu state that their online sales revenue should account for between 20 and 25 percent of their total sales by the year 1997?
• General Magic intends to go public! They want to raise just over $50 million and figure this would be a grand way to accomplish that task. The company makes software for PDAs, called Magic Cap. Already folk like Matsushita, Motorola and Sony have bought this OS. Currently, the company’s major stockholders include AT&T, Motorola, Apple, and Sony.
• Packing in both Shock Wave™ and FIFA International Soccer™ from Electronic Arts, GoldStar’s price of $399.00 for their new GoldStar™ Interactive Multiplayer™ system sure beats the Panasonic unit which comes with NO additional software. (See Panasonic’s info below for more info on their 3DO unit.) The soccer title is selling extremely well and was Die Hard Game Fan magazine’s 1994 Soccer Game of the Year, with Sports Illustrated stating the game was the best sports video game ever made. Shock Wave is a combat sim with 3D terrain actually derived from satellite photos and the game has over 20 minutes of full action video. Hmmm, pretty tempting to pick this puppy up!
• Rarely does Nintendo enter agreements with other publishers to develop a 16-bit cart title. However, Nintendo has entered into a joint venture agreement with GTE Interactive to produce FX Fighter. This is a 3D fighting game that uses the FX2 graphics enhancer chip on SNES platforms. Also expect GTE Interactive Media to produce titles for the upcoming Ultra 64 machine as well. You can bet your phone that these additional offerings will, more than likely, incorporate network and modem play as features.
• For those who are in the know, roughly six million Donkey Kong Country carts for SNES were sold world-wide from mid-November to mid-December 1994. If you still believe 16-bit carts are dead, I recommend you compare those colossal sales figure to the best in computer-software sales-over 750,000 sold by Brøderbund for Myst for the past year and a half and just over 300,000 of Doom II in October.
• There are a number of research companies who are constantly acquiring data to help us in the industry predict what’s going to occur in the future. One such company is Infotech of Woodstock, Vermont. Based on 1994 unit sales, their info reveals that the world-wide installed base of CD-ROM readers is now nearly 30 million units. That’s up about 137 percent from 1993. The US accounted for most of this increase, with the United Kingdom, Germany and Japan following closely behind. By a margin of two to one, most of the readers were purchased as part of a complete desktop system rather than being sold as an upgrade unit to existing machines.
• Waaay back in 1992, a technology agreement ‘tween IBM and Apple resulted in the formation of Kaleida Labs. That company was going to produce a new environment for programmers that would enable them to write ScriptX code that could run on machines running the Macintosh OS and Windows, with OS/2 to follow. The company has finally shipped their first products: the ScriptX Language and the Kaleida Multimedia Player. The price? Around $795. A third product’ll give lesser-folk who don’t know, or care, about actual core-code-development a product that will let them create multimedia apps using the language but without having to be extremely technical. Cool!
• Sporting a brand new Memory Management System (MMS), Panasonic debuted their new REAL™ 3DO™ Interactive Multiplayer™ to the throngs at CES this month. Called the FZ-10, the unit not only possesses a smaller footprint, but also has a cabinet that can best be described as “sleek” with CD media now loaded through the top of the machine. The unit’s 32-bit Central Processing Unit (CPU) comes with 3MB RAM which enables as many as 16 million colors for game palettes. MMS informs gamers via text and graphics how much memory they have remaining for saving a game in progress. Full digital stereo audio completes the unit, which now also comes with smaller controllers. The SRP for the FZ-10 is $399.95.
• Figures . . .Microsoft 2Q profit rose nearly 60 cents a share to around $373 million in net income, which is a 29 percent jump in profits. The company is also planning a patch disk for Microsoft Word v. 6.0 for the Macintosh. The heat they’ve been taking on this product really did demand some attention be paid to consumer complaints and it seems Microsoft has put their second-best foot forward.
• Nintendo is none too happy with Samsung these days. The former company is claiming that the latter company has distributed memory chips to rotten counterfeiters. Then, these alleged thieves created unauthorized Donkey Kong Country carts using those chips. Samsung denies any wrongdoing.
• Look for Sony and Microsoft to start teaming up on hardware and software development. First in line will be a set-top box-and that kinda figures, considering Microsoft’s alliance with TCI. Mebbe the huge content library from Sony will result in a number of different offerings, from interactive apps to new projects for The Microsoft Network-even game shows.
• Opcode Interactive is as happy as a clam-their Allie’s Activity Kit, an early learning CD-ROM for children aged three to eight, has just won The National Parenting Center’s 1994 Seal of Approval! This organization recognizes products that enhance, educate and contribute to the advancement of positive parenting and effective child rearing.
• The claim from Philips is that the installed base of CD-i players, world-wide, is now approximately 850k. This means unit sales have doubled in the last 12 months to produce that figure. P’raps the system isn’t as dead as folk might believe. However, we still don’t have a “dust count” of CD-i units-you know, those that are sitting on closet shelves.
• Monitoring those folk who design, create and manufacture monitors is turning into a far broader biz. Take Radius, for example, who have just acquired the SECOND license from Apple Computer to produce a Macintosh clone machine. Radius plans to intro this two-monitor puppy as a high end machine and has already shown this unit to an invited audience during Macworld San Francisco earlier this month.
• This fall is the targeted time period Sega intends to intro its 32-bit video game machines to both the U.S. and European markets. Plus, there will be a booster unit that will be able to upgrade the current 16-bit installed base to the new 32-bit genre of games. Sega plans on selling somewhere around 3 million units of their 32-bit machine.
• In order to garner more of the international electronic entertainment market, Sony has created a new, European subsidiary which will launch their titles overseas. Called Sony Computer Entertainment (Europe), this new division is headed by Chris Deering, formerly a senior exec. with Columbia TriStar Video International (which was acquired by Sony nearly four years ago). The debut of the Sony PlayStation overseas will be the first major project to be handled by SCE.
• Also from Sony is the information that they’ve now signed over 100 licensees in the U.S. who intend to develop for the Sony PlayStation. Add that to the 260 licensees already committed to the platform in Japan, and you have a fair number of folk coding goodies for the new video game platform. The licensees range from mega-publishers to two-party in-your-face developers which will afford consumers with a broad range of titles for the new platform when it debuts later this year.
• Word is in . . .Strategic Simulations, Inc. (SSI) and TSR, Inc. are not about to part ways. No, far from it. Instead, SSI will work on TSR AD&D® and D&D® titles on an individual basis. This is a non-exclusive agreement, so expect other companies to also become involved in TSR licensed products. Watch for Slayer II for PC, Sony PSX and 3DO and Ravenloft: Stone Prophet for PC CD-ROM to be created by SSI this year.
• The 32- and 64-bit video game market are drawing developers like kids to ice cream. Now, Tomy Co., certainly one of the world’s leading toy makers, has started to develop 32-bit video games for the Sony PlayStation and the Sega Saturn. Their first titles will be based on board games with follow-up titles to probably include role-playing games and other titles of interest to a predominantly male audience around age 10.
• Now entering the CD-ROM fray is Toys ‘R Us-and this channel will also be offering in-house title “trials” to encourage software sales. Watch for a good number of interactive displays to be available in most stores, with Mac and PC machines available for customers to try out titles under the watchful eye of store-trained supervisors.
• One of the nation’s first, full-service networks (FSN) has now been launched in Orlando, Florida, by Time Warner Cable. This is, allegedly, the first switched, digital, interactive broadband network to go online anywhere in the world and will offer more than 20 service providers, from on-demand movies to home shopping services and video games (for Jaguar owners.)
• UUNet Technologies is going to build a dial-up network for the Microsoft Network that will give subscribers full Internet access. From Falls Church, Virginia, PCs’ll be able to wing into the web and also logon onto Microsoft Network machines. Plus, Microsoft is also going to license web browser Mosaic from Spyglass, Inc., for their new service.
• The Time Warner Interactive, Inc., Games Division has announced two new titles from UK developer Rage Software. The titles include Striker ‘95 and Power Drive Rally. The former is being developed for PC CD-ROM platforms and is a fast-action soccer game that has already developed a reputation for its authenticity to the game. The latter is a car racing game that’ll be released for the Atari Jaguar.
Rumors are correct . . .Viacom is, indeed, selling its cable biz for just over $2 billion. This arm of Viacom currently services a little more than 1 million customers.
• By the way, Virgin Interactive’s agreement to acquire Media Vision Technology has finally been approved by the United States Bankruptcy Court in Oakland, CA.
• Well, it’s not just apps and LANs anymore. Seems as though Novell and Walt Disney Company are going to inundate their (former) WordPerfect division with Disneyesque work. This will result in fantastically graphical, and highly user-amiable, interfaces for such products as WordPerfect. This agreement’s going to result in a whole slew of co-branded products that ought’a make Microsoft sit up and take notice! Nothing Goofy about that!
• Acclaim is now onboard with Sony to produce titles for the Playstation. Some titles that are currently in development include Alien Trilogy, Batman Forever and Frank Thomas Big Hurt Baseball.
• Apple’s net income reached $188 million, four times the net income for the previous quarter of $40 million. That works out to about $1.55 per share. Revenues rose to 2.83 billion for 1Q’95 from $2.47 billion 1Q’94. Additionally, the company has entered into agreements with Goldman Sachs International wherein they now hold a 6.08 stake, or 1 million common shares, of America Online.
• Outstanding news is that Apple will no longer charge developers a fee for distribution of QuickTime with titles and apps that require this program to deliver the goods to consumers. This shows a true change of heart for the Cupertino-based computer manufacturer and is great news to multimedia developers.
• And speaking of QuickTime, Apple has been working on a videoconferencing technology that enables those who use dissimilar computers to not only gaze upon one another lovingly as they meet “online,” but also to share files. Unlike other products, the ability to communicate between various brands of computers could be the key to this technology’s success. Plus, chat is, the QuickTime Conferencing could also be managed via current online services, such as the Internet! Wow!
• As is the course of biz in the world of digital electronics, Apple has also decided to sue both Intel and Microsoft, this time over alleged duplication and distribution of thousands of lines of QuickTime code. The legal attack revolves around a small San Francisco company named San Francisco Canyon who developed Video for Windows for Intel with Microsoft sharing in the program. According to Apple, San Francisco Canyon has already admitted the dupe of the QuickTime code and incorporation of same into the program. Requested is an injunction against additional shipments of the Display Control Interface and Video for Windows developer kit. We’ll see where this one ends up!
• A new CD peripheral has debuted for the Atari Jaguar. Priced at around $150 retail, this is a double-speed device which plugs directly into the top of the Jaguar unit. But there’s m ore-you even get a light show with this puppy as the player is also a Virtual Light Machine that displays more than 80 light patterns on your video screen when you play music in the unit. Additionally, these titles will be appearing for the Jaguar: Cannon Fodder, International Sensible Soccer, Troy Aikman Football, Double Dragon V, Syndicate, and Theme Park.
• According to BIS Strategic Decisions’ “Forecasting the Markets for CD Discs and Drives” report, worldwide CD-ROM sales are going to push way over the $6 billion mark by the turn of the century. 1995 is going to reveal nearly 13 million drives will be sold, with 31 million installed units by the year 2000. Of this total number, around 75 percent of these purchases are part of a computer-based system, most going into the home.
• Watch for a news set of less expensive driving pedals to ship from CH Products later this year, as well as a new F-16 style joystick and a throttle-all for PC flightsim’ers.
• ComputerEyes/1024 for PCs and compatibles is now shipping from Digital Vision Inc. Specific targets are both industrial and home office markets. This is a 16-bit ISA bus board which captures 1024 x 512 video data plus, from S-video or RGB sources, 24-bit RGB color.
• GEX™ is enroute from Crystal Dynamics for the Panasonic REAL™ 3DO™ Interactive Multiplayer™ system. You’ll find yourself pals with a 32-bit gecko with a grand sense of humor and a very useful thrashing tail. The lizard’s voice is none other than comedian Dana Gould. This game is going to be packed-in with Panasonic’s new FZ-10 REAL Interactive Multiplayer in specially marked boxes.
• Despite revenues tripling to $12 million, 3DO still lost money, to the tune of nearly $9.4 million. The reason for the loss, according to the company, was the cost of advertising their system during the winter buying season in 1994. However, the revenue generation does, indeed, mean that consumers are finally starting to react to the brand name and are buying units.
• Disney Interactive is reporting more than 200,000 unit sales of Disney’s Animated Storybook: The Lion King (despite crash ‘n burn problems with the software) and more than 100,000 units of The Aladdin Activity Center. For consumers that have had driver problems with their software, the company now offers a free floppy-based video driver to patch the software for those who use 8-bit sound cards.
• Stock prices are climbing for Electronic Arts, mostly based upon the rumor that The Dream Team (Spielberg, Geffen and Katzenberg) plan to acquire the company. EA denies the rumor. However, the company has been the target of much take-over talk since late Q2 ‘94.
• Life isn’t all DOOM for GT Interactive Software. The company that brought mega-hits Doom and Doom II to your PC is now announcing a multi-title agreement with Big Tuna New Media and Mercer Mayer to develop edutainment titles. The first title, expected to enter the market this fall, will be Just Me and My Dad. Mayer is the author of over 100 children’s books, with Little Critter® (his most popular character), having been introduced in 1974.
• A minority stake has been purchased by Electronic Arts in Visual Concepts Entertainment. This is the company that developed John Madden Football and NHL Hockey for EA.
• Over 10,000 books and software titles from Harper Collins Publishers are now available for sale-online, that is, through the Online Bookstore on Delphi. Orders will be accepted online. And, yep, they claim full security for credit card transactions.
• Aye, there is life beyond Windows. IBM is reporting more than 800,000 units of OS/2 Warp have been sold since its release last November.
• Descent, Interplay’s action game for DOS computers, has now reached the #2 position on the Internet Top 100 Games list. This game features a full, 360-degree “viewing” environment.
• Microsoft has reported 2Q net income of $373 million, which is a 29 percent increase. Q2 Revenues are $1.48 billion, a jump of 31 percent. The company has also revealed that 50 leading computer industry companies have signed aboard The Microsoft Network. These include such diverse companies as Lotus Development, Hewlett-Packard, and Borland International. Absent are IBM and Apple and chip-developer Motorola.
• Once the first salvo was fired by Nintendo, ‘twas merely a matter of time before Samsung returned the blast. Nintendo has accused Samsung of both manufacturing and distributing counterfeit Donkey Kong Country video games. Samsung now accuses Nintendo, in a counter-suit filed in Seattle, of interfering with their business relationships and defamation. Spokespersons indicate that Samsung has always sought out disreputable companies and, working with their customer base, uses a variety of antipiracy techniques to prevent such illegal activities from occurring. The counterclaim states that unless the software manufacturer’s piracy screening methods are received, proprietary software analyzation is difficult to conduct. This results in an obvious lack of knowledge if the software is a counterfeit or legitimate. According to Samsung, Nintendo has constantly refused to help them screen for pirated software.
• The team that helped to bring Apple Computer’s Multimedia Studio to fruition is now partnered with Sanctuary Woods to develop several CD-ROM. Zenda Studio will publish at least five CD-ROM titles in the 1995 to 1996 time frame. Watch for Wacky Jacks and Travelrama USA to appear in May of this year, in both Macintosh and Windows format. The former title features the voice of TV vet Don Pardo.
• Sega certainly is NOT the only one interested in their new Saturn! Now comes Hitachi who has every intention of releasing a Sega-compatible machine. The moniker for this new CD-ROM, 32-bit RISC MCU-packing video game machine is either Hi-Saturn or H-Saturn.
• A cool, new utility for Windows users enables them to take audio files from any compact disc and transfer them directly to a hard disk drive-without need of a sound card. Called Disc-to-Disk, this new product is from Optical Media International. As there’s no analog to digital conversion, there’s no “noise” from an intervening sound card. File formats supported include QuickTime, Creative Labs VOC, Windows WAV, Macintosh AIFF and Raw PCM. The disc that contains the Windows software also includes a Macintosh version as well.
• The latest member of the Nintendo Ultra 64 publishing teams is Software Creations, Inc., of Manchester, England. They will work on a development tools package to enhance the audio capabilities of the Ultra 64 as well as a new, 3D game. This is the same company that brought Ken Griffey Jr. Presents: Major League Baseball to the SNES.
• A Toshiba/Time Warner project seems to be gathering steam over the combo Sony/Philips when it comes to new digital videodisc technology (DVD). While the Sony-Philips format proposal packs 3.7 Gigabytes of data on a single-sided 5-inch DVD, the Toshiba/Time Warner format offers 5 GB of data on a two-sided 5-inch DVD. Their format also offers Dolby sound, four subtitle channels and three language channels per disc. Plus, throw in the fact the super-density disc (acronym: SD) will also support high-definition television (HDTV), it’s now wonder some of the biggies in the industry have decided to support the Toshiba/Time Warner effort. SD players will be available around Q3 next year for around $500 and the discs themselves at around $30. MPEG-2 compression enables as much as 135 minutes of video playback with CD quality sound.
• A successful product a few years ago, appearing on the Amiga and Sega Genesis, was Faery Tale Adventure which featured three brothers who (with the help of the player) used a magic talisman to annihilate a potent necromancer. Now Trimark Interactive is planning to release Faery Tale Adventure, Part II: Halls of the Dead. Designed and coded by The Dreamers Guild, this fantasy adventure game will find the same three brothers snatched from Holm, their world, and deposited on a new world they know nothing about. Adventures are encountered at nearly every turn.
• At the heart of Sega’s new 32-bit video game machines is a motherboard called Titan. Now, third parties will receive boards that’ll allow them to develop single versions of titles that’ll run on not only the video game machines, but the commercial coin-ops as well. These boards will be compatible with several video game platform devices.
• Sierra On-Line, Inc., the creators of the King’s Quest line of interactive CD-ROM adventures, has reported net income for the quarter ended December 31st was $35.1 million, up from the $26.7 million in the comparable quarter for the previous year.
• Appears as though the Sony Playstation is going to have total exclusivity-at least until Q2 of ‘96-for the title Mortal Kombat 3. The rumored price tag for Sony to obtain this deal is somewhere around a $4 million advance against royalties. However, other reports indicate a 16-bit version of Mortal Kombat 3 would be released at about the same time as the Playstation product. Guess only time-and money-will tell.
• Not only did the company suffer a Q3 loss of some $600k, but their chief executive officer, Patrick Feely, has also resigned his position. Claiming personal reasons for the resignation, he will remain as a consultant for the company until the latter part of this year. Revenues for the company reached $25.5 million.
• Sun Microsystems has joined with LSI Logic Corp. and the David Sarnoff Research Center and about $50k to really dig into MPEG-2 digital video compression. The development platform for this new encoding system will be the SPARCstation, with about 20 of them committed to this project. Once the system is completed, around June or so, the custom chip sets’ll be built by LSI Logic.
• A new card that expands the memory of the 3DO Multiplayer has been released by TDK Corporation. The expansion device packs 128K of RAM that will used to store game events. Plus, a PCMCIA slot will also be available.
• Paul Allen’s investment firm, Vulcan Ventures, has invested in Trilobyte, the developer of the smash-hit The 7th Guest, and his company now holds a minority position as well as a seat on the board of directors.
• The battle of the numbers is on . . .you already know that TCI’s cable ownership gives them access to some 11.7 million viewers. In the game of catch-up, Time Warner is certainly not to be outdone. They’ve signed an agreement to buy Cablevision Industries which will give Time Warner a total of some 11-1/2 million customers. This deal will require some $2.7 billion in funding (debt assumption and stock purchase).
• Online acquisition is definitely heating up. Watch for the following to occur: AT&T will buy CompuServe, US West will grab a 10 percent stake in Apple’s eWorld, and Ameritech will buy GEnie. No one will buy the Microsoft Network, as Microsoft and TCI have already glommed together to punch that puppy to market.
• If you’ve ever wanted to determine the outcome of a movie, check out Mr. Payback that’s show at the Greenwood Plaza in Englewood, Colorado. Backed by Sony Corporation and Interfilm, this film is about a deadly, laser-fingered cyborg. But through use of a three-button I/O device attached to each seat’s armrest, the audience determines the film’s plot and what eventually happens the to evil doer. The movie resides on four videodiscs and costs about $1.5 million to create. Interfilm plans to release about one new movie every four months or so.
• Want help moving? Try Smart Moves from PHH Corporation. This software not only reveals housing conditions in various communities, but also packs data on the educational system, crime stats and tax base info.
