Philips Media Press Release
Steve Krut
a handful of posts by people expressing interest in acquiring a CD-i
player. When's the last time you heard THAT sentiment from a North
American consumer? An example, yet again, that it's software that
drives sales. - STEVEK
WASHINGTON, April 23 /PRNewswire/ -- Philips Media Systems today
announced its plans to introduce ten new CD-i titles into the North
American market during the second quarter of 1996. The titles cover a
wide variety of interests from games and entertainment to reference
and
education.
Among the entertainment titles is Zelda's(R) Adventure, the second
CD-i title featuring this popular Nintendo(TM) character. The brave
warrior journeys deep into the Seven Shrines of the Underworld
fighting
the evil allies of Gannon who has captured Link(TM). You must help
Zelda restore the Age of Lightness to the magical land of Tolenac.
Zelda's Adventure will retail for $39.99.
MicroMachines is the CD-i adaptation of the popular miniature car
arcade race game from Codemasters(TM). With nine turbo-charged
vehicles
to choose from and thirty-six challenging race circuits, the disc is
packed with hours of fun. Designed for one or two players, the disc
also sells for $39.99.
Monty Python's latest interactive game, Invasion from the Planet
Skyron or something completely different comes with a warning that it
is
only suitable for people with a very strange sense of humor. The
title
is based on Monty Python's Flying Circus and contains fourteen
different
games and puzzles within the interactive adventure. Not surprisingly,
this title which sells for $34.99 contains some material not suitable
for young children.
Three more titles round out the additions to the Philips CD-i games
line-up. Rise of the Robots(TM) ($39.99) is an action/fighting game
placed in a future world where technology is out of control. Lost
Eden(TM) ($39.99) is a beautifully rendered adventure game set in an
alternative prehistoric past where man and dinosaur coexist. Steel
Machines ($34.99) is a fast and furious shoot-em-up game with a
soundtrack to match. [Could this be a renamed 'Dead End'? - STEVEK]
Philips latest addition to its multimedia reference catalogue for
CD-i is The Concise Oxford Dictionary and Thesaurus. In addition to
the
usual features available in the printed version, which is the world's
best selling English language dictionary, you can hear the correct
pronunciation of 52,000 words. An added bonus is a game of Dictionary
Facts and Fiction for up to four players, making this title an
extremely
good value at $49.99.
Weather Kitchen is a delightful title for children ages 3-8
featuring original music and animation. The children are taught the
"ingredients" of four types of storms: hurricanes, blizzards,
tornadoes, and thunderstorms. When they "cook" them up, a full screen
full motion color video of the storm is shown. A coloring book
complements the educational aspects of this disc which sells for
$29.99.
The two other titles that complete the new offerings are Word Play
($29.99), a game for 2 to 4 people in which players collect letters
and
create words to gain points, and Gnomes ($39.99), a narrated,
interactive version of the beautiful storybook featuring the
watercolors
of Dutch artist Rein Poortvliet.
The titles will be available through selected retailers and via
Philips Media Systems Gold Club direct mail program. CD-i owners who
are not members of the Gold Club can join free of charge by calling
800-340-7888 from anywhere in North America. The Dictionary and
Weather
Kitchen are also part of the CD-i School 2000 program for education.
Educators can learn more about School 2000 by calling 800-265-8086.
Philips Media Systems, Washington, DC, is the headquarters for all
North American initiatives supporting Compact Disc-Interactive (CD-i),
a
leading television-based multimedia platform for business, education
and
entertainment. The organization is responsible for the marketing and
distribution of CD-i hardware, software and tools to the corporate,
school and consumer marketplace. The group also develops CD-i
authoring
tools and publishes K-12 curriculum software. Philips Media Systems
is
an operating division of Philips Electronics North America
Corporation.
(http://www.philipsmedia.com/systems)
Chris Adamson
> This got posted to a Compuserve forum and was immediately followed by
> a handful of posts by people expressing interest in acquiring a CD-i
> player. When's the last time you heard THAT sentiment from a North
> American consumer? An example, yet again, that it's software that
> drives sales. - STEVEK
>
Sigh. Why wasn't Philips putting this stuff out where people could see it
when it would have made a difference?
Related topic: friends at work ask me what's new for CD-i. I can't tell
them anything -- I haven't seen anything official since the 1995 Philips
Media catalog, the corporate web site
(http://www.philipsmedia.com/systems/) has nothing of interest to home
users, and the consumer web sites
(http://spider.media.philips.com/media/games/cat_cdi/cat_games.html,
http://www.media.philips.com/media/video/cat/cat_video.html, etc.) are all
at least a year out of date.
Memo to Philips: while it'd be nice for you to have a better web presence
for your 70,000 - 500,000 US customers (the "Next Generation" and Philips
estimates, respectively), you should have a reasonably up-to-date list of
titles as a bare minimum. Why would I call the Gold Club order line if I
don't know what's out?
Surely you have a list of the available titles on a disk somewhere.
Highlight that text and pull down "copy" in Mac or Windoze. Start up your
favorite word processor and type the following:
<html>
<head>
<title>
Philips Media CD-i Software Catalog - April 1996
</title>
</head>
<body>
<pre>
"paste" the text in here, then type:
</pre>
</body>
</html>
Then save this file as plain text on your web server and tell us what the
URL is. (e.g., http://www.philipsmedia.com/systems/cdilist.html)
Thank you.
---- Chris Adamson ---- plu...@mindspring.com --- Plu...@aol.com ---
====== via WWW: http://www.mindspring.com/~plucky/homer.html ======
"You can make a difference -- subtract one number from another"