The Video Game System Dilemma: CD or Not CD? : Technology: Shoppers must decide whether to spend hundreds on a compact disc version or save money with a cartridge system that will be obsolete in a few years.
NEW YORK — Video games are expected to be more popular than ever this holiday season, but consumers will face tougher choices about which ones to buy.
This is the second Christmas for compact-disc-based game systems but the first when it’s clear that the industry is moving away from cartridge systems for good.
So shoppers must decide whether to buy a $50-to-$100 cartridge system that will be outdated in a few years or pay considerably more--as much as $700--for a CD-based system. Another complication is that there are hundreds of cartridge games currently available and only a few dozen on compact disc.
Analysts and industry executives believe that most people will stick with cartridge games for another few years.
“The problem is when you look at the other stuff . . . there is a very limited variety, and I think that most people are not convinced instantly that what is new or not yet quite here is better,” said Lee Isgur, an analyst who follows the video game industry for Volpe, Welty & Co. in San Francisco.
“It takes anywhere from one to three years for (game) developers to really begin to get the best” out of a video format, he said.
“The compact disc revolution with respect to video games is just beginning,” said Gary Jacobson, analyst at Kidder, Peabody & Co. “It is more of a 1995 issue.”
The discs hold more data, allowing for better sound and graphics, including full-motion video. With higher-powered chips running the game systems, players also get faster interaction.
Sega of America Inc. began selling a $230 CD player that supplemented its popular Genesis system 13 months ago. Bill White, Sega’s vice president of marketing, projected that by the end of the holiday season, cumulative sales of the unit will have passed 1 million.
Newcomer 3DO Co.’s system, sold under Matsushita’s Panasonic label, has gotten a lot of attention because it is also designed to become a gateway for more two-way video and communications services. It costs $700.
Philips, the company that developed the CD, sells an interactive game system that, with a $250 video accessory, also plays movies and music video titles. More are on the way. Atari, which is marketing its new $200 Jaguar system in just a few cities this Christmas, will offer a CD player accessory for another $200 early next year. Also in 1994, Commodore will bring the Amiga CD32, currently being sold in Britain, to the United States.
And Nintendo of America Inc. is working with Silicon Graphics Inc., a maker of workstation computers, to produce a CD-based system by the end of 1995.
Meanwhile, prices on cartridge systems have fallen to about $100. Nintendo lowered the price of its basic NES unit, which jump-started the industry eight years ago, to $50, less than the price of some games.
And cartridge game titles continue to proliferate. The biggest this year has been Acclaim Entertainment Inc.’s Mortal Kombat, selling 3 million copies since its Sept. 13 launch for both Nintendo and Sega systems.
