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The major player (at least for this year) was of course SEGA, who apparently, borrowing a shifty tactic from Creative (remember the Voodoo2 launch catfight?), scooped up as much of the PVRSG exclusivity as hard currency could buy. Creative seemed to be a bit disgruntled by this as they were expecting to get some sort of large bite at the PVRSG cherry. But with SEGA steaming in as they have done to spearhead their Dreamcast console product, the PC board manufacturers ended up with the resultant PVRSG leftovers. In other words diddly squat chipsets for the PC. I asked Brand Marketing Manager for NEC, Charles Bellfield, for the official line and he responded by saying,
"We are extremely enthusiastic about shipping our chip-level products based upon PowerVR Second-Generation technology to our customers. And, the first announced product, which was Sega's Dreamcast console system, is expected to launch in Japan and hit the store shelves this November. Additional details about our arcade and PC customers will be released shortly."
Hence Creative and Diamond have now jumped on the Voodoo Banshee train for the time being. So does this mean PVRSG will never make it on to our trusty PC platforms? Well, according to NEC, they still have a firm commitment towards porting the technology over on to the PC platform. In fact, what might have happened is a 'slight' change to their road map. Instead of a PC product being launched in Q4 this year, the Dreamcast has taken priority with the PC product having been shafted back a notch or two.
NEC/VideoLogic are still firm believers that PVRSG's 'open architecture' will be well suited to their plan for using the same core chip across multiple platforms being home PC, Arcade and Console (I only wish it was in that order). Indeed there are benefits to be had for the games industry in general, should the plan work out correctly. Theoretically what this means is that games developers can develop titles and simply port them over across the various platforms. That said, past experiences of porting haven't always been successful. Console games have usually been unsuitable for the home PC and vice versa has been true for PC games ported onto the console in the past. Need I mention the Saturn version of Hexen? No thanks. And the "invisible port" themesong that gets sung to developers sounds good until somebody points out that there still is no viable business model to deal with paying for development of the disparate content needed to properly exploit home PC, console & arcade platforms.
Still the Saturn was, in all effect a crock of 2D mapped pile of pixilated poo. While the PVRSG fueled Dreamcast, on the other hand, has an excellent chance of bridging the gap between the PC and the console. It has at least got the welly inside it in the form of PVRSG and the backing of Microsoft who will provide a custom made version of DirectX, code named Ninja (well what do you expect, this is console territory after all?). So where does this leave the PVR PC product then? Unfortunately I'm under NDA (you'd never have guessed eh?) and I won't be able to let you in on any details of NEC/PowerVR's plans for the PC product till an official announcement is made in mid-September. I can't say much more than that at this stage in terms of their projected E.T.A but Charles Bellfield (affectionately known as CharlieVR) did go on to state,
"When PowerVR Second-Generation products hit the store shelves, the performance will pleasantly surprise you. It's unlike anything else that's currently out there."
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