A VIEW FROM THE EDGE

by Ross Erickson

My, my! I can hear it already! "Another issue?? Already!!? It can't be!" Yes, sports fans, it's true. Game Bytes is on schedule! Thanks to a bit of insightful planning, we're able to actually figure out what to put in an issue before the night before it compiles. In fact, so good is this planning now that we actually have about 95% of the contents of issue #19 defined, edited, formatted and ready to go. Stand back, folks! We're on a roll. (Don't try this at home!)

So, what to pontificate about this issue?? Hmmmm.. well, let me predict the impending death of the long-standing Consumer Electronics Show, at least one of them per year will bite the big one. I write this literally hours before I head out to the 'on-a-roll' Computer Games Developer Conference in San Jose, CA. This conference/show is growing by leaps and bounds, thanks to the boundless energies of Chris Crawford and his crew, genuinely interesting things to talk about and listen to, and an opportunity to actually sit down instead of standing up all day and running from booth to booth. Aaaaahhhhhhh..... C.E.S. has experienced the first major crack in the cement - Sega of America has pulled out of summer C.E.S. They had a booth with it's own area code almost, so this one will hurt. So, the floodgates have opened. Who's the next to pull out? Electronic Arts will also not have their usual giant booth, opting instead for a small casual, press room only. It's only a matter of time before Nintendo does it's vanishing act too, and with that, *poof*, that's the end of the entertainment/games side of C.E.S. There isn't enough on the other side of the fence (stereos, radar detectors, boom boxes, etc.) to cause the industry to pay the exorbitant rates the E.I.A. is charging for space, so watch for it to come tumbling down. In its place is the upcoming new show in Atlanta, once a year, called the Electronic Entertainment Exposition (E-cubed?) which will ultimately replace C.E.S. Likely to be scheduled in April, also for the trade only, but come at a time of the year that makes a LOT more sense.

So, there you have it. I've rambled on again about something most of you don't give a rat's butt about. Hey, remember how much you paid for this. ;-)

Thanks for reading Game Bytes.

Ross Erickson Editor/Publisher