Conference rusure::nintendo

512.0. "Nintendo has future plans for its unit..." by HOLIDY::WHITTALL (MPO Here I Come... Ready or Not) Fri Sep 07 1990 09:45

 Saw this article in this mornings VNS News...  Nintendo mentioned as having
 a new service next year..  Wonder if you'll need a new system... 

Home Computers - Computers in disguise try to achieve wide acceptance that
	still eludes PCs
	{The Wall Street Journal, 6-Sep-90, p. B1}
   Right now, the most promising buried PCs are showing up inside telephones.
 In a Citicorp pilot program, about 400 customers are already using the
 home-banking phone, which has a little screen, a hidden keyboard and
 microchips that let it handle all manner of banking tasks. The bank says it
 wants to ship hundreds of thousands more of the phones over the next few
 years, though it won't disclose a specific timetable. The unit lets a user
 transfer funds, buy certificates of deposit and send anyone a check.
 Eventually, the bank plans to let customers check stock quotes and trade
 securities. AT&T is working on a rival product dubbed SmartPhone, which it is
 promoting as the standard telephone of the future. SmartPhone, slated for a
 1992 introduction, has a small screen and built-in software for adding
 customized programs. For instance, AT&T says, a customer could set the phone
 so that pressing one button would place an order for his usual pizza, or his
 usual seats at a baseball game. Next week, InSight Telecast Inc., a Palo
 Alto, Calif., start-up partly owned by Japan's giant Sumitomo Corp., will
 introduce a system that will let viewer's call up a week's TV listings on
 their screens and push some remote-control buttons to tell a videocassette
 recorder which shows to record. The system will be able to follow instructions
 even if a show starts late or runs long. Owners of Zenith Electronics digital
 sets can call up news stories and read them on their screens. Great American
 Communications Corp., a Cincinnati media company, distributes the stories
 through special signals that chips inside the TV can read. In Montreal, 30,000
 cable customers have a broader service that lets them call up news, recipes,
 movie schedules, weather and many other services by punching numbers on a TV
 remote control. Le Groupe Videotron, the cable company that provides the
 service, outfitted its channel boxes with computer chips that handle the
 information. The largest maker of cable boxes, General Instrument Corp.'s
 Jerrold division, has even bigger plans to expand a TV system's reach. Earlier
 this year, it demonstrated a cable-remote unit that flips over to become a
 telephone. It's also working on features that will let the same unit control
 any other electrical appliances in the home. Jerrold expects to begin selling
 the units next year. Next year Nintendo plans to institute a service that will
 send information and games over phone lines to televisions with Nintendo sets.
 The first features will include a stock-trading service from Fidelity
 Investments, the Boston mutual-fund giant. Later, Nintendo envisions offering
 electronic mail, shopping and consumer information, such as comparative
 prices for car insurance. Nintendo runs the considerable risk that people
 won't feel comfortable doing their personal finance on the same toy they use
 for Cybernoid and Super Mario Brothers. On the other hand, unlike the PC
 industry, it has a fast-growing consumer base addicted to its products. For
 their part, PC makers say the disguised computers are just feeble imitations
 of the real thing. "Once you get this data in on your phone, what do you do
 with it? Do you write it down?" asks Robert Amezcua, the product manager for
 IBM's two-month-old PS/1 home computer. "If I'm really going to do stock
 analysis, I want to be able to run my analysis program or my financial
 spreadsheet."

    DO YOU KNOW IF THIS SERVICE WILL BE PRESENTED LIKE A ONE HOUR 
    PRODUCTION SORT OF FORMAT OR LIKE THE LOCAL CABLE 24 HR,PAGE BY
    PAGE OR IS IT ACTUALLY INTERACTIVE WITH THE USER AT HOME ON THE TV ?