Cable Boxes Get Gauntlet With Set-Top Games Deal

Thanks to Yahoo for reprinting a press release revealing a U.S. company called TvHead is attempting to make inroads into the games-via-cable-TV market, and has "secured agreements with... Midway Games [and] PopCap Games" to publish games such as Bookworm, Gauntlet, and Smash TV for availability as part of a cable TV service. The company's founder claims that: "Gaming revenues via interactive television have been projected to be as high as $2.7 billion by 2006", and players are meant to "...access the TvHead Games Channel with their remote control just as they would any other channel." The company's official site links to a recent CED magazine article that discusses advances in this area, including ICTV "showing off a version of Quake playing on DCT-1000s and DCT-2000s [cable boxes]."

I can see it now

[obeythefist]

Couch Potato needs food badly!

Re:I can see it now

[obeythefist]

The really funny part is, I'm Aussie. I should have started my post with "g'day". Is there a law in the US patriot act that forces non-americans to identify themselves yet?

Metroid prime playable on Phantom????

[Darkwraith]

I went to the CED magazine link and this image http://www.cedmagazine.com/ced/2003/1003/images/a2 _lg.jpg has what looks very much like Metroid Prime.Since when would Nintendo let some makers a crappy console like the Phantom even dream of selling it for their machine.This looks very bad on the part of Infinium Labs.

Re:Metroid prime playable on Phantom????

[dk4]

Except for the fact that it is first person and the door is a hexagon, this [cedmagazine.com] doesn't look at all like Metroid Prime.

Flashbacks

[illuminata]

This service reminds me of the Sega Channel [vt.edu]. Here's a picture [fatmangames.com] of the cartridge used for the service, along with some extra information.

It was pretty disastrous. It makes you wonder if a similar idea will work now.

Re:Flashbacks

[ronfar]

Ah, the Sega Channel. It was the way I got gipped out of MegaMan: The Wily Wars, something I'm still mad about. I remember how Sega had made a big deal about Capcom coming on board with the Genesis with a picture of MegaMan and Sonic shaking hands. However, they neglected to mention that only the three people who actually subscribed to the Sega Channel would ever be allowed to play MegaMan on their Genesis Systems (in the US).

No, I'm not bitter... More Information Here [megaman.net]

Even Flashierback

[DLWormwood]

It makes you wonder if a similar idea will work now.

I'm even more doubtful, I remember this [intellivisionlives.com]...

Then again, maybe third time's the charm?

Smash TV for the public?

[MMaestro]

I donno if they plan on "dumbing" the game down but they'll most likely have to considering what you do in the game (at least the SNES version). For those who never played heres a short version of the game.

Shoot people/things.(*cough*) Pick up random items that appear. (read : steal) Don't die.

People will bitch about the game because it encourages children to steal and go on mass murdering sprees.

Re:Smash TV for the public?

[Dopefish_1]

Well, mass murdering sure, but it wasn't actually stealing. The premise of the game was/is that you are a contestant on a game show, and the items you pick up are cash and prizes you win.

Of course, being an arcade game, the story isn't very important to the gameplay. And the end result is that you're probably right; people will bitch about it.

Openscorce DCT-2000

[NateSac]

I have one of these set top boxes. I think they'd make a great platform to open up to open scorce development, maybe some geeks around here could port linux to it, maybe steal or reverse engineer it to work. *dont mod me down cause Im a dreamer*

Gawd damn NW comcast...

[UltimaL337Star]

I played smash tv after I found out my cable company raised it's prices, fun game, my tv only let you play it once though...