You forgot a couple of "big name" 3Dfx-only games in your response to Greg Ballard's write-up: Jane's F-15 and Longbow 2. While they're mainly for people who like sims, they're both considered the cream of the crop - so Mr. Ballard does have some credibility.

fingas@sympatico.ca

I'm affraid you do have some small bit of a point, though this does not rectify the folly in Ballard's rant.

While there are a large number of games that are only 3Dfx accelerated, and a few of them in fact quite good, the video game market has grown so large than in very few instances is any one game so good that it will entirely change the tide of a marketing war.

Not only that, I saw a demo version of one of the games that was mentioned, Extreme Assault, and it actually plays quite well on Fuse!'s Pentium 200 without any 3D hardware acceleration at all. As I recall, the game was a DOS game in VESA, I believe. So a Direct3D version is probably never likely anyway.

Noxious was asked once if he did not care that he was missing out on so many great 3Dfx-Only titles. His reply was "You do not own a Nintendo 64, but you don't seem to care that you are missing out on 007 Golden Eye, Banjo Kazooie, or soon Zelda 64." He has a very solid point. Users may be missing out on many games by not owning a 3Dfx, but unless the problem gets worse, they will always have alternative games to buy, either on the PC or elsewhere.

So, while there is a problem, 3Dfx does not have the Monopoly they think they have, yet. If there weren't a problem, this site would not be here though, now would it? In closing, I leave this final thought for game developers...

If a game player has only $250 to spend, and they have a choice between a new VooDoo 2 or your 3Dfx only product, they have one of two options... 1> Buy someone else's product, or 2> Buy the VooDoo2 card and then pirate the game.

-El Chucko