JEO 13/46
//// VM Labs Takes Aim At Sony and Nintendo
[This article originally appeared at Next Generation Online
. Reprinted with permission.]
January 23, 1998
Next Generation Online met with VM Labs today to see Project X and
learned more about the state of the system.
VM Labs will be moving to a new building in Los Altos, CA some time in
April or May. This is more than a slight upgrade from the understated
offices it currently occupies. Nestled in Los Altos, VM Labs is
located an unassuming office on the second floor of a small office
building that you would probably miss unless you stopped into the real
estate office on the ground floor to ask directions. With such humble
beginnings, it is difficult to believe that such a company could ever
become a force in the videogame industry, but based upon the demos
Next Generation Online saw today, looks can be deceiving.
As previously reported, VM Labs did show off some of these
demonstrations at CES in an effort to solicit new partners and
developers. According to Nicholas Lefevre, VM Labs' VP of business
affairs and general counsel, the trip to CES met with great responses
from a number of new potential partners in the electronics industry.
As previously reported, VM Labs will be attempting something of a 3DO
`open platform' business model though it still has several twists to
it that it still isn't willing to reveal.  "We'll be shedding more
light on the business plan and exactly who our partners are at E3,"
said Lefevre.
The first technology demonstration shown was of Doom compiled straight
from John Carmack's recently released source code. The game was
running completely unoptimized using a mere fraction of the cycles the
unit actually has, but it still clicked along at a respectable pace
(though it wasn't exactly smooth). According to Bill Rehbock, VM Labs'
VP of third party development, the demo is an excellent example of how
solid the unit's compiler (which is based around the GNU C compiler)
is. This was simply a demo and is not going to ever be a commercial
product.
The next demo shown was a classic arcade title. While the editors were
asked not to reveal what title it was specifically, it takes little
effort to figure out what it was given that Jeff Minter is one of the
gurus behind many of the libraries created for the unit (some which go
by the names of Llama and Camel). Running in an extremely high
resolution (via interlacing) the game is exceptionally bright,
colorful and now one of the most eagerly anticipated titles by the
editors. Next Generation Online will have the first screen-shots of
this game in the coming days (if you haven't figured it out, fear not
all will be clear soon).
A fairly standard Mandlebrot fractal demo was one of the next ones
shown.  Exploring the fractal was possible via the use of the system's
controller where players could endlessly zoom deeper into the fractal.
This showcased the integer capabilities of the unit.
Finally, the last demo was a combination of demos where a number of
cubes had all of the other demos all running in real-time mapped to
each of the surfaces.
According to Rehbock, whose job it is to solicit new developers for
the system, there are around 15 systems currently out in circulation
with two more systems going out the door every day. Currently there is
development taking place in California, New Hampshire, Belgium and the
UK. Development is expected to be started shortly in Japan, Singapore
and several other locales. While it is currently unwilling to reveal
exactly what developers it is working with, more than a few hints
pointed to some of the largest US, Japanese and European developers
which would ensure the translation of some of today's biggest arcade
and console properties to the new system.
The development system itself (dubbed Oz) ships in a PC case (though
the form the editors saw it in was an exposed PCB) and is connected to
a developer's network via Ethernet. Using standard TCP/IP, it is
possible to hook the system up to an office LAN (or even an
International WAN) and have multiple programmers working on the same
board. With respect to cost of the developments system, VM Labs'
indicated that it was about one third of the costs of its competitors
development kits making it considerably more accessible.
The future for VM Labs is bright despite the fact it hasn't yet made
clear who its partners will be. It is expecting to have Project X on
shelves by the end of the year and in millions of homes by the end of
1999. While we wouldn't have thought so before we saw it with our own
eyes, based upon what the editors have seen thus far, Sony, Sega and
Nintendo will indeed be caught by surprise by VM Labs' entrance
through the back door.
... There were computers in Biblical times. Eve had an Apple.
--- JetMail 0.99beta22
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