Dear Future Gamer,

In response to Shane Bluemel (FG22,"I Understand the Games Market"), you don't mate, none of us can really profess to understand the industry.

As far as your remark about sequels to machines never seeing the same level of success as their predecessor - that's rubbish. For example the Amiga saw as good if not better success than the C64, its predecessor. And I would argue that the N64 is seeing a similar performance as the SNES.

I do agree that the Dreamcast has a future, with the backing of MicroSoft (an overlooked advantage) it will do well, more down to it appealing to the non-games literate consumer than it being a good package. But one thing you should be aware of: although there are a lot of developers working with development kits, the publishers just don't want to know. Take a DC game to any of them and you'll get a cold shoulder, I know, I have talked to them. It's a shame but it's just the way things are.

The PS2 will be the dominant force for one reason, Sony build it! They are so powerful that they can stall for a couple of years and still be able to come into the market with a new console and dominate it.

Richard E Collins (Mad Dog) Software Engineer

FG: Publishers are notoriously shy of supporting a machine that doesn't have a track record. And with the cost of developing today, who can blame them? Developers too don't want to waste time and money developing a game for a system that doesn't have a large user base because often they're locked into royalties contracts. It's the same old 'we'll support it when everyone else does' catch 22 situation. Sega have got their work cut out to get people confident in the Dreamcast and unless they manage it, the machine's sunk. Sony have a stronger position because the industry has been impressed with the PlayStation and believe they can follow it with PlayStation 2, therefore publishers are willing to invest in development for their machine without it having to prove itself first.