Quote:
Originally Posted by happy_terd
All of these different ereaders remind me of the video game console flood that was part of the video game crash during the early 80s.
(snip list)
Each one of these consoles had its own library of games, and many had large third-party libraries. Likewise, many of these same companies announced yet another generation of consoles for 1984, such as the Odyssey3, and Atari 7800.[2]"
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There are some similarities, and some notable differences. Videogame consoles were expected to work with new games; ebook readers are expected to work with a thousand years' worth of pre-existing content. The features of "what can you do in a video game" were being shaped and changed by the consoles themselves; the features of "what can you do with a book" are well-established, with a few tweaks by new hardware/software (search, dictionary), and some very desirable features (side-by-side comparison of two books) being dropped.
Ebook readers are trying to bring a new medium to a known type of content; videogames quickly dropped trying to push screen versions of existing games. Video games had to be created with hardware & software abilities in mind; books are not. (Generally.
House of Leaves is an exception, as are "vooks.")
I'm not sure how that affects the market, but... an Atari 2600 can't play today's videogames at all. An ebookwise
can read today's ebooks; they just need to be thrown into the converter. Old ebook readers don't become obsolete when they're no longer manufactured.