I agree 100% with you, that FMV as it was will likely never make a comeback. It will all be synthesized actors, even in the holodeck scenario. Of course by then the synthesized actors will be indistinguishable from real actors, save for what will most likely be better acting.

You mention the Sega CD. Ironically, even though it had a limited color pallete (though had a mostly unused higher color mode) and relatively slow CD-ROM drive, it was able to pull off better quality on FMV than most PC's of the day, which were often saddled with postage stamp sized video. The Sega CD could often pull off full screen video. Tomcat Alley was one of my favorites, one of the few FMV real-time action games.

I have Battle Heat for the NEC PC-FX, a Japanese-only game and system, which specialized in FMV. It's a real-time FMV fighting game that puts any of the Digital Leisure attempts (Prize Fighter, etc.) to shame. I'll have to break it out and do a feature on it at some point, as I've been meaning to explore that. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fZvwEs-reM

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Bill Loguidice, Managing Director | Armchair Arcade, Inc.