The more things change...

Flicking through issue one of Edge magazine, from 1993. A handful of 'visionaries' predict the near future:

"In about five years CD-ROM is going to absorb entertainment, education and information. There's a growing palate of what I call enabling technology, which allows the consumer to think of himself as the artist." - Peter Gabriel

Bang on, really. This very blog is a prime example of someone using enabling technology to broadcast every tired little thought he has to the world.

"Games aren't going to be played by the 13 year-old shut away in his room; they're going to be connective, interactive. I forsee a day when you go to a movie theatre, there's about 300 people there, and between you, you all play the movie. From your seats, you control what happens. The technology is here today..." - Mark Lewis (then president of Electronic Arts)

OK, people play games together over the internets, but individually they're mostly still 13 year-old boys (mentally or physically) shut away in their rooms. And I think he was predicting Heavy Rain, which is probably as good a story as you're going to get with 300 writers.

"Within a few years from now, we'll start to see cable and satellite direct broadcast games where you select from a menu of games and it'll constantly download new parts of the game into your machine while you're playing." - Jez San

Jez is right on the money here. Perhaps only just starting with streaming content from the likes of OnLive and Blizzard, but Steam and console download services fit the bill for online browsing and purchasing.

"Telephone and cable companies will lay the information super highway and it will be one of the greatest technological developments of the 20th century. but someone will still have to fill up the highway. It won't be a new entertainment form, but a more sophisticated version of what exists now." - George Lucas

Pull over, I'm going to be sick.

...And from the reviews section, the concluding lines from the review of Super Mario All-Stars on the SNES:

"There's one thing bad about it; if the best cart around is a compilation of old eight-bit games, it doesn't say much about the standard of new games, does it?"

Oh snap.