Pay attention, now, because this month you're going to have to use your imaginations a little.

Yes, I know it's scary.

We can do it if we try.

PAGE 1

Do this: imagine a strange new world. It's a world where every book, magazine or newspaper that comes out is written in a totally new language.

It's a world where every movie is filmed on a bizarre new kind of film that only runs on the equipment in a single cinema, possibly in Wales.

It's a world where every new record is a different size, one that doesn't fit into your existing CD player.

It's a rubbish world, isn't it?

PAGE 2

Now, the cleverer among you (the ones, say, who look up what 'diabolical' actually means in a dictionary before writing in complaining about it) are probably way ahead of me already.

Here's the point: at times like this, with a whole new generation of games hardware taking hold of the market, you might be forgiven for wondering why you apparently have to throw out your entire game collection and start again.

Why can't you play your old games on your new machines? Eh?

PAGE 3

After all, when someone invents a new kind of music player or video recorder, they go to an awful lot of trouble to make sure your old CDs/tapes/whatever will still work on it.

Even if they just have to glue an old tape player onto the new music system.

So why can't you play SNES games on the N64? Why can't you stick Mega Drive games into the Saturn's cartridge slot?

(Well, you can if you want to. But don't. You'll regret it. Trust me.)

PAGE 4

There's no technical reason whatsoever that new games machines can't be backwards-compatible (as we say in the 'biz'). It'd be incredibly easy, and very cheap, to do.

Did you know, for example, that the Playstation was originally designed as a SNES CD add-on, and basically has the guts of a SNES inside it already?

(That's why it does such a good job of emulating SNES Parodius on the PS version, or hiding entire SNES games like Phalanx inside Zero Divide).

PAGE 5

The simple addition of a cartridge slot, costing practically nothing, and you could play all your old SNES games on your new Playstation. Great!

And the N64 is so powerful it could emulate a SNES in its sleep, without any extra hardware at all.

Remember the Master System add-on for the Mega Drive? Putting that inside the machine would have cost Sega about a pound. So why didn't they?

It doesn't seem to make any sense.

PAGE 6

You can at least see why there'd be problems between Sony and Nintendo. They're entirely separate companies.

But if you buy a Saturn, you're not going to want to use it to play MD Sonic and nothing else, are you? What would be the point? You're still going to buy the same number of Saturn games.

It'd just be nice not to have to sell your entire games collection for a fiver. It'd be nice to have a new machine, but still play the three good Mega Drive games that there were.

PAGE 7

In fact, you might even see a scenario where, as the price of 16-bit carts inevitably fell, they became a sort of budget market. Can't afford a new Sat game? Then buy a cheap MD title while you save up/wait for your birthday!

You get new games to play, Sega get to sell old MD stuff instead of having to write off millions of pounds setting fire to their cart overstocks, as they do now. Everybody's happy.

It's almost TOO sensible. I've probably missed something really obvious.

PAGE 8

Oh yeah. The games business is run by incompetent idiots, and they hate you.

How could I forget?

But seriously, viewers. Doesn't it get your goat that you have to pay £40 for a game, but only get a tenth of that when you're forced to flog it 18 months later? If you could just play it on your new machine, it wouldn't matter.