Almost all these manufacturers are currently concentrating on their own individual platforms, but the database network was to have been given the ability to communicate with each of these platforms.

• Nintendo has developed a next generation console called Revolution (Gamecube 2), which was seen as a potential market user of the VR database system.

• The Sony Playstation 3 - is already in development and should see the light of day in 2005/6, Sony's hardware will be internet ready and capable of interaction with online VR environments. It will reportedly be powered by IBM's cell chip, officially it is a beast of a processor, it remains to be seen if this really is the Intel and AMD beater the hype makes it out to be.

• The announcement by Sega that they will be dropping the console market and pursuing other avenues, goes to show that Microsoft may have already scared off the competition with the introduction of the X-Box 1 n 2. Sega are becoming software developers only, announcing their intention to move into the cross/multi platform arena. This could mean that they have already spotted a lot of the concepts outlined and will be developing their software, in a similar fashion to how it has been described here.

• The acquisition of 3dfx by Nvidia who are heavily linked to Microsoft and the X-Box , should be seen for what it is. I.e. it shows Microsofts attempt to dominate the graphics market and dominate the standards within it. Or should I say the future of the online VR market. The big M at the time of writing this, has sold over 15 million Xbox's worldwide, that's a hell of a lot of broadband capable users, just waiting to be exploited. The big M's push to own the VR marketplace can be seen in it's rather deranged effort to buy out Nintendo for an alleged $25 billion dollars, plus they also tried to get Sega to design the X-Box for them. Gates lofty ambition was to replace the Set Top Box with his console, so owning the TV of the future. Microsoft also tried to buy out some software publishers such as Square and Electronic Arts, they also tried to get Sony to use Microsoft programming tools for the PS2, is Gates a megalomaniac, the answer has to be YES. The VR marketplace is going to be massive and the big M is out to dominate in this new mass market sector. In effect, Microsoft is trying to get into bed with any competition it sees as being a threat - check out Microsoft's deal with ATI over XBOX 360, yet another strategic move by Microsoft, to embed itself into the VR marketplace. Xbox 360 by the way, may come in 3 flavors?

• The PC would have been the easiest platform to interface to. The graphics, memory and processing power of the PC is just going up and up, the database concept was seen as exploiting all these new hardware capabilities and may even have helped push the slightly stagnated PC market as well. The PC market is progressing all the time and is about to get a major boost in the overall memory, processing and graphics stakes. IBM are now producing hard disks using AFC technology, quadrupling hard disk capacities and Nvidia is already making claims about the Ge-force 10. Ge-force being a range of graphics cards produced by Nvidia, for those who didn't already know or have been living in a cave for the last five years.

• Plus lets not forget the Mac, Apple are now into the 64bit desktop computing market with their G5 system, this is the future for the home market, in other words the PC market is soon to become a 64bit environment for us all. 32 bit is already a dead technology in the eyes of most of the major chip manufacturers. Apple reportedly has already ditched IBM and is now going to use 64bit Dual core processors from Intel, for next PC line up.