1) Quality
I believe that the development has gone two ways. Forward and backward. To give an example - how is it possible that I can run a 35 year old slotcar without any problems but the car I bought last year has already had to be repaired a couple of times? Another thing is that while quality often has risen - reliability has not in my experience. What I mean is that RTR cars I had in the seventies did just that - run. Now I may not have had many cars but I find it odd to buy cars today that even if they look good sometimes do not work reliably. No matter what one things about manufacturers and there products one does expect that a new slotcar of today is possible to run on a track without any mechanical issues... This is I believe a major point where the hobby will have to develop further, a RTR car has to be possible to run straight from the box. Expectations are such that it is detrimental to the hobby if the most basic issues are not sorted out in a near future. No matter if they are called toys or models. Even toys are expected to work as described...
2) Digital Technology
As far as I can see all the current systems are quite interesting - but (to be polite) they are hardly pushing the digital technology development. All of them have - if we assume that they will work as advertised - really significant limitations. It is quite possible that they will survive - but there will have to come something very different in the future. Remember that the manufacturers did not understand their markets very well in the eighties, and this surely had a large impact on their downfall. But today most manufacturers cars will work on most other manufacturers track - what about the digital technology then? Sure you could put in chips from Scalextric in any other manufacturers car and use them - but only on Scalextric track. You will surely agree with that Scalextric is not the only track in town. Just think about video players - as I see it the current tendency is not even equivalent to VHS vs Betamax - no it is much more infantile technology we are seeing examples of. Even if it might be fun and interesting it is still just the beginning. Hopefully these matters will change otherwise the manufacturers risk to 'paint themselves into a corner'. This would be rather unfortunate I think. One other possibility is ofcourse that third party technology will surface - e.g. once we have switches and other stuff we could reprogram them with alternative controllers etc... Basically I believe that there is much room (and need) for improvement when it comes to digital technology and slotcars. I am also sure that there will be more of analogue technology inside slotcars - I can see a need for a microchip controlled condensator already.
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//peter
I believe that the development has gone two ways. Forward and backward. To give an example - how is it possible that I can run a 35 year old slotcar without any problems but the car I bought last year has already had to be repaired a couple of times? Another thing is that while quality often has risen - reliability has not in my experience. What I mean is that RTR cars I had in the seventies did just that - run. Now I may not have had many cars but I find it odd to buy cars today that even if they look good sometimes do not work reliably. No matter what one things about manufacturers and there products one does expect that a new slotcar of today is possible to run on a track without any mechanical issues... This is I believe a major point where the hobby will have to develop further, a RTR car has to be possible to run straight from the box. Expectations are such that it is detrimental to the hobby if the most basic issues are not sorted out in a near future. No matter if they are called toys or models. Even toys are expected to work as described...
2) Digital Technology
As far as I can see all the current systems are quite interesting - but (to be polite) they are hardly pushing the digital technology development. All of them have - if we assume that they will work as advertised - really significant limitations. It is quite possible that they will survive - but there will have to come something very different in the future. Remember that the manufacturers did not understand their markets very well in the eighties, and this surely had a large impact on their downfall. But today most manufacturers cars will work on most other manufacturers track - what about the digital technology then? Sure you could put in chips from Scalextric in any other manufacturers car and use them - but only on Scalextric track. You will surely agree with that Scalextric is not the only track in town. Just think about video players - as I see it the current tendency is not even equivalent to VHS vs Betamax - no it is much more infantile technology we are seeing examples of. Even if it might be fun and interesting it is still just the beginning. Hopefully these matters will change otherwise the manufacturers risk to 'paint themselves into a corner'. This would be rather unfortunate I think. One other possibility is ofcourse that third party technology will surface - e.g. once we have switches and other stuff we could reprogram them with alternative controllers etc... Basically I believe that there is much room (and need) for improvement when it comes to digital technology and slotcars. I am also sure that there will be more of analogue technology inside slotcars - I can see a need for a microchip controlled condensator already.
//peter
