August 11, 2006
CEA today announced that it’s formed an advisory group to look into a “gaming and entertainment event” in the spring of 2007, making no bones about its desire to again serve as the focal point for the games industry. For all the success of CES, E3 is “the one that got away”; its split in 1994 left a wound in CEA’s side that’s never healed.
If the big videogame companies pulled out of E3, why would they join a trade show of similar scale hosted by CEA? For one thing, E3 has always had more of a circus environment than CES; the industry has grown up. Also, CES attracts more mainstream media, which is important for expanding the videogame space beyond the fanboy blogs. And while the Xbox and PlayStation groups are their own entities within Microsoft and Sony, both corporations are CES exhibitors as are Intel, nVidia and ATI, er, AMD.
On the other hand, while CEA has long been adept at making overtures to content companies, they haven’t quite cracked that nut to the extent necessary to create a true alternative to E3, where most of the large booths were from software publishers such as Sega, Activision, Atari, EA, Namco, Konami, Square Enix and NCSoft.
August 1, 2006
I indulge those who note that software drives the videogame industry — and it would certainly have been damaging to E3 if, say, EA and Activision pulled out of the conference — but the hardware oligopoly of Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo deciding to pull out of the show is what really killed the major event. Next Generation’s analysis is guilty of the same kind of exaggeration that killed the conference itself; the list could stop at the second reason. Next Generation should also be careful to avoid any schadenfreude as its history has also been marked by a significant collapse and attempt to rise from the ashes.
In other coverage, News.com buys the association’s line and says that the 2007 show will likely be an invitation-only affair (let’s hope not) while Penny Arcade looks at the more emotional side of E3’s “evolution” in ESA’s euphemism, and a comic is worth a thousand words.
Of many major tech events from the ’90s that have faded away — Comdex, PC Expo, summer Macworld and now E3 — one most wonder if another is on the chopping block. CES continues to grow out of control, but it would require a much stronger coordinated effort to bring down that show — Sony, Panasonic, Toshiba, Philips, Samsung and LG would all have to walk, and yet you’d still have big booths from many other exhibitors including HP, DirecTV, Creative, Intel and Microsoft — not that my feet would mind seeing CES scaled back a bit, or at least having its growth slow. CEA has just done a better job of diversifying the exhibitor base.
July 22, 2006
With the Zune announcement today came much speculation that the company that used to be known for powering other company’s devices is working on a portable game system. This would likely be somethng at least as robust as the PSP, the weakest link of which is the UMD distribution system. With Bill Gates having decried physical distribution, now would be an ideal opportunity to distribute games the way Zune would distribute other forms of media. Such a radical move would cause retailer revolt, but it could also pave the way for a much sleeker portable gaming system that offered a great user experience in terms of the flexibility to carry along a wide variety of games in flash or a an entire catalog on a hard disk.
July 5, 2006
A recent Gamasutra feature discusses how GameWorks, the arcade chain that Sega acquired from Vulcan Ventures, will be developed by its new owner Sega. Arcades have been hit hard as each successive generation of home consoles has surpassed the graphics of most of the machines in these once hallowed halls. Among Sega’s remedies are adding sports bars and grills, which sounds similar to the Dave & Buster’s concept, and group sales.
At least the former seems to have potential, although it’s no guarantee. Dave & Buster’s purchased its rival Jillian’s mall assets out of bankruptcy in late 2004. Arcade games make more sense these days as a differentiator; they’re not the star attraction and won’t be until they are rethought. The whole notion of what an arcade is really needs to change to survive, with far more of a focus on social gaming that goes beyond anonymous rows of linked racing games. My ATM does more to customize the experience for me than any arcade game I’ve ever played.
One quote illustrates the challenge that the high-definition home theater poses:
[I]t’s now starting to be back to having an appeal, starting to see some of that impact back on the arcade-side where you can’t play in front of a 52-inch screen and have all of the very vibrant color and animation that’s part of it – you can’t just do that at home.
I’d say that the folks at Texas Instruments developing DLP chips would beg to differ.
June 7, 2006
The paradox in this Next Generation reference to a Dean Takahashi blogged interview with SCE’s Kaz Hirai is to hear representatives of two titans focusing on such a forward-looking industry look so far into the past. Hirai defends his E3 comments that the next generation begins when Sony says it does by noting that the PlayStation 2 beat the Dreamcast even though the latter launched first. Contrasted with that is a Steve Ballmer comment that the first console to reach 10 million units has wound up becoming the volume leader “in every other generation.”
There are doubtless still several tricks up the PlayStation 3’s sleeve, but recounting the Dreamcast victory shouldn’t be of much comfort. Sega had been trying to come back from the poor showing of the Saturn and simply lacked the war chest that Microsoft has; furthermore, price stratification in previous generations was not as pronounced as it is today. Besides, before the launch of the PlayStation 2, no company had ever dominated successive generations of consoles, so Sony should understand that precedents have their limitations.
On the other hand, the power of market share is more of an economic constant, and there’s no disputing that both Nintendo and Sony will have much catching up to do this fall; both have discussed selling 6 million consoles by 2007, but Microsoft will have some polished titles of their own in the channel this holiday season.
May 31, 2006
Here are more eye-opening juxtapositions between the last round of consoles and this one. Aeorpause has created a size comparison of major consoles from Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo. Among the surprises are that the PS3 is larger in every dimension than the original Xbox, which was widely criticized for its size, particularly in Japan. Even before seeing this chart, I thought that Wii’s diminutive size would be an advantage in kids’ smaller bedrooms. While the Wii is a bit thicker than Sony’s revised PS2 design, it’s still by far the smallest of the bunch.
Of course, the GameCube was the smallest and least expensive home console of its day and that didn’t translate into market leadership, but the differences seem far more profound in this round, not only in physical size but in Nintendo’s “Blue Ocean” approach. Furthermore, it’s a bit premature to criticize Sony too much; let’s see how the PS3’s power supply compares to the Xbox 360’s.
May 10, 2006
With Sony's pricing the focus of so much debate at E3, relatively little attention has been paid to the pricing of Nintendo's Wii and its unique (yes, even in spite of Sony's motion-sensing PS3 controller) controller. Some have speculated that Nintendo may sell Wii for under $250 — well below popular configurations of its next-generation rivals – but Nintendo is still mum on the price, for now saying only that it will deliver "more fun for less money."
Assuming that Nintendo could sell Wii for $250 profitably, I'd suggest a $299 bundle that included the casual Wii Sports game shown at its media event and a second Wii Remote controller. Part of the appeal of early consoles was how easily they facilitated family play by including a second controller. Wii Sports nicely highlights the controller's versatility and interaction model and would not cannibalize any league-licensed sports offerings from, say, EA.
Discussing this idea with friends at E3 led to the trivia question of which US console was first to ship with only one controller. I now think it was NEC's ill-fated Turbo Grafx 16. The system lacked a second bundled controller partially because it had only one controller port. For even two to play, one needed to purchase the five-player TurboTap accessory.
May 2, 2006
There's been much negative reaction to Nintendo's name for the console formerly code-named Revolution. It may be the company's highest-concept name ever. Apart from a fair amount of mispronunciation that Nintendo concedes that the console will receive, though, the literal name of this game is not the figurative one.
Nintendo has been hammering home that the name is consistent with the console's backward compatibility and controller design that will broaden its appeal beyond the core console "fanboy." After all, "GameCube," while perhaps not inspiring, could not have been more descriptive, and that didn't help Nintendo escape a distant third place in the home console market.
The problem has been that, far too often, Nintendo's definition of inclusion often reverts to the lowest common denominator of its kiddie core audience and those nostalgic to relive their days in it. Nintendo has proven adept at furthering its platforms' agendas with its first-party titles, such has been the case with the varied input methods of the Nintendo DS. But it also tends to fall back to the easy money of its franchises, and it will need to move beyond that to become truly inclusive.
April 20, 2006
I’ve had a lot to say about mobile navigation this week. First came a presentation on the state of the market given to institutional investors. Also, my Engadget column this week focused on fusing portable video with GPS devices. Last year, I’d had discussions with one portable video device manufacturer planning to do just that, but it seems those plans haven’t yet come to fruition.
However, a reader pointed me to software for the TomTom Go that will enable it to function as a video player. Developing this should be pretty trivial as
TomTom’s portable navigation software and devices are based on Windows Mobile.
Of course, one reason many eyes are on this space is because of Sony’s entry with the Navu-U. The Navu-U a great product… for 2004. I haven’t found it particuarly easier to use than, say, a TomTom Go (although the text may be more legible) and the icons that lacked labels were, of course, confusing. Sony touts its front-firing speakers, but I’ve never heard anyone complain about GPS directions being hard to hear. Sony should follow through on concept designs that would add GPS to the PSP. UMD would make it easy to update maps and a simple USB connection could link the antenna.
April 14, 2006
With all the intrigue surrounding its former executives and their cars, I’ve been surprised to see no coverage regarding Gizmondo’s Web site being down for weeks. I fear this may be the end for what one of the few reviews I read described as the taco-shaped portable console. While the little handheld that couldn’t followed in the footsteps of Tapwave, another handheld gaming failure based on a PDA operating system, I’m sure it will only be a matter of time before some of Gizmondo’s unique features such as WAN and GPS data support appear in products from more established companies.
