Entries Tagged 'The platform holders' ↓

Early attempts to mechanise text were fraught with jamming mechanisms. Moving the commonly moved keys apart from each other was a partial cure and in 1867 the QWERTY keyboard was patented. This seamlessly made the shift from typewriter to computer and still graces most desktops to this day.

Round about 1980 the very clever people at Xerox PARC in California realised that there must be a better way of managing the man/machine interface so they developed WIMP (Windows, Icons, Menus, Pointer). Ironically it was not Xerox who benefitted from the genius of their staff. It was an upstart computer company just down the road called Apple who used it in their Macintosh in 1984. Microsoft followed a year later with an add on for MS-DOS which evolved into the Windows we know and love today.

But technology continues to roll on and mankind has used it’s ingenuity to come up with a whole new sort of man/machine interface. It is called Gesture. And it is not an acronym, it really does mean interfacing by human gesture. And it is one of the hottest areas of technology just now.

Microsoft have just released their Surface computer, a step change in how the man/machine interface works. Apple have released their iPhone and iPod Touch. These are mainstream Gesture based devices. And of course the film Minority Report gave us a futuristic view of what a Gesture interface could do. It really is the future. Expect very many everyday devices to rapidly adopt this philosophy and technology.

Gaming started with the QWERTY keyboard on devices like the Sinclair Spectrum and Atari 400/800. This was supplanted by joysticks which evolved into joypads. These replaced the keyboard by putting a small number of switches and the joystick into one handheld unit. But now this is old technology, we are in the age of Gesture gaming.

The earliest Gesture gaming device to go mass market was probably the Power Glove for the NES in 1989, a device that was well ahead of it’s time but which maybe lived on in the Nintendo DNA. The Sony EyeToy  in 1992/3 is the Gesture device that most will now be familiar with. It is a pity that Sony did not realise what they had, otherwise the PlayStation Eye would have been built into the PS3.

Nintendo, however, did not miss this particular trick. They pretty much bet the company on it. Firstly with the touch screen on the DS in 2004. Then in 2005/6 by adding a motion sensing controller to a mildly updated Gamecube which they called the Wii. The rest is history and now Nintendo are the most profitable company in the history of video gaming.

And this is, without a doubt, the future of gaming. Every video gaming device from now on will incorporate a Gesture interface. It is just so much better than the alternative.

So where do you think the gaming man/machine interface is going? Add your comments below.

I was at E3 in 2004 when Sony launched the PSP. They were at the height of their PS2 pomp then, so there was close to mass hysteria for the new device, with multi-hour long queues just to see it. At the same show another manufacturer launched their new handheld gaming platform to far less hype and acclaim. I am of course talking about the Nintendo DS.

One evening, at the bar, after a long day at E3, I told some of the directors of Codemasters that I thought that the DS would be the more successful device. And they laughed at me. They went on to put several games on to the PSP, none of which sold very many copies.

So what did I see that was wrong with the PSP?:

• It was just too big to be a true portable device. I have a number of portable technology toys. A Nokia 6300, a Canon Ixus 950 IS, a video iPod and a DS lite. None of these are anything like the size of the PSP because their designers know what portable means.
• The Universal Media Disk (UMD). This was just Sony trying it on again. World domination through media standards. With precisely zero chance of it ever succeeding.
• Battery life. The big screen and rotating disk on a portable device are just not compatible with being able to use it for long. In the real world it seems to average out at about 4 hours when used as a games machine, which is more than I expected but nowhere near enough.
• The large unprotected screen. I thought that this would be fragile but it turned out not to be.
• Non compatability with PS1 or PS2. What were they thinking of? They could have had a huge body of games from day one. But in their arrogance they expected the world’s development community to do all the work of writing afresh for yet another platform.

Now you might say that I was wrong. That Sony have sold 25 million (or whatever, real figures are avoided) in less than three years. But this ignores the fact that this industry is like the shaving industry. The profit is not in the razor, it is in the blades. And on the PSP games just don’t sell. It was also meant to be a movie player but movies on UMD disks don’t sell either.

So what are PSPs used for? Well, I suspect that a lot of them aren’t. Used that is, they were bought as part of the hype and then consigned to a draw once the failing were exposed. And a lot of them are used as media players for films downloaded (pirated) over the internet then put onto the Memory Stick. A 256 Mbyte stick will easily hold a 100 minute movie.

Of course there are other PSP problems that I didn’t see at the launch:

• Over simple and limited web browser.
• Very slow game loading from the UMD.
• Old fashioned user interface (compared with DS). More on this in an article next tuesday.
• Only one analogue nub (and that very badly positioned) which complicates adapting games from their other platforms.
• A built in TV tuner would have been very nice.

So is the PSP doomed, dwindling away till Sony do the decent thing? Or will the new Slim and Lite mark a turning point and get this machine a lot of attention and success. Use the comments to let us know.

DFC Intelligence say that the worldwide videogame and interactive entertainment industry turns over about $33 billion per annum and that this will rise to $47 billion by 2009, which is over 40% increase in just two years.  Their biggest predicted growth area is online followed by mobile.

Looking at what is happening in the market this looks entirely feasible. If the market goes the way that it could then the growth might be even greater.

Online casual gaming for bored housewives and young children is a great phenomenon and I instigated Codemasters’ move there several years ago. Xbox live and Sony Home will both grow far more than 40% over the next two years and MMORPGs still have to grow out of their swords and sorcery roots. But yes, online overall will grow massively over the next two years and has the potential (as I have said repeatedly) to grow even faster and be a more compelling entertainment if more social networking is integrated into the gaming.

Mobile is going to grow on three fronts. Firstly the DS is just going to become more and more massively massive, such a must have purchase that nothing can stop it from becoming the best selling dedicated electronic gaming machine ever. Secondly Nokia may possibly get their act together at last. We know that they want to, they just don’t seem to have what it takes. If they do it could rival the DS. Then there is Apple and their softly, softly approach with the iPod/iPhone. If they get serious and press the go button it will release a great potential. As they want to make a lot of money there is no reason for them not to. Notice that the PSP doesn’t come into this. Quite rightly.

Where I strongly disagree with DFC is their analysis of the home console situation. They see the Wii as number one through 2008 with the PS3 competing with it in 2009 (but ahead on software revenue) and the 360 coming a distant third.

I see the Wii as being unassailable throughout this generation. They are providing great entertainment for normal people and so hugely expanding the market. They are also very strong in every market worldwide. The attach rate will go up as more great entertainment for normal people is released. Buy Konami shares now because Dance Dance Revolution: Hottest Party is going to do a Brain Age. The Wii is going where no console has gone before in terms of demographics and it is changing the market forever.

Microsoft are going to come second. Over Sony they have substantial first mover and retail price advantages and a big online lead. Most of all they have truly realised the advantage of unique content and have invested massively in it, to the point where the 360 is a must have purchase for any keen gamer. Also to the point where they seem to have overdone it! Their lineup of exclusive AAA blockbusters going into Q4 this year seem destined to take sales off each other. I cannot see Microsoft being able to make enough 360 consoles to keep up with the resultant demand over the next four months. After that they will be so far ahead that Sony will be unable to ever catch up. The only fly in the ointment is Japan. But this is a case of softly, softly. I would love a job in the Microsoft team trying to crack this market.

As for the PS3, I can see no compelling reason for anyone wanting to buy one. Sony have shot themselves in both feet repeatedly. They have lost a lot of the goodwill of the development and publishing community and their offering of games (which is what it is all about) is never going to catch up with the 360. They are going to come third by a long way in America and Europe and coming second in Japan will not make up for this.

Obviously DFC have far more analytic resources at their disposal than I do. So the balance of probabilities is that they will be closer to what happens than I am. But what do you think? Use the comments function to give us your predictions. Or even just to criticise mine.

Possibly not. The costs of developing and marketing a global gaming platform are in the billions of dollars. Playstation 3 looks like it will come a very lowly and unprofitable 3rd in this generation. So they are almost going to need to bet the whole company if they are going to go on to do PS4.

What went wrong? The main thing is that they didn’t have their eye on the ball of entertaining people. Instead they tried to use the PS3 as a Trojan horse to get Blu-ray into people’s homes and as a tool to allow them to escape from American processor manufacturers. And they expected the console buyers to pay for this.

Not only is the PS3 massively too expensive to make and for the market to pay for but it also had another technology related problem. It was too late. Everyone knew that Microsoft was after first to market advantage in this generation. Not only did Sony let them get away with it, they also had long additional delays forced upon them by all the new technology.

Then there is Nintendo. Currently making more profit than any computer game company has ever made before. In the whole of history. Their Wii sales are only limited by how many they can manufacture. If they made 3 million, 4 million a month they would sell them. And they make a profit on every one. So just about every console game developer and publisher in the world is rushing to throw resources at developing for it. And where are those resources coming from? You guessed it, from developing PS3 games.

So we have a virtuous circle with Nintendo, the more it succeeds the more games will be made for it so it will succeed even more. With Sony we have the opposite, the less it succeeds the fewer games will be made for it and so it will succeed even less.

Meanwhile Microsoft are cruising to second again, it has always taken them three generations of a product to win. And they are just about to play their joker. Releasing Halo 3 going into this holiday season is going to create massive demand. By all accounts Bungie have learned the lessons of Halo 2 and have made a blockbuster of game of the year proportions.

With demand so rampant for the Wii and 360 where will the money come from to buy expensive PS3s? It just isn’t going to happen. All that is keeping Sony in the market is the PS2, the PSP is fatally flawed as a platform and will just fade away, even in it’s new slimline form.

So is this just a gross exaggeration or do you detect a germ of truth? Let us know by using the comments.

I have written about this on here before and Steve Jobs set out to prove me right when he launched the sixth generation iPods. This was an occasion of massive significance to the computer gaming industry and we really do need to see the light.

Even the little iPod nano now comes with a 2 inch high pixel screen, it is pre loaded with three games with more available for download from iTunes.

More astonishing is the new iPod classic touch. Eat your heart out Nintendo and Sony (and Nokia). This is what a portable gaming machine should be like. Apple really have got it so right with this amazing device. I want one.

Apple have now sold over 110 million iPods and with the new features and ever lower price points they will continue to dominate this marketplace. The device has evolved rapidly, to be on it’s sixth generation so quickly. It would be nice, from a gaming perspective, if it evolved to have more processing power and a better gaming interface, maybe shoulder buttons.

Of great interest from the presentation was the fact that 32% of music is now only available in downloadable form. This is bad news for the big traditional music publishers and might be a sign that computer games publishing will not go to the small number of global publishers model.

So have you any comments on this? Please post if you have.

The so called console cycle sees new generations of machines released approximately every 5 to 6 years, but having a production life of around 10 years. So the generations overlap. This enables the platform holder to have a two model range at different price points, an older, less expensive,  model and a newer, more expensive, model.

Sony launched the original Playstation in December 1994 and followed it with the Playstation 2 in March 2000, yet they kept the original Playstation in production till March 2006. So for 6 years they were selling both machines. A few months after stopping production of the original Playstation they launched the Playstation 3, in November 2006, and they were back to having a two model range. The Playstation 2 is still selling massively well worldwide, and so it should, it has about 4 years of production left to run.

Now Microsoft introduced the Xbox in November 2001 and deliberately brought out their next machine, the 360, just 4 years later, in November 2005, so as to be first to market with the next generation. They kept the two models as a range for just one year, killing off the original Xbox in November 2006 when it was just 5 years old.

To me it looks like they killed off the original Xbox half way through it’s life. They could have re-engineered it to make it far cheaper to manufacture (just as Sony did with the PSOne) and kept on selling it for another 5 years as part of a two product line. They would have sold tens of millions of additional units if the continuing success of the Playstation 2 is anything to go by.

Now imagine the benefits if they has kept the original Xbox alive. It would have given them market presence in the massive developing countries of China and India were lower incomes favour a cheaper machine. It would have brought millions of new people to Xbox live, helping to lock them into buying future generations of Microsoft consoles. And it would have made enormous profits from the continuing sale of the Xbox game back catalogue.

To me it looks like a very big mistake. Obviously Microsoft are not stupid and must have their reasons, but surely the potential upside of keeping it going would have made it worthwhile to work round any problems.

So do you think this was a big mistake? Or do you have good reasons for them to kill it off so soon? Use the comments to let us know.

I have been thinking that there is hardly an article in this. The answer is just so simple and straightforward. Nintendo is an entertainment company. In fact on one of my trips to Japan I brought back a pack of Nintendo playing cards (which they have made since 1889) as a present for Jim Darling precisely to make this point.

Over their history Nintendo have always entertained even, as it once did, owning a chain of love hotels! Hiroshi Yamauchi had his back to the wall many times as he struggled to find products that would work. But he always innovated and he always sought to entertain. Then he had the luck and skill to employ two bright innovators Gunpei Yokoi and Shigeru Miyamoto who, like Yamauchi, knew how to entertain. The rest is legend.

So Nintendo are not interested in creating global media standards (as Sony are), though interestingly they did for the Gamecube, but that was just as an anti piracy tactic. They are also not interested in creating a near monopoly software platform (as Microsoft are).  In fact the technicalities of the box are unimportant to them as long as it is cheap to make and allows them to entertain.

The Nintendo philosophy is very pure. They don’t want big film licenses because it is their job to come up with innovative IP, so they don’t need anyone elses. This attitude extends to allowing external publishers onto their platform. They will let them if they must, but it is not a cornerstone of their strategy (as it is at Sony and Microsoft). Nintendo know that they will make the best games for their own platforms themselves so they hardly need the external publishers.

Also Nintendo do not subscribe to the razors and razorblade philosophy, they make a profit on everything that goes out of the door. Subsidising hardware sales with future software revenue is not a road they want to go down, their corporate culture has seen enough hard times to know to avoid this folly. So their hardware is very simple, just enough to do the job. The Wii is just a slightly upgraded and repackaged Gamecube, yet it sells in the UK for the same price as the vastly more sophisticated 360.

What is a huge and important part of Nintendo culture is innovation. They have always done this and they always will. They realise that innovation piques the human intellect and allows them to develop a constant stream of new entertainment ideas. I am a great fan of this. The controller on the Wii is a creation of genius as are the two screens of the DS and they contrast very sharply with the offerings of Sony and Microsoft which are very much “me too”.

As a great part of Nintendo’s heritage is toys they have largely made computer games for children. So a big swathe of the hardcore gaming fanboys looked down on them. What passed most people by was Nintendo’s announcement a few years ago that they were going to expand their audience to encompass everyone. This really should have worried the competition because they meant it and now we can see the results. The DS is the dominant handheld worldwide and Nintendo cannot make enough of the Wii to keep up with demand. They look set to ship more units than their competitors in this cycle. Not only that, Nintendo know how to make money, they have to because they can’t cross subsidise from different divisions. They are now making outrageous amounts of it and they will make even more as the cycle grows to it’s peak.

In the future you have to wonder if the Nintendo philosophy of just entertaining can survive against the drive for global power at Microsoft and Sony. Certainly their ability to generate so much profit will give them a lot of protection.

So now you have my little summaries for all three of the current platform holders, Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo. They have very different corporate cultures and very different objectives. What do you think? Please comment, it adds so much.