- I am a great fan of Steve Wozniak so it was great too see this interview in The Telegraph where he talks very sensibly about Apple, the iPhone, tech share valuations and much else. Gems of wisdom from a silicon valley superstar.
- Nintendo DSi has region locking, presumably to act as a form of DRM and so reduce piracy. Obviously it will also reduce choice, but this is the sort of damage that pirates bring upon themselves.
- No Sony conference at Tokyo Game Show and Nintendo not even attending, thus leaving the door open for Microsoft to gain a big competitive advantage. Expect the remarkable performance of the Xbox 360 in Japan (a fivefold increase in sales)Â to get even better.
- Sony not dropping the price of the Playstation PS3 this Christmas. They can’t afford to because they still make a big loss on every machine they make. All they can do is pass on the increased sizes of hard disks and come up with good value bundles by taking a hit on the software. All the industry analysts said that 2008 would be the year of the PS3. It is turning out to be the year of the Xbox 360.
- BioShock PS3 graphics problems. Like most multi-platform games they are struggling to make the PS3 version look as good as the Xbox 360 version. The elegant architecture and powerful GPU of the PS3Â 360 beats Cell nearly every time.
- Hardware retail price war on consoles in the UK. Excellent news for consumers and for the game industry. We are now at the price point on the Xbox 360 where most console sales happen, Microsoft are backing this with massive and clever TV advertising. Are we headed for a Microsoft Christmas?
- Analyst Michael Pachter “absolutely convinced” Wii HD is under development. He has obviously been reading about the Super Wii on this blog! Seriously, Nintendo would be very remiss not to have such a machine already developed. It is just a matter of when, not if that they release it.
- Nintendo share price halves. Obviously the analysts don’t expect the extraordinary earning power to continue. There are three things here. Firstly the power of the Japanese Yen. Secondly the worldwide global downturn. And thirdly the continuing suspicion that the Wii is a bubble waiting to burst.
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*sigh* the DSi region locking has nothing to do with piracy. It’s just for their online releases to keep them in line and deal with pricing. It hasn’t been announced that cartridges will have region locking, and even if it did how would it stop piracy? Also, importing games (especially the way Nintendo treat Europe) has been one of the major reasons for people to get a mod chip.
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Well done Michael Pachter for his analysis that there being a new machine from Nintendo that has HD in 2011. Hey, I think I can do his job …this machine will be faster, have better graphics, and play brand new versions of Mario and Zelda.
Bravo.
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Nintendo’s shares went down because the DSi isn’t much of an improvement over the DS and won’t sell as well. Nothing to do with the Wii.
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I am absolutely amazed at how wrong Sony are getting it at the moment. I for one, am still convinced they awill do a bit better this xmas (finally got some good titles coming out). I just cannot believe that they still refuse to make a price cut. When people are worrying about their job security, bills, food etc. Are they gonna shell out 300 quid plus for a machine that as of now this moment, has if anything a marginal superiority over the 360? I’m hoping that 2009 will turn out ok for them. Come on Sony, you guys used to be the “Machievelli’s” of marketing, what the hells going on over there? Own a 360 myself but still maintain that the PS3 has the potential to be an awesome machine, its just being marketed by muppets at the moment. Nintendo? don’t really care, never really been part of my gaming world.
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And Sony is smart to continue having the wii seen as a toy mom owns! There is no need to change that. That IS why they are on top and they would be stupid to not want to stay as the console mom buys! In fact I can see them wanting the same title NEXT generation. In fact I can see Sony, and Microsoft wanting the SAME title. Why both want mass market and living room status in every home. When things become something mom wants it becomes truly mass market. This is when the PC exploded. This is when the internet exploded. This is when the cell phone exploded. This is when the printer exploded. This is when the digital camera exploded. This is when the webcam exploded. When they stopped being a young male thing, and started being a thing mom wanted.
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Dear BC. LOL good sarcasm! I’m with you all the way. In other news, xbox 720 and PS4 will have faster chips, and even more memory for the chips! Internet surfing speeds will go up, and televisions will become even crisper looking! Film at 11!
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“Obviously it will also reduce choice, but this is the sort of damage that pirates bring upon themselves.”
Um, no. No damage to the pirates, who will crack the region encoding within days of its release.
Once again, game retailers fall into the trap of making the product received by paying customers *worse* than the one that pirates receive.
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Bruce, you said:
“The elegant architecture and powerful GPU of the PS3 beats Cell nearly every time.”
Were you trying to say:
“The elegant architecture and powerful GPU of the Xbox 360 beats Cell nearly every time.”
?
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“They can’t afford to because they still make a big loss on every machine they make.”
Got a source for that? The manufacturing cost was undoubtedly very high when the PS3 launched two years ago, but there’s no longer a scarcity of components for Blu Ray drives, and the machine has been through several streamlining revisions, shrinking the die of both the CPU and GPU and dropping flash card slots, usb ports and hardware backward compatibility.
Perhaps you’d prefer that they cut out the HDD, Blu Ray, wifi and online play to offer the illusion of competitive pricing instead.
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Geez, you have a good blog there, but you’re also an easy paint when it comes to DRMs.
***, what’s that:
“Nintendo DSi has region locking, presumably to act as a form of DRM and so reduce piracy. Obviously it will also reduce choice, but this is the sort of damage that pirates bring upon themselves.”
1. Pirates don’t give a **** about region locking.
2. Honest buyers are ****** and in a way, both because region locking limits sales of certain products, and because in other ways it’s used to sell games at prices that are way over what you can get on the other side of the border or via internet ordering.