TECHNOLOGY : ONLIVE the roundup

I want to thank all the people who contributed from, Linked in, Blogger, Facebook, Twitter and other social networks.

In summary people don't think it will kill the console, we all just believe that its great PR and that this technology once stable will become a very strong option in the years to come. Onlive wont be the replacement for the console (big 3) but more a facilitator/instigator of progress in this field, responsible for pushing the on-demand service to the next level. I hope if its as good as they say they do well and reap some rewards for their work.

TECHNOLOGY : ONLIVE may never make it ?

Why ON-LIVE will not be a console killer.

Don't get me wrong I am all for progress and service, how ever I'm not sure they even believe they can do it.

After giving this some thought and going over some basics here is my view on this topic

1.Realistically the technology wont be available and ready for the masses till 2012 to 2015. You can read about this all over the web.

They plan to start in the US and what will happen is you get the early adopters going through the pain barriers and as long as the game play is not interrupted more than once may be just may be people will accept it.

But remember game play can not be interrupted, How many times does You Tube or other low quality stream slow down or stop on your PC. I am sure the demos worked amazing and they planned well for that at GDC....but wait till you have several hundred thousand people all wanting the same game at a very slightly different time.

So assuming that some people do stick with the service and they grow slowly they will not be making any money and will require more and more funding. They got around $12 million in 2007 for a second round.


2. The investment is pure speculation

So investors and future VC's will speculate based on the management background and the chance of this delivering a huge pay off....and that they could get control of or a big chunk of control of the video game industry right? Wrong they may at best get a share of the market. But this is where I don't think they are really interested, my gut tells me they are trying to convince people they have the best compression technology and hope that a huge company buys the IP for a tonne of cash.

3. Are you forgetting those other small companies in the industry?

Yes little Microsoft, quite shy Nintendo and that big sissy Sony......do you really think they will lie down and just give up and say yes you win....we don't care about the billions we invested in making this industry happen.....

Not a chance, here is what could happen.....all of the above companies launch similar services or HYBRIDS of the service like PS3 lite or XBOX lite (Microsoft already sells a lite version for XBLA) So part processing happens on line and the rest in home.

And or the Hardware just gets cheaper and cheaper......(historically this is what happens and is happening)

All of these companies have massive installed base across USA, Europe & Japan. As for Asia they don't have the bandwidth yet so forget Onlive for China's or India for the next 2 to 3 years.

4. The installed PC base

Who are your customers? well the ones with a PC or a TV who want to play high quality games. I am going to assume that people who invested in consoles are not the target. Also I would question if the PC owners who have great or decent spec machine at home and play games are the target either.

So are you after the 85 million online gamers in the USA from 2008 (stats provided by comscore) Then you need to take into account the number of women in that figure was around 45 to 48 % and then take into account age demographics and your target audience is reduced further.

My guess is they will also try to leverage deals with the cable providers and try to get into peoples homes through the TV.

Good idea? progress right. Sure choice is great.

Ok high quality games require high quality peripherals so if you play on the TV and want to compete with the consoles you will need:

Rockband Kit
Microphones
Dance Mat
Driving Wheel
Wii type contoller
Guitar

So all of a sudden we are in the family home and the choice is streaming games with no peripherals, less game choices or by a Wii or play the one we have. fun of what the above can provide. Hummm (please tell me If I got this wrong and you can just plug in to a port on the

5.NO exclusive content....

its nothing new just a new distribution method. Its not like they have Little big planet, GTA or Crash Bandicoute or Matrix or some amazing game to launch this service they just offer the same.

6. The future of gaming

Its all about how you can enhance your experience through community and better peripherals making controlling a game easier, expanding choice of titles (like casual)and all the big companies are way along with this process in addition to that they are offering better distribution models, Episodic content etc.....

If Onlive truly have amazing technology they will end up selling it or becoming like DOLBY and licensing it. They will not lead the games industry or have any chance of killing off the others.

I do believe in this technology and cloud computing will become the norm but at very best Onlive will sit way behind the others , but I can not see them making it as a replacement for PS3, XBLA or Nintendo.

Love to hear your thoughts please comment....

Here is some good reading

Onlive was a dumb investment

Dave Perry s take on things

Console sales data

Venture Beat

Venture beat ( read all the postings at the bottom of the page)

Crytek story

CAST YOUR VOTE ON LINKEDIN

TECHNOLOGY : Can Onlive kill the console?

In case you don't know about this you need to get up to speed. I will come back with more about this soon but just get up to speed on the concept.

Some say it will kill the console, some say it wont work, Dave Perry says he is launching is own rival company and apparently got a lot of stick from onlive at GDC saying that he is only jumping on the band wagon(although he has talked about this tech for a while) and SONY just registered their own cloud patent.

Read about this here

Dave Perry's company

One thing I will say is I love progress, and this if it works will benefit the industry and game players, but will it work yet and will they make enough money in time or will it all crash and burn.

More about this soon.

MOBILE: All the key stuff from the last 5 days

Symbian remains by far the most popular smartphone OS on the market. (for now)

New research from Gartner shows that for the fourth quarter of 2008 Symbian based smartphones accounted for 47.1 per cent of the sector’s total sales, with 17.9m handsets sold.

Blackberry-owning RIM was next at 19.5 per cent (7.4m units)
Microsoft Windows Mobile at 12.4 per cent (4.7m units)
Apple trailed with a 10.7 per cent market share (4.1m units)
Linux 8.4 per cent (3.2m units).

Of the Linux figure, Google Android phones (of which these is currently just one – the T-Mobile G1) accounted for 20 per cent – or 1.7 per cent of the total market.

Take Apple as a single device vendor and the numbers become very impressive for Apple – particularly considering that the numbers represent a 111.6 per cent year-on-year hike. Nokia, in contrast, suffered a 21.6 per cent annual drop. Personally I give Apple 2 to 3 years to take over......watch this space for the mini iphone and some other variations to give them more market share. And why not there OS is far superior, tech they produce is the best looking and the distribution channel tops all the competition. So if you want to beat Apple or stay in the market you need to be at least as good......but hell why not go for being better!

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Pop cap releases bookworm on the iphone (I think we will see more and more ports of popular casual games find there way to this platform)

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8 Million iphone downloads for digital chocolate (paid & free)

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GDC 09: iPhone games publisher Ngmoco head Neil Young today opened GDC with a keynote heralding the big changes the iphone & itouch have brought to the games market for developers and publishers.

He then outlined how the iPhone has changed the industry in four key areas: the market, games themselves, game making and publishing.

THE MARKET (ovierview)

800m App Store downloads of the 25,000 apps available, and how 165 apps are released released every day.

Even though the App Store is incredibly 'cluttered', the point to envy is how Apple has normalized digital distribution of game content, said Young.

He said: "Apple have trained 30m people to download and and install applications on their phone where ever they are. It is an amazing process we are witnessing."

And as games are largest part of the App Store, this is an "awesome opportunity" to generate revenue.

Full story

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UK telecoms company T-Mobile has stated that the average owner of the HTC Google Android phone the G1, which is exclusive to the network in the region, has downloaded 40 apps from the Android Market.

PocketGamer reports that the network’s CTO Cole Brodman added that there are around 2,300 games and applications currently available for download. He also stated that 80 per cent of G1 users surf the internet on their handset every day.

However, Brodman added that as the number of apps increases, the Android Market has become increasingly hard to navigate – particularly when compared to Apple’s App Store.

The exec went on to say that T-Mobile has big plans to expand its 3G network to accommodate the increased data usage encouraged by handsets such as the G1.

VIRTUAL WORLDS : A MUST SEE !

Ok once in while a film maker will come along and pull out all the ideas floating round in our heads an articulate them in such a brilliant way that you can not help but smile, and in other ways sent shivers down my spine as I have actually had those thoughts due to something that happened to me when I was younger. (the film will explain) The thing about this is the development, world builder tool used in the film is totally possible and I feel that this is a glimpse in to our future. It Begs the question what happens we can not tell the difference between what is reality and is computer generated? May be we are already there!


World Builder from Bruce Branit on Vimeo.

PREDICTIONS: 10 for 2009

1 Micro-payments will dramatically increase in popularity in the USA and Europe

2 A flurry of browser based MMO's will start to emerge

3 More alliances and partnerships, companies more open to working together

4 Casual games industry to release blended Genera games.

5 The birth of a new Genera for Casual Games (expect to see a revolutionary game mechanic in 2 to 3 months)

6 Less in store releases and more Episodic content to be released via digital distribution on the PS3,XBLA allowing greater risks and lower costs.

7 True cross platform experiences will excite with one login across multiple platforms

8 Web 3.0 to start rising to the surface

9 An increase in music, film & TV collaborations in the gaming world

10 VC's show a big slowdown in investments with a focus making their portfolio companies lean mean and profitable. (about time)

EVENTS: Sdforum interview with Bernie Stolar

In case you don't know Bernie he is one of the industries veterans having been CEO at Mattel, President at SEGA and EVP at Sony Playstation for the launches of PS1 & PS2 and of course that other small company Atari, who did not play much of a roll in games....

For years I have felt the presence of Bernie in my living room so I have to admit getting to meet him was a pleasure. He had tonnes of stories and in particular I loved the one about launching the PS2. He told me that they did not have game to drive sales, in the past they had a sonic and in Nintendo case they had Mario but PS2 had nothing.....until he found Crash Bandicoot. In short that game drove unit sales.

So here is a synopsis of the what people said at the event.


Less big publishers, similar to what happened in the music and film industry
Companies that run with lower costs and are quicker to market will be stronger
Episodic content will be the new way to distribute console games
The end of retail boxed games for $60 (unless of course you do it well like GTA)
Casual gaming will continue to grow and companies with original I.P will become stronger
MMO's will shift to online
Funding is becoming harder to get, so you better make it last as there may not be a second round
Make sure you make a good game "there is a lot of crap out there" Is it fun??
Microtransactions will become a standard in the US, but so far many companies have just shoehorned the model in and its not quite right yet.
Advertising in games will grow and be delivered in context for greatest impact
I-phone games catalog is easy to access and a good distribution channel
The likes of Kongregate will help find the next great talent
You really need to know your market and understand your consumers

BUSINESS: Change how games are developed and released

Maybe its because it I have a strong business background or my years of music production that allows me think about different approaches to console game development. However the good thing is its not just me. I have written 2 or 3 reports discussing potential changes so I wanted to share the thoughts of ATARI's Phil Harrison and Rares Mark BatteridgeMark Batteridge.

In essence its about engaging the audience as early as possible using rapid prototyping and trying to get industry to release little and often and I actually have interesting biz models that could be applied to this, and there could be some lessons learned from the Casual Gaming developers.

Phil also makes the important point about not moving past stages before you complete them which would make sense but has been ignored for years according to him. You would not start the second level of a house without having all the walls up?? No

Connected Story Montreal Games Summit

Connected story Only 4% games make a profit

Games to outsell Music and Video

UK sales of video games and hardware will surpass spending on music and video for the first time, a report suggests. The BBC News has the story.

It predicts spending on games will rise by 42% to £4.64bn in 2008, with sales on music and video at £4.46bn.

Full Story here

Worth Watching

While watching a presentation by David Perry (which was very good by the way he presented this film)



This totaly ties in with some of the recent stories I have mentioned.

Consoles could make a come back in the future

Occasionally I'm going to try an pear into the future and give my 2 cents.

Many have predicted that the future of the console is doomed.

Hold it there.....the PS3 may never recover the costs but the developments made in the technology and the programming will allow for the next generation of consoles to capture a market that has never been accessible in the past at a much lower cost.

This will be the age of mass market, consoles will dominate again but in a way we have never seen.

Everyone will play from your toddler to your grandparents they will all be players.

WHY....accessibility will be the key. AND IT WILL BE CONTROLLER DRIVEN. Controllers have always restricted the potential number of players.

Players of the future will use new controllers that make game play so simple that it literally becomes child's play. Opening up the potential for anyone to play out their wildest fantasy. Almost Star Trek holo deck style.

Probably made part from Wii type tech mixed with brain sensing equipment mixed with some form of goggles that provide the visuals and sound, SO you turn your head and the visual follow that movement. A kind of hybrid VR

Then think about the possibilities of entertainment and where you could go. Now think about how the movie studios are getting involved in gaming.

Casual gaming is paving the way for players who would never have been gamers...these gamers will progress if future technologies allow them to.

I will say that it could be possible that PC's will fill this gap.....But I just think that the PS3 is in such an early stage and future titles will literally blow us away. Right now the programmers are going through that learning curve. You have to remember that the results that they got after 5-6 years of PS1 arriving.