PS Vita, The core gamers portable console?

In recent years social gaming has exploded into a huge market, helped by the popularity of platforms such as the Nintendo DS/IPhone/Facebook and tablet computers have propelled social gaming into every part of lives. No matter where we are be it on the bus, train car, in the office or line for a coffe social gaming has used the most popular portable tech platforms to become one of the most important gaming sectors.

This it has to be said has lead to a huge increase in the popularity and money involved in video games in general and has helped boost the sector into its spot as the biggest global entertainment industry. Social gaming is for everyone no matter your age, gender or race. The nature of social gaming (sometimes reffered to as casual gaming) as generally being smaller, cheaper and easier to play has allowed the market to boom with games allowing you to do anything from build a mafia empire one click at a time to guiding a "doodle" ever further into the sky.

The great breadth in terms of gaming opportunities and tiny cost of producing these small games has lead to huge numbers of games being created with varying degrees of success and quality. For every "Doodle Jump" there is a million "Marshmallow Cookie Maker"s. This has sadly lead to many great games being completely ignored in the quagmire of mediochre-at-best rubbish.

The Nintendo DS (Nintendo's all conquering handheld) started promisingly enough for core gamers with games like Super Mario 64 DS and Metroid Hunters pleasing core gamers along with many others. These not only delivered great gaming experiences but utilised the nature of the technology. However a few years later and you take a look at the sales charts and its a different view entirely. As the Chart for the week ending 18th Feb shows, a large number of the top selling games are part of the casual genre. Art Academy at 10, Barbie at 14, Loving life with Hello Kitty and Friends in the top 30. Its also interesting to note that apart from a smattering of professor Layton games (which is very much on the border between core and casual gaming) there are very few Core games in the top selling charts. Most if not all of these are split between Pokemon and other Nintendo published games, with the now 8 year old Super Mario 64 DS coming in 19th. This loss of core gaming products from these lists can be attributed directly to the rise in social gaming, the boom of game releases flooding out the core games from the shop shelves.

The PS Vita however with its HD graphics and dual thumbsticks has levelled itself as the core gamers portable console and it has shown with a stellar lineup including a portable version of its console brothers best series. This alongside FIFA, Rayman and Marvel vs Capcom (among others) is bringing confindence back into portable gaming for thos ewho would rather lead an assault in Battlfield than plough up a field in Farmville.

Whether or not the PS Vita will continue down its current route as a core gaming device is unknown but with continued support with games such as Resistance: Burning Skies and (planned) releases for Bioshock and Assassins Creed games the future is looking bright once more for core gamers who need a real gaming fix while on the move.


Let me know what you guys think, are you more of a core or social gamer (any Zynga addicts?). Do you see the need for a greater emphasis on core gaming in the portable market or is it more of a sideshow for you. Let me know about any of the topics in this article or any ideas you have for my next piece.

Thanks for reading.

Why the Interest in Pinterest?

Sorry for the pun in the headline but i just had to put it in this article somewhere. So as Tech Crunch reported this week the social media website Pinterest, where users share images of things which they find interesting/useful/funny/cool/inspiring etc etc, has hit 10 million unique monthly hits in the US faster than any other standalone startup.

Pinterest is a site built entirely around the sharing of your interests (hence the name) and is wholely devoted to the ability to share your pins and to view those of others that are linked to yours. Why then, when people are continuing to protest against other Social Networks use of their "likes" etc are they flocking to another website where the sole purpose is to share this information with random people.

The answer is partly down to money. Facebook and Google give you information about your interests and likes to advertising companies in return for advertising money and they have been very succesful at doing it as shown by the recent high profile news regarding Facebooks impending IPO. People dislike the idea of them being "used" by companies to make money off them especially when it refers to the use of "private" information. Mostly however it is down to the difference between whom it is that is releasing the information. Most of us are happy to give our emails and phone numbers out to our closest friends as we get the control of the flow of information. If a third party (be it a company or even just a friend) was to be going around handing out our number to those same friends most of us would have some sort of a problem because suddenly we have lost the control of the information. this has been the problem for companies like Facebook with its well known issues with the suitability of its privacy controls and  its use of personal information as a revenue stream. Ofcourse with a company like Facebook we are expected to understnd that for continued use of facebook as a FREE platform we must as users be willing to give up certain liberties, this is something i am perfectly content with.

So where will all this leave Pinterest. Well if they wish to keep the current popularity then it will have to find a way of monetising the website without using user information. Advertising is the most likely with targeted ads based on companies and sponsored pages. But in the long run they just need to keep things simple, they have a website whos popularity is based on a single idea and i hope they keep it that way for the users sake.

Facebooks in for the long haul...

So they much anticipated IPO of Facebook is just around the corner. The hype bus has been pulled out and is in full swing with stories regarding every single possible clause and figure coming out, however one thing is still amazing me.

People (possibly a vocal minority) still seem to believe that Facebook is some "Flash in the Pan" type event which will soon be being swept back under the rug. Do these people not realise that its 2012 and they have been saying the same thing for the better part of a decade. During which time Facebook has grown to extraordinary proportions and turned itself into one of the most important websites on the internet.

Facebook will not be leaving us anytime soon, or more to the point, WE wont be leaving Facebook anytime soon. We all have years and years of our lives invested into carefully building our friends lists, building farms and growing stacks of virtual poker chips. Think of all the hundreds of photos and memories, messages and even pokes which we have accumulated over the years that we have been enjoying the service. Do you honestly expect that the hundreds of millions of users that are currently using facebook will leave all that behind. Google+ made that mistake. Google left its entrance into the market too late and instead allowed Facebook free reign over the social networking scene for over half a decade before finally entering its services.

This IPO is only the begining of a long road for this company, with a potential user base currently above 6 Billion and rising there is plenty of opportunity for expansion. Of course one thing this has shown is that the old adage is indeed correct. "Haters gonna Hate".

Angry Birds coming to Facebook

Well there you have it, Angry Birds is set to take over the worlds largest social network. Its hardly surprising that a game as huge among casual games as angry birds is moving onto the social network site, what is more interesting is what this might mean for the future of facebook.

For a while now facebook has been the playground for low end, cheap gaming experiences. Companies such as zynga have seemingly perfected the "Freemium" game genre. However it is becoming clearer and clearer that larger games companies are begining to see Facebook and other social websites as more of a platform for their games. Companies like EA who have been releasing games to mirror its flagship sports titles and releases of games relating to Civilisation and Assassins Creed from several other large developers have shown a gradual move to embrace the platform.

The big difference between those games and the arrival of Angry Birds will not be apparently visible to a casual gamer. The big difference to a real gamer comes from what they determine to be a "Video Game". Many (myself included) do not see Mafia Wars as a "game" in the same way that Angry Birds is one. To put it simply, Angry Birds requires some level of skill to succeed. Mafia Wars merely requires time and the ability to read. The arrival of Angry Birds therefore will signal to my knowledge the first "Real" Video game to appear on the social networking website. I certainly hope that many more follow.

I expect that the take up will be similar to that which took place on smartphones where once companies realised that developing for the platforms could be highly profitable the money began to be put aside for development of games specifically for that platform. We are now seeing some truly amazing games coming onto a platform which years ago was mired in a flood of terrible gimicky games. I can only imagine that the same will happen with Facebook, and if the site continues to grow as it seems it will then this inevitability will only happen sooner.

Megaupload and what it means..

Well its probably about time i got round to writing a post on possibly the most important legislative event for techies this year. The shut down of Megaupload.com and its subsidiaries has been the cumlination for months of campaigning on both sides of the fence. It has sent ripples right through the internet ether and is continuing to keep SOPA and PIPA in the news.

Now i will state here that i believe in the rights of copyright holders to protect their work and i think that those who create such amazing content everyday of their lives and who work the arses off in the name of their art certainly deserve to reap the rewards of producing that material. In that sense even i am on the side of SOPA/PIPA. However while the basis of those acts are sturdy and true the way in which they are looking to be enacted and the scope of damage to free speech which could be inflicted from the forms of these acts is something that i cannot and will not support. Its very much like trying to stamp out a plague by killing the infected hosts rather than by giving them the necessary anti-biotics.

We need better communication between these websites and the major labels in the entertainment industry. Why were these links not taken off these webstites?? probably i suspect because nobody had asked them to be removed. Megaupload is not going to be able to check every upload to see if it the latest Britney Spears track but it should be very easy for someone within her record label to seach for her song on google and to ask sites like megaupload and google to remove infringing links. The scale of information transfer over the internet these days makes it impossible for a site like megaupload to check all of its traffic for infringements but it is much more manageable for one label to check for its individual products.

This is ofcourse an ongoing and evolving situation, and deffinately one which will not see any true end. Views on things like internet freedom come and goes depending mostly on current situations. I for instance can see a big change towards government run internet protection in maybe a decades time when state sponsored cyber-warfare is more commonplace. More recently there have been many calls for the government to crack down on groups such as anonymous, surely such a crackdown would recquire the sacrifice of certain online liberties similar to those we all gave up in the aftermath of 9/11. Although there are still those who complain the vast majority (mainly those who like myself have grown up with and am used to) accept the neccessary screening and security procedures at airports. If the Us had tried to bring in the patriot act in 2000 there would have been global outcry similar to that against SOPA/PIPA today.

The question for me then is not WHEN will these acts (or similar legistalature) go through but rather WHY will we allow it?

2012 - Trends to watch for

Another year rolls on by and for analaysts everywhere this is the golden time to put down some thoughts on where the world will go in the next 365 days.

The best place to start is ironically to look back on the past year, and what a year it has been. Political and physical landscapes have shifted dramatically with the Arab spring continuing to roar around the middle east (and the world) over a year after one man commited possibly the most important act of martyrdom that the modern world has seen. Decades old regimes have toppled as populations long held under the thumb of oppression have risen up in joint determination for something better.

Nature has continued to batter the land with Earthquakes in New zealand and Asia leading to the Terrible Tsunami that shook japan and changed its coast line for good. The US has not been safe with Hurricanes and Tornadoes battering the East coast and Central America.
And of course the financial world continues to struggle through the worst crisis in centuries, entire countries held at the mercy of others, the scale of the problems has come into full view in 2011 with greater clarity the weight of the worlds debt has come crashing down on us.

Technology however has kept going on its merry way with very few mis-steps to talk about. Apple continues to churn out ever increasing products and new iterations of seemingly perfectly good products which we are once more inticed into buying on the promise of new and improved features. Netflix and RIM are ofcourse possibly the two biggest losers of the year, Netflix due to a series of catastrophic mistakes which continued to pile pressure onto the company while seemingly pushing its entire consumer base away. 2012 however promises to be easier to navigate and a chance for the company to move on from the mistakes of 2011. I firmly believe that Netflix can keep its head up and move out of this dip, expansion into Europe will open up a whole new market for them but they need to make a big impression right off the bat to really take hold of a market dominated by Amazon's LoveFilm service. RIM however will not have such a positive outlook, another year of declining sales and market share being devoured by Apple and Android based phones (even Microsoft could be seen to have had a more succesful year with its MSP7 platform and a new deal with Nokia).

So where does that leave us, what do we have to look forward to in the year to come, well below i have come up with a few suggestions for trends, products and announcements we might be seeing in the year ahead. of course with any prediction im just waiting to be proven wrong (very wrong).

1. Digital Distribution pick up:
Its been on the cards for a few years and with high street stores and the retail sector in general starting to show the strain, even companies such as HMV which only a few years ago would have been seen as one of the safest and best bets in the retail market is now walking on a knife edge and at the will of its lenders. As the retail sector shows more and more strain on the high street the digital space will open wide and we will see huge increases in the levels of online shopping and most importantly Digital distribution in the lucrative video games market. DD for video games has been picking up in recent years but still faces large hurdles in terms of rolling out the infrastructure to cope with fast downloads of full retail titles. While people are happy to wait 30 min to and hour to download the latest XBLA game the chances are that when they want to play the latest call of duty or Elder scrolls game they will be less inclined to waste an entire day of download time (let alone the bill) when they could pop down to the shops and be playing again in an hour or two.

So in conclusion;

• Digital sales of music will continue to increase as the level of physical music drops.
• Movies and TV will also see increases in terms of online activity but i believe that most of the growth will come from Streaming services such as Netflix and Hulu. these services will get increased competition as cable channels and networks try to muscles into the market in similar fashions as ESPN/NBC/BBC/ITV etc etc.
• Blu Ray will slowly start to replace the humble DVD as the sole physical format for films as DVD sales fall due to the online activity.
• DD for video games wil also continue to build up momentum. More companies wil join the likes of EA and Valve in having an online outlet for their own content. This will be helped by our next point....

2. High-speed internet arrives:
Now while we in the West tend to think that in terms of technology we rule the metaphorical sea. However there is one key area in which we still lag way behind our cousins  in the far east. The speed  of our internet is not only slow compared to the connection in areas like South Korea but it is akin to comparing broadband to a simple Dial up connection (complete with sound effects). 2012 however will be the year that this changes as telecommunications companies (backed by government subsidies) roll out fibre optic broadband as the norm. The UK government (and that of my own government here in Jersey) have put not only the mouths but also there money behind a multitude of schemes to help build up the infrastructure neccesary to power the sort of technological growth which can propel our economies forwards. This will come as a welcome sight to those who wish to see my first prediction come about as the improved systems and increased tranfser speeds will make Digital Distribution available to the Whole of the markets and not just those who are willing to leave the computer buzzing through the night and can bare to see the size of the numbers at the bottom of their phone bills.

3. Ultrabooks turn up very quietly (litterally):
As with the short lived Netbook i just cant see the Ultrabook being anything more than a passing "Luxury Item". People like having DVD-drives, people like having large hard drives and people certainly dont like paying more for a product that has only has slightly more functionality than a tablet PC that costs a fraction of the price. The only bright light in this area will continue to be the Macbook Air which profits from the illusion that all Apple products have which is that of it being a neccessity, my views on the iPad can be read in previuos blog posts. 2012 therefore will be the year in which the Ultrabook staked its claim but in which it lies relatively undisturbed at the far reaches of the consumer scope.

4. Social Networks quiet down:
The big story of 2011 for those looking at this area was easily the introduction of a competitor to the goliath of Facebook. Google certainly came into the ring with fists raised and arms swinging however it seemed to retreat into its corner as soon as the first bell was rung. For now the boys at google seem to be content to build up its user base and reinforce its positive image. 2012 for me will be all about the "Micro-Network", this is where small websites will set up their own (probably entirely public) networks where peple can comment and post on various stories and ideas. It will essentially be the next step for commenters who rather than having a small box at the bottom of a page will join a broader discussion in a seperate forum type scenario.

Well there you have it, 4 predictions for the year ahead. I will aim to keep you all up to date in relation to how these areas flourish in the year to come.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.


Edmond Webbe

Youtube & the Future of Entertainment

The way in which we consume info and entertainment has dramatically changed in the last decade. Through HD and Blu-Ray onto 3D formats the quality of our products has increased exponentially the quality of content being broadcast at us. But the biggest shift in the way that we view material has been the boom of streaming. As internet speed have increased so has the amount we all want to download. Nowadays we are streaming shows via Netflix or BBC iPlayer while simultaneously downloading a new film onto our Xbox's, all while  downloading the latest album straight onto our smart phones.

Never before have we had so many ways of getting the media "we want" straight to our homes. And here is the key, "personal choice". Why spend money on an expensive cable or satellite bill in order to get hundreds of channels you will never use when you can get exactly what you want, when you want it and for a price that you know is only going towards the cost of the shows that you want to see.

In the title of this piece i made a point to name one of the sites that i believe will be central to the viewing experience in the future. Youtube is vast, both in its content and use. Almost anything can be found on it, from catching up with the latest current affairs or fashion news it is fast becoming the hub around which people live their lives and i believe that this will move into the entertainment experience in the future. Rather than searching through multiple channels in a menu on your TV screen you will be searching for the latest videos from channels which you the user has subscribed to.

The future of entertainment is simple. Its all about getting the viewer exactly what they want and exactly when they want it, no matter where they are in the world.

Facebook Format-Change Syndrome

Yes everyone it's that time of year again. When all over the internet the screams of anger start to pick up. I am of course referring to the backlash that has arisen once again over the changes to our beloved Facebook. Its amazing how angry some get over the smallest changes to the social networking site, but the question you have to ask yourselves is simple, "why do people get so angry". Many psychologists and industry analysts have pointed to a seemingly primal hatred for change or maybe its the idea of having to re-learn the website which gets some peoples metaphorical panties in a twist.

This is however a seemingly short lived anger for many, in a few weeks time as always happens, the shouts start to diminish and the comment boxes begin to lose interest as suddenly everyone realises how little any of this matters. We still get access to all the same functions we used to, but now we may have something new to fiddle our privacy settings for. Why then do we get such a huge reaction when mere weeks ago the world was pledging to sink the website in a mass exodus in outrage at the company?

My answer would be that it is merely a case herd mentality once again being amplified by the mechanics of the social networked world in which we live. Either that or there is just a whole lot of crazy people out there.