News for the Week of May 7, 2006
Digital games of all sorts on all manner of devices dominated this week's tech news because of "E3" (for Electronic Entertainment Expo), the annual gaming industry extravaganza. Here are the highlights:
Console wars. Nintendo, with its forthcoming Wii console, and Microsoft, with Xbox 360, are competing hard to draw our attention away from Sony's forthcoming PlayStation 3. Microsoft chairman Bill Gates announced Live Anywhere - gameplay on computers, Xbox 360 and even cellphones, the San Jose Mercury News reports. "Gates said such 'seamless communication' would help Microsoft set itself apart from the rivals." It will also mean more mobile access to the Net and contact with unknown fellow players for young users of Live Anywhere, parents may want to might note (Gates's message is yet another sign that the Net is an ever-growing element of all digital gaming). Nintendo's main message was creative gameplay, like using a controller to conduct a virtual orchestra, the Mercury News adds. Nintendo's also going after the non-gamers at your house, the Detroit Free Press reports. Here's the BBC on this year's console wars.
The price of PlayStation 3. It's steep at $499 for the 20GB version and $599 for the 60GB-hard-drive model. Sony announced its pricing on the eve of E3, the BBC reports. Business Week says "analysts and industry experts attending this week's E3 show said they aren't surprised by the price" because of the Blu-ray optical drive the $599 model has for playing high-definition movies ("stand-alone Blu-ray players retail for around $1,000" right now, it adds). "But at $599, is Sony is pushing - or perhaps even crossing - the line on what consumers will be willing to pay for games?"
"M" is for Oblivion. Another big game story this week was Oblivion's rating change from T (Teen) to M (Mature) because of a mod (a modification sent around the Internet for gamers to download) that allows players to make some game characters topless. Business Week reports that this could be a turning point for the gaming industry, because modders used to increase sales. But by causing a rating change, they're now hurting game companies' sales. This could make gaming development (not play) much less interactive.
Gamer discontent. In a first media-covered sign of MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game) discontent, the BBC reports that players are "left frustrated and angry by ongoing problems with online game World of Warcraft," which claims 6 million players worldwide. There have been reports of server crashes, "long delays to get into the game . countless small hold-ups during play and the disappearance of the interactive parts of the Warcraft world." Blizzard, the creators of Warcraft, which claims more than 6 million players worldwide, "has posted a long explanation of how it is tackling the glitches."
News roundup. Here's CNET's all-E3 page. CNET elsewhere publishes a Reuters report that "the number of Americans who gambled online doubled to about 4% of the population last year, as people were lured by its convenience".
In Other News...
- MySpace passé? Hardly. But young interests do move on, and here's an early sign: "MySpace is just so last year" in the Wichita Eagle. The Eagle leads with the experience of high school sophomore Lula Larios, who has moved on to Bebo.com, a more closed social-networking site along the lines of Facebook.com. The key is that her peer group appears to be at Bebo too. Teens don't switch services individually - it's group migration, which makes any social-networking site, including MySpace "stickier" than your typical Web site. The Eagle looks at other such sites, including Buzznet.com (though for people 18+, its Terms of Service say) and FriendsorEnemies.com (which looks more like an online party, or social, game than mere social-networking). Further evidence, too, of how amorphous social-networking is - it's sprouting all kinds of offshoots, and getting grafted into media-hosting and social-bookmarking or -tagging sites like YouTube.com and TagWorld.com (which the Eagle also mentions).
- Mobile uploads. Just as social-networkers soon won't need computers to use MySpace, video and photo uploaders won't need computers either. Now young video producers can upload their homemade films to YouTube.com with their cellphones, CNET reports. "A growing number of handheld devices are capable of recording video. YouTube wants to disconnect users from their Web cams and computers," according to CNET, which is likely to spell "greater numbers of spontaneous and candid clips." Something for users and their parents to think about. Spontaneity can have a downside for the subjects of spontaneously uploaded video clips.
- More Mac attacks? Macs are reportedly increasingly vulnerable to viruses, worms, etc. Antivirus provider McAfee "claims that Macs are 'just as vulnerable' as Windows PCs, but admits there is no significant risk to Mac users at the moment," ZDNET reports. McAfee now sells VirusScan for Mactel. Here's coverage from Internet News.
- Next social-networking issue. From predation to bullying to marketing. Predation has the highest fear factor, of course, but probably the lowest across-the-board impact; it's also where most of the media attention is stuck at the moment. Bullying, which covers everything from gossipy meanness to harassment to threats of school violence, is definitely on schools' radar screens (so it's the No. 2 SN topic in the media) and needs more parental mindshare. The media are only just beginning to look at the marketing piece. This week CNET gave a great example of what social-networkers can expect on the viral marketing front. "Viral marketing" is the very cost-effective practice of marketers using users as "co-marketers" (instead of one-to-many mass-marketing, it's peer-to-peer, much more personal - a message from a friend is much more influential, the theory goes). The potential, in other words, and what we'll be hearing more about from psychologists and watchdogs, is impressionable kids being used to promote products. Of course, politicians get this, too. California gubernatorial candidate Phil Angelides has a MySpace page, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.
