The local blog
News
Internet ‘explorer’ Looses Users
Jan 3rd
In the last quarter, Chrome, Safari and Opera all set new personal bests for browser market share with 4.63, 4.46 and 2.4 percent respectively. This period marks the first time Chrome has beaten Safari to third spot, while their collective prosperity comes at the expense of IE, which continues to hemorrhage users at a rate of 0.92 percentage points a month. Microsoft’s 62.7 percent slice might still look mighty, but projections from Net Applications suggest it could shrink to below 50 percent by May of this year. Unless something magical happens. You’ll probably also want to know that Net Applications monitors incoming traffic to over 40,000 websites and generates a sample size of about 160 million unique visitors each month — making the veracity of its claims pretty robust. One hidden sign of our collective laziness: 21 percent of all users last quarter were still fulfilling their browsing needs with IE 6. For shame.
Top 10 Mobile Phones in U.S
Dec 23rd
Fact: most phones last. Thing is, for us (and likely many of you), they last far longer than our clinically-diagnosed Gadget Attention Deficit Disorder would ever tolerate — but for your dad, your sister, your college buddy with the hand-me-down ZEOS Pantera running Windows 95, or anyone weary of re-upping a two-year commitment, a handset can easily become a serious long-term investment. That helps explain why Motorola’s venerable RAZR series remains staggeringly high on Nielsen’s latest US phone usage report — third place, to be exact, at 2.3 percent of all subscribers behind the iPhone 3G at 4 percent and RIM’s BlackBerry Curve line at 3.7 percent. Needless to say, that doesn’t mean the ancient V3 line is still in third place for sales — it’s more a testament to the staggeringly huge RAZR user base Moto managed to develop over the years, many of whom scored their phones at sub-$100 price points as an attractive, midrange value in the phone’s twilight and have no intention of upgrading any time soon if they don’t have to. Maybe the most interesting part of this is that two V3 variants are also topping 2009’s most-recycled list, so they’re definitely getting taken out of circulation — it just might take a few years yet before you don’t know anyone that uses one, that’s all.
What the Game Industry Could Learn from the Film Industry
Dec 13th
I’ve got the Monsters, Inc. Blu-ray in my hand. But it’s more than just a Blu-ray. It’s a BD for my PS3, a DVD for my bedroom and a digital copy for my laptop.
Disney, who is probably the most IP-protective company in the entertainment industry, realizes that I’m a lot more likely to buy their Monsters, Inc. Blu-ray for a small price premium if it includes every other format I could possibly want.
So why isn’t the video games industry offering me the same choice with multi-platform titles like Call of Duty? Or, put differently, why is it that buying Call of Duty on the 360 doesn’t give me a portable version for the DS or my iPhone?
I know, how ignorant of me to ask such a question! Porting a Call of Duty title from the Xbox 360 to PS3 is an expensive endeavor—we’re talking huge development teams costing millions of dollars. For the DS or Wii, it’s likely that game is designed again from the ground up to accommodate the unique hardware and lower processor specs. If I own an Xbox and a DS, they can’t just give me the DS version for cheap or free!
Or could they?
Let’s use Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2’s numbers as an example. According to data from VGChartz, 4,890,348 discs sold of Xbox 360 version alone in the first week. Imagine, for a moment, that $5 extra would buy you Modern Warfare 2 on Xbox 360 alongside a bonus version for the DS. If only 10% of buyers were tempted into this upsell, that’s 489,000 additional DS version sold, or an extra $2,445,170 in DS-related revenue for Activision.
And for all of you think this would just cannibalize DS sales, I respond, what sales? Only 12,000 units of the DS’s Modern Warfare 2 sold over the same period of time. (More figures on Kotaku.) Plus, by using digital downloads tied to existing PSN, Xbox Live and Nintendo accounts, software companies could greatly limit sharing/resale of these extra versions.
Assuming my rough numbers aren’t too nuts (actually, I believe they are quite conservative), why isn’t the games industry following the movie industry’s lead? Why can’t buying a game on one platform allow you to play it on many?
The real limitation isn’t development costs, it’s that the video games industry is fundamentally designed to ignore competing formats and charge developers licensing fees that would cripple such a model. Nintendo doesn’t want to acknowledge that a gamer might want to play Call of Duty on the Wii for motion controls, on Xbox 360 for networking and on an iPhone for the road. Nintendo wants Nintendo gamers to live in a digital bubble. And the same can be said for Sony and Microsoft.
We’re not supposed to want to play games on more systems than one. But you know what? We already do. According to the NPD, 42% of Xbox 360 and PS3 owners also own a Wii. And if those same numbers were run in relation to mobile devices, including cellphones, the number would skyrocket to nearly 100%.
Nintendo, with the Wii and DS, and Sony, with the PS3 and PSP, are both advantageously positioned to make such a model work. But ideally, software companies and retailers could take such promotions cross-platform, cross-company.
I don’t live in a Utopian dream state, believing that the next generation of games will play on one uniform platform. And in fact, I think diversity and competition within the market is key to innovation. So let’s leverage these differences to a more consumer-centric model that will probably, ultimately, make all involved companies more money while offering shoppers more choice.
Lady Gaga meets Queen Elizabeth II.
Dec 9th
I wonder if they exchanges pleasantries.
You have to hand it to Lady Gaga: she won’t give up her eccentric aesthetic for anyone, not even the Queen of England.
The pop star had the honour of meeting Queen Elizabeth II at the Royal Variety Performance in Blackpool, U.K. last night. According to the U.K. Sun, the singer took the stage in a flowing PVC gown, accessorized with a giant Elizabethan ruff and several red sequins adorning her eyes.
“Good evening, Blackpool,” Gaga said, greeting the audience, playing the piano while suspended 20 feet in the air. “Let me hear you rattle your jewelry.
Even more impressive? The Sun reports the Queen seemed delighted by Lady Gaga when the two met backstage, and the monarch couldn’t suppress her giggles when the singer and self-described “performance artist” curtsied in her elaborate get-up.
`Tween queen Miley Cyrus also performed and met Her Royal Highness, ditching her usual cut-off shorts and Ugg boots for a more appropriate orange gown. Other lucky stars included Michael Buble, Bette Midler, Chaka Khan and Britain’s Got Talent winners Diversity.
Dose.ca
© Copyright (c) Canwest News Service
The 2010 World cup ‘Ball’
Dec 8th
Adidas present the ball that will be used for the 2010 World cup, meet Jabulani
Adidas have just presented the official ball of the next World Cup tournament. Named Jabulani, which means “to celebrate” in Zulu, the new ball has a striking surface 70 percent larger than its predecessor. This has been achieved by reducing the number of panels from fourteen to eight.
Another Adidas trademark technology called Grip’n’Groove should help improve the Jabulani accuracy.
Adidas says that a lot of player input has been taken into consideration when developing the ball (but we bet they’ve said that last year). Never mind, let’s hope this input has been put to the best use, since the balls that the company delivered for the last two World cups received some pretty negative feedback.
We can hardly think of a goalkeeper that didn’t complain about the Fevernova and the Timegeist and their extraordinary flight trajectories. Here’s to hoping that everyone will be happy with it this time and we will be able to focus on the great game itself.
