Today Sony announced that they would be selling and renting video content over the Playstation Store, and I suppose if this was a year ago, that news would have actually been somewhat interesting. But coming off the recent Netflix/Xbox 360 announcement, wherein the 360 would become a Netflix streaming device this fall a la the Roku, any impact from Sony’s announcement has been practically nullified. The sad thing is that this isn’t a new trend for Sony with the PS3, and along with the constant delays of Home, it’s clear that this situation isn’t going to improve anytime soon.
As I’ve stated before, Sony’s main competition this generation is Microsoft. Nintendo is clearly off in their own territory with the success of the Wii, and neither Microsoft nor Sony would gain much by competing directly with the Wii’s low price, motion controls, and mainstream appeal. Instead, they need to scrap it out for dominance among the more regular and hardcore gaming crowds.
In this particular fight, it seems the Playstation 3 will always be left behind. Sony started off a year after the 360, and they also didn’t have the benefit of a strong online platform in the PS2 generation like Microsoft did with the Xbox 1. MS learned a lot from the original implementation of Live, and in doing so they were able to craft a much more polished product for the 360. We may take it for granted now, but I’ll always consider the 360 Live’s focus on online multiplayer to be a major turning point for console gaming. Read the rest of this entry »
photo credit: markhoekstra
How sad it is that the biggest news to come from the Zune front in the past few months is anything but positive: Word is out that Gamestop has stopped selling Zunes.
Honestly, I’m surprised it took this long, not because the Zune 2 is a worthless player (despite what some other news reports seem to love implying), but because it was a dumb idea to sell the Zune 2 in a freaking video game store in the first place. I’m sure some genius marketing drone figured it was a good spot because 1) Gamestop fit the target Zune demographic, 2) they could easily market it as a companion product with the Xbox 360, and 3) they didn’t have any iPod competition. The rest of us saw the futility in that move from the very beginning.
I can only assume that the Gamestop deal wasn’t a large part of Microsoft’s Zune strategy, if only because it would be truly dumb if it was. And let’s not forget the fact that the Zune is still readily available in major stores.
But come to think of it, I haven’t heard much regarding the Zune 2 ever since Microsoft launched Zune Originals program, a service which lets you customize your Zune 2 with artwork by famous hipster types. While it’s certainly cooler than the bland metallic backside of the iPod, it’s certainly not a feature that will convert the iPod faithful or lure away first-time customers to the portable music player scene.
The Zune Store is finally beginning to shape up by adding some television content, but it’s still playing a desperate game of catchup with Apple’s iTunes Store. While MS has always had the $14.99 monthly music subscription model to lord over Apple, it’s simply a matter of time before Steve Jobs decides to implement something similar.
So I suppose the question to ask now is clear: What the heck is Microsoft doing with the Zune? Read the rest of this entry »
Today Netflix announced the full details on their long-awaited set top box. Developed by Roku, a company which already has some experience in the streaming media arena, the device is meant to offer an easy way for Netflix subscribers to access their streaming Netflix media on their televisions. While the device is a logical step for Netflix, it’s also a significant evolutionary step for in-home media as well.
I’m certainly not the only one to recognize this device’s potential; Saul Hansell at the NY Times Bits blog is already calling it the “first shot of the [video] revolution”. He lays out some compelling points on why we should care about this ugly box:
- It has mainstream appeal because it accomplishes exactly what it sets out to do, and does it well at only $100.
- It leaves the harder task of browsing through thousands of Netflix entries up to computers. The user need only select from the “Watch Instantly” items on their queue.
- It proves the hardware for streaming video is cheap, so we’ll probably see it in many other devices soon.
- It’s easily upgradeable to do much more than just play Netflix films in the future.
- It represents the future of internet video — streaming to the television.
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After the demise of HD-DVD, it was pretty much expected that Blu-ray adoption would rise since it no longer had a competitor. According to Bits, that doesn’t seem to be the case:
According to NPD, sales of Blu-ray standalone players plummeted 40 percent from January to February, then rose a scant 2 percent from February to March. The general consensus was that once Toshiba dropped its support for the HD DVD format early this year, sales would increase.
In fact, sales of Blu-ray standalone players remain so low that NPD has not yet released actual numbers, for fear that it would be easy to identify individual retailers. The research group will start to give actual figures later this year, said Ross Rubin, director of industry analysis at NPD.
Emphasis mine
Somehow, I’m not surprised. Even though I was slowly buying into the hype that having one high-definition format was better for consumers in the long run, despite my reservations about the chosen format, I’ve also had the nagging feeling that simply trouncing HD-DVD wasn’t enough. Sony had to prove why average consumers needed Blu-ray. And since HD-DVD hardware was consistently hitting sub-$200 towards the end ofits lifespan, they also had to prove why their players were worth twice the price of Toshiba’s.
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