Welcome Guest [Log In] [Register]
Welcome to Whip Ass Gaming Forums!


You're currently viewing the forums as a guest. The only limitation on guests, here at WAG Forums, is that you simply cannot contribute posts/pics/whatever. You can view all forums, all pics, all member profiles, everything. If you're just here to lurk, feel free continuing to do so...there is no reason to sign up for an account. However, if you would like to contribute then go ahead and start the registration process!


Join our community!


NOTE: I have no idea why the board defaults to centering everything when you're lurking/not logged in. Once logged in, it aligns everything to the left(as it should be).

If you're already a member...log in:

Username:   Password:
Add Reply
Megacorps are bad for gaming; Sony, EA, Activision, MS, and their ilk
Topic Started: Oct 24 2006, 09:29 AM (6,736 Views)
sheath
Member Avatar
I have been, and remain, non-sequitur
Phillips is done, investors credit Sony even though it is a little late for them as well. I will throw a party when I see an announcement like this with Sony as the topic.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2414820,00.asp

Philips Leaves the Consumer Electronics Industry it Helped Create
Once one of the biggest brands in electronics, Philips is sticking with lighting and health care, and leaving consumer devices to others.

Jamie Lendino By Jamie Lendino
January 29, 2013 01:30pm EST

Today brings some sad, if not entirely unexpected, news for consumer electronics fans. Philips, once an electronics industry giant, is selling off its audio and video product business to Japan's Funai Electric for roughly $200 million, in an effort to focus on more profitable industries such as medical equipment and lighting products, according to The Wall Street Journal.

It's been quite some time since Philips, as a brand, has been relevant to the conversation in consumer tech. But that wasn't always the case.

The Golden Years
It's pretty common knowledge that Philips invented the compact cassette in 1963 and unveiled the compact disc (CD) in 1982 with Sony. The first cassette player, the EL-3300, is pictured below. But Philips also created the first boom box and first video cassette recorder, and co-authored the laserdisc format in the mid 1970s to boot. As the Journal article points out, Philips originally got its start as the world's biggest supplier of radios in the 1930s.

That's a pretty significant chunk of consumer electronics history right there, and it's all from one company. Let's take the long view back for a moment: The 1960s brought stereo music and FM radio to the masses, although both were invented earlier. The 1970s saw revolutions in stereo gear, an entrenched LP market, the adoption of the cassette, and the phasing out of 8-track tapes, along with the birth of the home computer and video game console industries in 1977 with the Apple II and Atari Video Computer System (2600), respectively.

The 1980s brought the home video revolution with VHS tapes and rentals, boom boxes with cassette players, and the "perfect sound forever" of the CD format, which began to supplant LP purchases. The 1990s brought the CD out of the home, with portable and in-dash CD players pushing the cassette aside. With the exception of the home computer industry, Philips played a significant part in all of this, and spent most of these years churning out solid (if often low-end) stereo components, televisions, portable music players, and VCRs, and was making quite a bundle while doing so.

Losing Relevance
Eventually, the money train derailed, and later efforts from the company weren't as successful, either. There was the Philips CD-i, which ended up being part of an "interactive CD" push, one of the early failed efforts at merging various living room technologies. That was a tough one; here we are 20 years later, the Sony PS3 and Xbox 360 have done much more for that concept than any device before them, and yet you can still argue the idea isn't quite finished yet.Philips EL-3300

Philips also introduced DCC, the digital compact cassette, which was a rival to Sony's MiniDisc. It sounded a bit better, but like MiniDisc, was still a lossy compression format and kind of a precursor to MP3 files. Then the MP3 format took hold, the price of hard disk space plummeted, and both events eventually sealed the fate of the MiniDisc and DCC. Most recently, Philips shifted focus toward iPod speaker docks, flat panel TVs, and Blu-ray players in the consumer electronics space, but it wasn't enough.

This all makes me wonder what people will look back on from today. It's pretty clear the iPod will factor in. The iPhone and Android will be considered historic, as will the iPad. The Kindle seems to have taken the mantle as the first important ebook reader, even though Sony had one for years before the first Amazon device. But Philips can lay credit to a number of significant "firsts," as listed above.

The Spotlight Is Now On Software
The reality is, once-storied names in consumer electronics like Philips, RCA, and I hate to suggest this, Sony, are being pushed aside by newcomers (or at least, companies new to the industry) like Samsung, Apple, Vizio, and LG. Oddly, the Journal cites Sony as one of the companies to push Philips aside, along with Apple and Samsung. That may have been true if we were writing this story in the 1990s, but Sony has been struggling for quite a while now in many of the most visible of the businesses in which it competes.

Regardless, the most important stuff isn't happening in hardware, but instead in software, as Google, Apple, Facebook, Twitter, and Amazon can attest. It's possible Philips's consumer electronics products will survive under different ownership, but it's unlikely, and just as anyone who visits compusa.com or circuitcity.com can see about those brands, the glory days are over and the name won't mean anything. It's the biggest cliché in the book, but time really does march on.
www.gamepilgrimage.com
Buy the games of yore before they are no more
Posted Image
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
sheath
Member Avatar
I have been, and remain, non-sequitur
EA's CEO is out, and the internet is loud with Racket about why.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2013-03-18-john-riccitiello-out-at-ea
www.gamepilgrimage.com
Buy the games of yore before they are no more
Posted Image
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
sheath
Member Avatar
I have been, and remain, non-sequitur
I could have sworn that I posted this here back in 2009, but with the transition to the "NEW ZOMG" HD consoles coming up I wanted to read it again.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/definition-transition-editorial



By Rob Fahey

Fri 04 Sep 2009 7:00am GMT / 3:00am EDT / 12:00am PDT
Hardware

The HD transition is still a work in progress - and it's happening more slowly than expected

The reshuffling of console offerings and price points by Sony and Microsoft in recent weeks has had a number of consequences - some more surprising than others. UK commentary has tended to focus on the unexpected price rise for the 360 Arcade model, which has actually raised the base level cost of entry to the current gen console market - but another move which has raised eyebrows is the decision to bundle very basic AV cables with both the slim PS3 and the new Xbox 360 Elite model.

What this means is that, several years into the console generation which was meant to herald the glorious arrival of high definition, not a single console system is presently being sold with an HDMI cable in the box. Microsoft, at least, bundles a cable which can output component, which does enable some HD resolutions - the PS3 slim simply doesn't come with any HD-capable cables at all.

Vocal consumers have voiced disbelief at the move, and many in the industry haven't been far behind. After all, years of visiting friends' houses to discover previous generations of console hardware plugged into perfectly decent TVs with dreadful composite cables or, worse, RF adaptors, have taught us that most consumers will use whatever cable comes in the box and never bother buying a new one. Aren't Sony and Microsoft selling themselves - and this entire generation of hardware and software - short?

Perhaps not. From the perspectives of these companies, they want to include the cable which will be of most utility to the largest group of consumers possible, and it's clear that whatever research they have done suggests that the majority of consumers don't need - or rather, can't use - an HDMI cable. Neither firm wants to put an assortment of cables in the box "just in case" - each additional cable erodes millions from the firm's profitability, after all.

So something - and I'm going to assume that it's detailed research, rather than a cost-saving hunch - leads Sony and Microsoft to believe that the lion's share of their consumers aren't going to be plugging their consoles into HD-ready, HDMI-equipped TVs. But this is late 2009 - hasn't the world gone HD yet, as we were all led to believe it would?

Supporting evidence that all is not well with the HD transition comes from Epic Games' Mark Rein, who told Eurogamer earlier this summer that "over half the users who played Gears of War 2 so far do not have HDTVs".

Gears of War is a core gamer franchise, beloved of early adopters and the soi disant hardcore. If less than half of those users are playing on HDTVs, what must the percentages be like for games like FIFA and Pro Evolution Soccer - let alone Singstar and Buzz, or popular movie tie-in titles?

Listening to the vocal minority of upstream gamers who post on internet forums and make their voices heard, one would think that HD had reached a high degree of market penetration and that SD television remained only as a rapidly disappearing relic of the past. The reality, however, is that the landscape for HD television is still extremely fractured.

We've known for years that HD televisions were routinely being sold to users who didn't know that they needed additional hardware and cables to actually see HD programmes and content. It's extremely common, even today, to walk into a home and see an expensive HDTV hooked up to a DVD player (non-upscaling) and a standard definition cable or satellite box. The owners are often convinced that they're watching in HD, simply by virtue of owning a HDTV.

What's becoming increasingly clear is that the inverse is also true. HD content players - such as games consoles - are being sold to households that don't have a HDTV suitable for them, and are therefore being left to run in SD. In cases where a consumer owns both a HDTV and a HD console, there's a strong possibility that they've used the wrong cable or the wrong settings, and are getting an SD picture anyway. It's interesting to wonder to what extent this problem also afflicts Blu-Ray players, and may even fuel the lukewarm consumer response to BRD technology.

Faced with this reality, a few conclusions are inescapable. Firstly, Nintendo - as so often in recent years - is the company left laughing all the way to the bank. Sony and Microsoft bet heavily on HDTV adoption to drive their console sales, and many commentators confidently predicted that Nintendo would suffer for its decision to stick with SD technology in the Wii.

Now it seems that the expensive HD hardware in the Xbox 360 and PS3 is sitting idle in a majority of those consoles, a fact which also makes the oft-repeated suggestion that Nintendo is preparing a "Wii HD" revision as a matter of urgency seem a little silly, to say the least.

Secondly, the industry needs to rethink its approach to the HD transition. It was widely expected that the transition would be pretty much done by this stage, but the reality is that legacy devices and cables are holding it back - and the recession hasn't done any favours to the uptake of new televisions either.

Things will get worse before they get better. Sony and Microsoft are both comfortably through the early adopter phases now, and as a result, the percentage of HD-enabled customers is likely to fall sharply as they sell more and more consoles. The first 20 million consumers to buy each console were probably fairly tech-savvy and quite likely to be ready for HD. The next 20 million, however, will be far more likely to be plugging the Xbox 360 into an SD set, or using an inappropriate cable - or, perhaps most notably, plugging the console into a smaller TV in a bedroom.

For developers, this simply means that ensuring that games play well in SD resolutions is going to become increasingly important. For platform holders, it's an even bigger challenge - if the Xbox 360 and PS3 are outputting in SD, their perceived advantage over the Wii is eroded even further. They will have to compete on interface and experience (as they are attempting with their motion control solutions) rather than on visual fidelity.

The bottom line is this - the HD transition cannot be spoken of in the past tense. It's still happening now, much more slowly than many commentators seem to believe - we're probably less than halfway through, and the second half will be much tougher and slower than the first. It makes talk of a transition to 3D seem even more premature - let's try and get the last transition finished before we worry about the next one.
www.gamepilgrimage.com
Buy the games of yore before they are no more
Posted Image
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
sheath
Member Avatar
I have been, and remain, non-sequitur
Sony owns exclusive rights to MLB. Sony fans rejoice.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=746899
www.gamepilgrimage.com
Buy the games of yore before they are no more
Posted Image
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Belpowerslave
Member Avatar
Administrator
Well, as much as it pains me to say it, it's not really Sony we need be upset about on this one. The MLB and the US laws that just overlook monopolies for large companies, that's who needs the blame here. It's unreal that EA got away with the NFL license thing, it's even moreso that Sony will get away with it now...but you can't really blame them for taking it...I mean, if illegal business practices like this are just overlooked by the law, why not practice them? It's sad, but it's also the truth.

What I can see Sony doing with it is allowing any third party developers to use it, as long as their baseball game is a PS3/4/Vita exclusive. That, along with EA's monopoly of the NFL license could put the Xbox One at a serious disadvantage, because now EA can threaten to pull the Madden series if MS doesn't allow for whatever it is they're crying about at the moment(use of their own servers, their own in-game microtransactions, Origin, etc, etc). Imagine if Sony could bribe EA to make Madden a PS3/4/Vita exclusive...the end of baseball *and* football for anything other than a Sony system. That would be a knockout blow to the Xbox One(and 360).

It's stuff like this that makes me want to just stick with my PC and my older consoles...

Bel
Whip Ass Gaming
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
sheath
Member Avatar
I have been, and remain, non-sequitur
Well, they could not do it out of integrity and corporate ethics. *laughs* Sony never had that in any form so of course they did the natural thing for a sociopathic and megalomaniacal megacorp, buy it up and shut the competition down without a thought.

In other news, Sony was supposed to be toast if 3D TVs failed as of what 2010? Well they survived that too, and I rarely even see Sony TVs in department stores anymore, Sam's Club doesn't carry them at all.

http://www.avclub.com/article/3d-tvs-arent-really-a-thing-anymore-106743

Quote:
 

Much to the chagrin of all seven people who bought them, it looks like 3-D TVs will no longer be one of the technologies of the future. According to Variety, electronics company Vizio has dropped 3-D support from its 2014 lineup of televisions, just the latest harbinger that 3-D television is all but over. Instead, the company is focusing on Ultra HD TVs, which provide four times the resolution of regular HD. Those sets will support Netflix’s newly developed 4K content, which right now basically amounts to the upcoming second season of House Of Cards.

Back in the innocent days of 2010, 3-D televisions were spotlighted as the next big thing in TV manufacturing. The trend never really caught on, however, partially due to the lack of content—but mostly due to the fact that wearing 3-D glasses in your house feels really stupid. ESPN shut down its 3-D channel last year, and Vizio’s decision looks to be the final nail in the coffin. Perhaps now Vizio can dedicate its resources to developing the flying cars, hoverboards, and powerlacing shoes that Back To The Future II promised us would be around by 2015.


Next up, 4K TVs with nothing but Coaxial, RCA and HDMI inputs. No S-Video or Component for you!
www.gamepilgrimage.com
Buy the games of yore before they are no more
Posted Image
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Belpowerslave
Member Avatar
Administrator
I'll never understand these moron-technology companies and their need to constantly put out the next "biggest and best" thing. We're barely to the point where most people even have an HDTV, and they now want us to buy in to 4K? Fuck that. I hope it flops harder than 3D HDTVs did...

With that said, I still wouldn't mind picking up a 3D HDTV just for gaming...but it'd have to be at a hell of a better price than they are now.

With the PS4, Sony is just doing everything right...I just can't see MS competing this time around, not after this horrible start they've had. This whole "Playstation Now" thing is going to be huge with those who have the bandwidth to support it and will almost immediately solve their problems of backwards compatibility. MS should have bought OnLive and done this first. The only thing I can see saving the Xbox One at this point is dropping the Kinect off of it and the price to well under the PS4. Even then, it still may not make a huge difference.

To me, it just seems like a good time to get away from the consoles. I'll enjoy my "three more years" of Xbox 360 content(this is what MS has quoted, but I'm sure they'll drop it before then), perhaps get a full BC PS3 unit(so I can have a PS1/2/3 in the same console) down the line and call it at that.

Bel
Whip Ass Gaming
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
sheath
Member Avatar
I have been, and remain, non-sequitur
As far as I can tell it's just blind stock holder expectation. Everything must go up, and a technology company can't keep improving its financials unless it is constantly making consumers buy something over and over. The days of making a product that just works, and works well, and stays working, has been replaced with the ultimate consumer "heaven" where everything is "cheap" so you just throw it away and buy it again at the first sign of trouble. My problem with this is nothing is cheap, only moron consumers think $300-500 is cheap.

I was pretty much done with the HD generation of consoles by 2009, only the Batman Arkham games have interested me and they have already gone stale. I am almost certain that the game industry has abandoned everything that ever kept me interested in the first place.
www.gamepilgrimage.com
Buy the games of yore before they are no more
Posted Image
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
sheath
Member Avatar
I have been, and remain, non-sequitur
Bel showed me to this last week and I really am not surprised it has not been a trending article across the various forums.

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2015/02/oddworld-creator-ex-sony-exec-put-half-the-dev-community-out-of-business/

"Midway through, the conversation came off the rails as the gaming veterans, and board members of the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences, discussed the only time the two men had seriously argued. The board wanted to vote to award a lifetime achievement award to former Sony Worldwide Studios President Ken Kutaragi, Yoshida recalled, but only 'one bold member' offered a nay vote.

'I was totally opposed to it!' Lanning said in response at the keynote. 'He changed half of the industry, is what you said. I said he put half of the development community out of business!'"

...

"Yoshida, to his credit, acknowledged the developer-unfriendly issues of those consoles' hardware: 'The making of unique hardware of PS2, and that [game makers] eventually learned how to [design for it], it enforced Ken’s vision of making great hardware innovation.' Yoshida said. 'In a sense, he had the confidence to say, 'When you see a high mountain, you have to climb.' His confidence was, top teams who would overcome. That didn’t help the philosophy of designing for PS3.'"
www.gamepilgrimage.com
Buy the games of yore before they are no more
Posted Image
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
ZetaBoards - Free Forum Hosting
Free Forums with no limits on posts or members.
« Previous Topic · Anything'a'Gamin'...and more · Next Topic »
Add Reply