A new report from PriceWaterhouseCoopers expects an accelerating growth in the global entertainment and media industries that will propel the sales from $1.3 trillion in 2004 to $1.8 trillion in 2009 (average growth of 7.3%). Of this, the global video game market will reach $55 billion in total software revenues by 2009, with the U.S. video game market making up $15.1 billion of this amount.

Segway, the company best known for its two-wheel Human Transporter, will begin to license its smart-motion technology and know-how to other companies, and it will jointly develop new products with them.

The first technology license for Segway will be with Hong Kong-based Wow Wee. Wow Wee will use the Segway technology in its next generation of robotic entertainment products such as Robosapien, Roboraptor and Robopet.

Microsoft showcased the Xbox Media Center Extender (MCE) at the Intel Developer Forum (IDF) this week. MCE allows the user to stream various types of content, including HDD video, from a Media Center PC to the Xbox 360.

Chris Merris of CNN presents, in an August 24th article, a great look at a possibility that several in the game industry have proposed. Is Sony bluffing about how expensive the Playstation 3 will be?

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The Technology Suits looked into the business strategy of a move like this by Sony and think that it is quite reasonable. If Sony is playing a “bait and switch” game with the price of the PS3, will it hurt Microsoft and the Xbox 360? Not likely.

Even if the PS3 does release around the $300 price point or even less, Microsoft is still in a better position by entering the next generation race 8 to 12 months before the competitors. Console manufactures have historically sold each console at a steep loss per unit, where console licenses for each game sold on the system bring in significant revenues down the line. Many analysts have claimed that Sony in fact often sells hardware at a loss to maintain brand strength and market share, with Sony’s video game revenues and movie divisions subsidizing at least portions of the hardware businesses.

Early adopters and many hardcore gamers will no doubt buy the Xbox 360 at the proposed $300 and $400 prices, and the more expensive bundles of games and accessories will likely increase the overall stigma of a “must have” item. This higher price point will lessen the loss that Microsoft experiences form each console sale and help the bottom line.

When the final pricing for the PS3 is announced and it goes on sale, Microsoft will be in a position to decide whether or not to drop the price to be more competitive with Sony’s release. Plus, Microsoft will have many months to monitor consumer views on the high prices and new technology.

By moving first, Microsoft may be in a position to manipulate the 360’s price to track closer with consumers’ willingness to play and maximize revenues, but Sony will have the extra time to learn from Microsoft’s mistakes, as will Nintendo with the Revolution (We have not forgotten it and are excited to hear more details on the Revolution.). While the PlayStation 3’s hardware specs may be fairly locked down, Sony can continue to tweak the software offering with the console such as media center functionality, DVR capabilities and integration with other digital services.

Boost Mobile has partnered with Blister Entertainment to offer the first two location based games offered nationwide on a commercial basis in the United States. Swordfish and Torpedo Bay transform the phone into a window into a new virtual world.

The Technology Suits issued a call earlier this year for more innovation in the location based gaming arena, and Blister has answered the call first for the United States. Several of us here also know the Blister team quite well and are happy to see their progress. Now a little about the games:

Microsoft has promised for months that the Xbox 360 will be available for the 2005 holiday season, and today, the company has moved one step closer to that goal.
Microsoft released packaging detail on the Xbox 360, its price and confirmation on a release this year. The next-gen system will be available in […]

Almost half of the U.S. wireless subscribers now own phones capable of downloading games, and 27% of those (or 13.5% of the total population) play games (premium, free or demo) on their phones. This is up from 20% of those with game capable handsets last year.
The NPD Group invited a balanced group of teens […]

Is Google planning to offer nationwide WiFi? Business 2.0 is running a story touching many of the highpoints of the idea, but analysts covering Google have been following the company’s move in this area for a number of months.

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With Google’s recent fiber-optic purchases/leases and the rollout of Feeva, Google does appear to positioning itself to offer WiFi to the masses, at least in major cities.

Will “GoogleNet” be free? That is the next question. Google does offer some services/software for a fee and has continually told analysts that standard sales/licensing processes remain a viable option. However, it is much more likely that a WiFi offering by Google will be paid for, at least in part, via advertising similar to the majority of its services. Consumers often view searches on Google/Yahoo or even basic television as free, but it is not. These services are paid for from advertisers. While consumers may not pay initially, the advertising budget supporting these services come from consumers purchases online, in stores or from service centers. The business model is simply different.

A new research from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Nanyang Technological University in Singapore finds no evidence of a strong link between video game violence and aggressive behavior in players.

The study followed a “treatment” group of 75 people that had never played MMORPGs before and played Asheron’s Call 2 for the first time in the study and a control group of 138, who did not play the game. The only flaw that we initially see in reading the summaries is that the partipants, with ages from 14 to 68, were solicited through online message boards which may limit the personality types much more than a true random sample.

We have seen web-based applications/sites like LinkedIn, MySpace and Friendster become quite popular and expand the average view of what exactly networking is and how to organize a business/social network. Now, we see a Chicago based company release a new social networking application that continues to push the envelope of “connections”.
The application […]

The internet has been ablaze recently with talk of map products from Google and Microsoft. These additions are really cool to look at but do not seem to offer real value or things to do in the worlds. As an avid gamer, I was questioning, haven’t we seen similar things from games in the past. […]

While the industry saw a “few early pioneers brave the location frontier”, with titles such as BotFighters, Mogi-Mogi, and Undercover 1, the technology and networks simply were not available to support mass market location based games (LBG). Now, the technology has been rolled out and network bandwidth has been increased. Why have we seen no real mass market LBG?

Kurt Uhlir, Chicago-based technologist and IGDA Mobile-SIG Chairperson, believes that innovation and a better understanding of location technologies and source material by game developers has been the barrier, but that wall is falling…

From an article from July Edition of 3D World Magazine:

Two years ago, experts predicted that by 2005, 3D games on mobile devices would be everywhere. They were premature - yet recent stirrings suggest the sleeping giant is finally waking. The article includes quotes from Kurt Uhlir - IGDA Mobile-SIG Chair and Chicago-based technologist, Thor Gunnarsson […]

The IGDA’s Casual Games SIG has just released 2005 Casual Games White Paper (2MB, 125 page pdf).
The White Paper is the work of over 30 volunteers in the casual games space, and the list of contributors reads almost like a who’s who of the industry including; AOL, TryMedia, Skunk Studios, Large Animal, Pogo, Shockwave, […]

YDreams pushes the envelope of mobile gaming with the release of their next generation Mobile MMOG and Location Based Game - Undercover 2: Merc Wars™. Not only that, but they have already picked up a TV show (in Portugal, the company’s home country) to cover game universe.

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