Telstra has revealed the addition of almost one million new mobile services in the six months to December 2011, but Sensis revenues plummeted 24 percent in 12 months.
A recent showing of PlayStation 3 at 2007 Sony Expo in Honolulu over the weekend confirmed what many in gaming world expected - Sony won't be able to make the PS3 fast enough to meet initial demand from gamers. However, with the impending release of Nintendo Wii, it has become evident that a fork has developed in the philosophy of home entertainment and games consoles.
Judging by the reports that PS3 "scalpers"
who were able to get on the pre-order list are selling their pre-order
rights to fanatical gamers on eBay for more than US$2000, the scarce
PS3 will be a hot item in the US and no doubt also Japan over the
holiday season. At the same time, the far less pricey and far more
abundant Wii will also sell like hot cakes around the world.
Many of the intending PS3 buyers, according to their own admissions,
will also buy Wii consoles because the two consoles offer different
gaming experiences.
PS3, from the latest reports, offers power and graphics to die for. Its
computing engine, centered around the cell processor, is the stuff of
supercomputers, enabling unprecedented graphics and detail.
According to an Associated Press report, long lines of gamers, mostly
males, from 12 year olds to baby boomers, were busting to get a try out
of the two machines on display at the Sony event.
However, those are gamers. What about non-gamers?
This is where the fork has developed in the philosophy of home
entertainment. Both Sony and Microsoft have taken the view that to
entice non-gamers to open their wallets, they have to provide them with
a one-stop media center, luring them with non-gaming features such as
video streaming, internet browsing, video playback and, of course,
high-definition video.
Nintendo, which openly admits that it has opted out of the hi-tech
race, believes it can entice non-gamers to take home a console not
through throwing in media center goodies but by convincing more people
to become gamers. Cheaper price aside, the motion sensitive "Wiimote"
as far as Nintendo is concerned will make it easier and more intuitive
to play games and therefore the target market for Wii will be widened
to include gamers and non-gamers, kids and adults.
There are plenty of analysts who believe that Nintendo is on to
something. Whether the Wii will actually create a market revolution
(sounds like a good name for a console) and bring new gamers to the
table is another matter.
As far as PS3 is concerned, its main problem outside Japan, according
to some pundits, is likely to be Xbox 360. Superior graphics,
processing power and Blu-ray, may not be a sufficient lure for the
extra money users will have to spend, especially given the Xbox 360 is
more natural fit with a Windows-based home network.
PS3 and Wii are two consoles which are now at opposite ends of the
spectrum of gaming philosophy. About one year from now, we'll all have
a better idea of who was a better judge of the market.
David Bass
| For the fourth year in a row, IDC has placed content security provider Websense (NASDAQ: WBSN) at the top of the IDC Worldwide Web Security 2011 –…
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