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.
The scene is set for a high definition console smackdown, with Microsoft launching the Xbox 360's HD DVD drive in Australia on March 29 - just six days after Sony's Blu-ray-equipped PlayStation 3 hits the shelves.
High definition is finally going mainstream in the Australia's digital lounge rooms, with Blu-ray and HD DVD set to fight it out as part of the console wars. Considering the ass-whooping the PlayStation 2 gave the Xbox in terms of sales, you'd hope the HD DVD camp isn't placing too much hope on the Xbox 360 helping it defeat Blu-ray.
The XBox 360's HD DVD drive will sell for $AU250, on top of the $AU600 or more for the Xbox 360 itself. In comparison the PS3 comes with Blu-ray as standard but will sell for an amazing $AU1000! That's with a 60GB hard drive, the 20GB model will be closer to $AU800 but Sony is holding that out until later in the year so they can milk early adopters for everything they've got.
The XBox 360's HD DVD drive comes with a universal remote controller and a copy of Peter Jackson's King Kong in HD DVD. Sadly high definition won't help the fact that King Kong is about an hour too long. More pixels can't improve a bad movie.
Gamers with deep pockets and an eye for image quality might be excited about high definition movie playback on consoles, but no-one will be more excited than those selling big-arse, high def televisions. The introduction of digital television in Australia has been a disaster thanks to the luddites in Canberra, so retailers are relying on Blu-ray and HD DVD players to move high def televisions off the shelves. More high def televisions in Australian lounge rooms might in turn be the kick start digital television needs to make some inroads. Considering Samsung's first Blu-ray player sells for $AU1600 and Toshiba's first HD DVD player for $AU1100, games consoles would seem the cheapest way to get some high def action into your lounge room.
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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