Catching up on blogs and saw this blog posting on BusinessWeek about the new iPhone, announced at the Apple WWDC, and that the real sexy is about using the motion detector and developers kit to build games:

Today’s previews of new, graphically impressive titles which seem to feature sophisticated gameplay go a long way towards substantiating the potential depth of the iPhone as a gaming platform.

The continuing, rapid advance of both hardware and software platforms for mobile computing really do seem to be leading gaming in interesting directions.  It's only a matter of time before a mobile device has as much memory and storage as a console, leaving rich gaming applications limited by other things such as bandwidth (oh, wait, 3G / 3.5G / 4G / WiFi is making that less of an issue too) and screen resolution.  160GB iPod Touch already have 128MB RAM, or 1/4 of the Wii's 512MB Flash, and the 160 GB iPod can store 3 Blu-ray DVDs.  And it's not just about storage: WiMax can deliver almost 100 MB/s; 4G technically 24 MB/s.  An 8x DVD transfers at about 10 MB/s. 

I know I'm oversimplifying the technical requirements here, as well as the interplay between RAM, transfer speeds, chip speeds, as well as firmware and software considerations.  But it's really about this: what will games look like we didn't need local storage at all and it was all available through the cloud?  And at reduced latencies than today's high-end consoles or juiced-up PCs? 

Emotiv, on the heels of our joint presentation at the Consumer Electronics Show, has formally announced a relationship with IBM to learn how to exploit their novel brain computer interface:

"The use of BCI technology represents a potential breakthrough in human-machine interfaces, changing the realm of possibilities not only for games, but in the way that humans and computers interact. As interactions in virtual environments become more complex, mice and keyboards alone may soon be inadequate. BCI is an important component of the 3D Internet and the future of virtual communication," said Paul Ledak, vice president of IBM digital convergence, in a statement issued by Emotiv.

I saw the headset in use at CES and I have to say it's very cool and a little creepy.  Tickle wires don't seem that far behind.

There's a new study from Strategy Analytics predicting massive growth in online virtual world participation over the net 10 years.  The basis of the study seems to be an assumption that a little over 20% of broadband users worldwide will register for a virtual world, but only about 6% will be "active users".

The 1 Billion figure seems high, as other sources have estimated TOTAL broadband penetration worldwide to be 1 billion people by 2011, which would make it a stretch for 5 billion by 2018 (even if Wi-Max and 3G are fully deployed by then).   But even if the total penetration rate were being overestimated, the active user number might not be: if the 3-D Internet is going to be a reality, then wouldn't it be a reality for work as well as for play?  Meaning as collaboration moves away from single-sense (e-mail vs. teleconference vs. webcast vs. IM vs. twitter…) to multi-sense immersive collaborative experiences, the actual market for virtual world services will be larger than $8B/year by 2018?

So I was at the Web 2.0 Conference a month ago (good grief, a month ago already?) just down the street at Moscone here in San Francisco.  Web 2.0 is another of my particular interest areas, and I've seen increased interest in it from the games industry as well.  One of the presentation panel sessions was by Jeremy Liew on "Games 2.0: Why the future of games looks more like zombies and Scrabulous than Halo 3".

I unfortunately missed the actual panel so I'm flying a little blind here.  I agree with some of the presentation, especially around the continued evolution towards online distribution and multiple business models.  But I think there's a whiff of "buzzword-itis", too.  Real changes will be evolutionary, with Web 2.0 tools and techniques subject to the same Darwinian pressures as other business or artistic endeavors: what actually generates real shareholder returns?  If it doesn't enhance the gaming experience (and therefore increases revenues) and/or improves productivity (and therefore reduces costs), then ultimately game developers won't use it.  And it's not just "games learning from Web 2.0" — the reverse is just as true, as games, especially online games, already been experimenting with online social networking at least since the days of the earliest MMORPGs and MUDs.

Well, actually, I just looked at my last post and it's been a month (month!) since the last one so apologies for the quiet of late.  Coming back from Memorial Day, it's a good excuse to warm up the leftovers of the news.

 Two items in particular grabbed my attention recently: the large opening of Grand Theft Auto IV, and the growth of the videogame sector results not in gains but stock losses.

So the opening weekend of GTA-IV was gangbusters as expected, with Take-2 using the launch as an excuse to chat themselves into higher valuations as they continue to fight off Electronic Arts.  The $500 million first week global sales figure (as reported by The Hollywood Reporter on May 8) was claimed to be "the largest interactive entertainment launch ever".  Whether such a comparison can be made on an apples-to-apples comparison, the fact is the blockbuster nature of the games business was given an added reinforcement by this launch.  I'm not savvy enough to know if that will change the EA/Take-2 equation, but I can guess that will only add pressure to established publishers to buy into the blockbuster mentality, for good or ill.  Whither independents and low-budget casual games?

Perhaps the next story might shed light there.  Despite the blockbuster, Take-Two shares still dropped 1% per The Hollywood Reporter on May 19.  That wasn't what caught my eye.  What did was the article's mention of another strong showing for the Wii (another 714,000 in April, twice the combined rate of XBox360 + PS3), even before the availability of Wii Fit, or WiiWare.

That to me says that even with a blockbuster trend, the overall games market continues an evolution towards a more complex ecosystem, serving broader (blockbusters) AND more niche audiences (independents…just read Chris Remo's April 15 op-ed on WiiWare in gamasutra for one viewpoint).

I know Gamasutra and Worlds in Motion, among others, are typically THE go-to-sources for news in the Games and Virtual Worlds industries.  But lately I've been noticing more and more coverage in more mainstream pubs like The Hollywood Reporter, Businessweek, and more.  Not sure if it's just a temporary blip, or if the Activision/Blizzard merger has really signaled the importance of the industry to the larger investor and Media industry.

Here's a sampling of just some of the most recent stories.  A lot of reporting around the A/B merger, of course.  Another trend seems to be around the continued expansion of the gaming audience, whether new demographic audiences or serious games.

(apologies - my editing status in WordPress still precludes things like hotlinks, trying to figure out the technical difficulty) 

Businessweek Apr 28: "Tool: Training Games" - Microsoft's ESP toolset for serious games is profiled in a short blurb. –>  

Businessweek Apr 28: "Opening the Wii to wee game developers" - talks about the shift in Nintendo's strategy away from tight developer control to more open development and smaller studios. –> http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_17/b4081070887317.htm?chan=search

Businessweek April 21: "In Hot Pursuit of a video-game deal" - mostly about the EA/Take 2 battle. –> http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_16/b4080028214708.htm?chan=search 

Businessweek Games blog Apr 17 (and Apr 28 issue): "Numbers: Video Games: Not just child's play".  Numbers on the growth and changing demographics of the industry.  –> http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/gamesinc/archives/2008/04/gaming_by_numbe.html 

THR Apr 17: "Mainland MMO" - World of Warcraft hits a new high in Mainland China, with 25% increase in peak concurrent users since Oct 4.

Fortune April 14: "Guess who's rewriting the Rules of Gaming?" - lead article in the Technology section, talks about the changing (and growing) demographics of game users, and postulates disruption for large established publishers in favor of smaller developers , social MMOs (Nexon), and, all all places, Target.  Interestingly, it reminded me of the panel back at GDC where Min Kim from Nexon speaker basically smacked down Jack Emmert from Cryptic.  –>  http://money.cnn.com/2008/04/16/technology/leonard_games.fortune/index.htm and http://gametomorrow.com/blog/index.php/2008/02/21/ibm-at-gdc-part-3-the-future-of-mmos/

THR Apri 8: "Game on: Dis plays in China" - Disney plans to buy Gamestar, the China-based games developer. (subscription required) –> http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3iec476757724b75704f7105b606e4949f 

Businessweek Apr 7: "The Power of Play", an entire online special report on the Games industry.  This one warrants a separate blog post. –> http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/di_special/20080324thepowerof.htm 

THR Apr 1: "It's March madness for vid gamers" - more good news on the story of games being "recession proof": "…In February, software sales were up 47% year-over-year while hardware sales were up 19%, research firm NPD said." –> http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3if3e739fe43eee9a1f7697a32819d3886

THR Apr 1: "Ubisoft ups '08 forecast" - ditto on the recession-proof storyline. –> http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3i37a2ec580927b4288e7ce119d5539aef

THR Mar 27: "Game guards" - small blurb about UK proposal to require health warnings on violent games a la cigarettes.  And here we thought Margret Thatcher abolished the Nanny State… 

THR Mar 25: "DHX Shapes Up" - acqusition featuring kids gaming and fitness –> http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3i5a42e7f03a5c48fc2d3a91adfb456738

THR Mar 24: "Electronic Arts, Starz race to 'Space' movie" - extending the existing 'Dead Space' game franchise into an animated feature.  (subscription required) –> http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3ifcdf91a54bfcc659fd41daa658a0f164

THR Mar 20: "Points slow to come in EA game" - amid an article on the EA/Take-2 takeover battle, a nugget from the NPD Group: "…with NPD Group figures released this week citing February sales of Hardware and software at $1.3 billion, 34% higher than the same month a year ago."  –> http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3idcdfd6551bebb6397f67ac6da248aa5b

THR Mar 19: "GameStop Gains" - gamestop's 46% increase in fiscal 4Q profits 

Continuing the trend of expanding MMOs and online social environments to broader audiences, comes two stories from The Hollywood Reporter.

The first, from April 10, writes about how Nickelodeon is developing two casual MMOs. The first a virtual world based on SpongeBob SquarePants, and the second called Monkey World.

The second, from April 17, writes about Cartoon Network prepping it's own casual MMO for this fall, after being delayed twice. This on the heel's of Disney's original property Toontown and their purchase of Club Penguin in 2007.

Is this a trend?

"When we started building 'FusionFall,' 'Toontown' was the only kids MMO," notes [Chris Waldron, the game's executive producer]. "Since then, we've seen a proliferation of MMOs targeting the same young demographic as ours, including 'Pirates of the Caribbean,' 'RuneScape,' and even social games like 'Club Penguin' and 'Habbo Hotel.' So, yeah, it's getting crowded out there and there are many more in the works so it's getting even more crowded."

Rawn Shaw, developerWorks' Community Program Manager, wrote an interesting blog entry about the Age of Conan, and the resultant implications from an online game, social network, and serious game standpoint.  Take a gander.

http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/blogs/page/rawn

'…In a real-world military system, leaders assume that teamwork is a given. They never had to face the idea of a "democratically-organized" army as in an MMOG. That is a much harder proposal in terms of setting up teamwork. '

An article in BusinessWeek's March 31 issue talks about how Electronic Arts is morphing video games into movies. The authors, Cliff Edwards and Matt Vella, write as if Electronic Arts is the only company suddenly grappling with the convergence of different media models within a single franchise.  As we know, this has been going on for a rather long time, whether it's turning game franchises into movies (Doom, the Resident Evil series), vice-versa (Star Wars spawning multiple games including the most recent Star Wars: The Force Unleashed), TV into games (Star Trek Online as the most recent incarnation from the never-dying Star Trek franchise, the upcoming Stargate Worlds from Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment), and let's not even bring up casual games, board games, mobile games all cross-pollinating each other, bold named actors being used as voice-over artists…(deeeeep breath).

Money quote:

"…The old industry formula for success was simple: license a popular movie or sports title and then crank out slightly updated versions of Madden NFL or James Bond year after year. But that approach, developed in large part by EA, isn't working now. Sales are flagging, and gamers are losing interest…"

The missed point is that this is Electronic Arts being caught in its own success of turning a key licensed franchises into ongoing blockbusters. As Hollywood only too well knows, going down the sequel path might lead to good revenues in the short term but wears out the audience pretty quick. This isn't the entire industry - just look at the MMO chart I linked to a few days ago. It's the business press taking the easy story of extrapolating the travails of the 800-pound gorilla as a cypher for the entire industry.

EA's hostile bid for Take-2 Interactive is another interesting angle that could have been covered.  If you're quoting John Riccitiello (EA's Chief Executive) as saying "I am just stomping down on the boring sequel idea…", then why didn't the authors question how the takeover bid might be reinforcing EA's old model of buying/extending existing IP vs. directing investments towards new IP projects like Dead Space?

The better story would have asked that question.  Or have interviewed any of the attendees at last year's Hollywood and Games conference. Cross-pollination is old news; Star Trek and McDonalds were doing that in the 70s with the Klingon Happy Meal. The new news is how technology and social media are changing how IP from one media is stretched and morphed into new channels that take full advantage of that new media's unique capabilities while still retaining enough elements from the initial creative outlet that it's recognizable to the audience. And how the traditional sequential release windows ("first film, then game, then sequel film, then game…") are turning into simultaneous AND asynchronous multiple experiences that allow a single franchise to engage different audiences they way they want to be engaged.  That would have been a far more interesting story to me.

Maybe that's why I liked the book "Convergence Culture" by Henry Jenkins so much. 

Here's just one example: what about a look at how content owners are stretching the boundaries of what games really mean? Rather than a rehash of yet another deal to turn a film into a game (or vice versa), why not look at how ABC solidified it's Lost franchise with an Alternate Reality Game like The Lost Experience?

After an over-1-year-hiatus, Bruce Woodcock (http://www.linkedin.com/in/brucewoodcock - sorry, my editor is still on the fritz with hotlinks…) is back with an updated MMOGCHART (http://www.mmogchart.com/).  And for those who thought the exponential growth in MMOG subscriptions was not sustainable, well, the data shows that at least in the short term is still very much is.  Over 2007, total worldwide active subscriptions grew from around 14,000,000 to 16,000,000 (up 14%).  

World of Warcraft, to no great surprise, continues to dominate, but others are starting to appear, notably Tabula Rasa (http://www.rgtr.com/index.html), Lord of the Rings Online (http://www.lotro.com/), and Vanguard: Saga of Heroes (http://vgplayers.station.sony.com/).  Which means the Fantasy RPG is still the dominant theme.  I wonder how that will all change when the long, long, loooooong-awaited Spore (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spore_(video_game)) finally arrives later this summer.

After seeing Johnny Chung Lee’s wildly popular Wii head tracking video we were highly motivated to add this technology to our iRT ray tracer so colleague Joaquin Madruga quickly coded this function and we hit the road for GDC 2008.

Left to Right, Joaquin Madruga (IBM), Johnny Chung Lee (CM), Barry Minor (IBM) 

At the show we demonstrated two infrared (IR) LED tracked displays. The first was a target scene, similar to Johnny’s, that we created in 3dsMax and the second was a 7 million triangle China town scene created in Maya by our partners at Threshold Studios (Thanks Threshold!!). The target scene was easily ray traced on a single Linux Playstation3 but the China town scene required some real horsepower so we deployed six QS21 Cell blades and rendered it remotely using a GigE connected blade center.

Head tracking produces a very unique virtual window effect where the monitor appears to be a portal into a virtual world. The user wears a pair of IR LED equipped safety glasses which are tracked using an IR camera attached to the Playstation3. As the user moves, the view relative to the screen is computed and ray traced in real-time producing a strong motion parallax 3D effect. The next step for this technology will be passive head tracking using face tracking technology like that demonstrated by Richard Marks in the Sony booth at GDC 2008. What we need now is a passively head tracked 150” plasma with ray traced visuals at 120 frames/sec!!

iRT Head Tracking Video (YouTube)

iRT Head Tracking Video (Quicktime 28MB) 

I think I need to post from my Mac, as the Windows-based posts don't seem to be too happy with the current WordPress templates.

Forgot to post some pics of the IBM booth at GDC two weeks ago; that's what you get when you go right into another set of meetings in Los Angeles without too much breathing room.

Here's our video loop.  I'll be posting it to the website shortly.  My favorite is still the clips from CCP's EVE Online.   

Here's one of our intrepid demoers, Barry Minor, right beside our Exanet pedestal,  which has a storage virtualization software tool to help manage all those game and code assets during development:

This demo garnered the most traffic: Interactive Ray Tracing.  A very cool use of the Cell-BE processor to create a real-time rendering solution.  Using infrared sensors on regular glasses, you can move through the picture as if it were a real window (in this case, I think it's a view into a scene from an upcoming film from Threshold Studios, "Food Fight!").  You can actually see the scene change in real time as if you were looking at it, like craning your neck to a corner to see what's outside the viewing range of a straight-out view.

Finally, our two remaining demoers on our "Deploy" ped, from PlaySpan and Aria Systems, who work with IBM to provide online companies with in-game and in-world commerce and billing services.

The next session I attended was a panel discussion on the future of MMOs.  Question 1 solicited general agreement: "can you be successful without outside IP?".  Basically "it depends" with most agreement the larger the project the more important established IP becomes to draw in the crowds you'll need to break even.

The next question had the same "it depends" response: are MMOs going cross-platform, launched on PC and consoles at the same time?  But a pattern started to emerge: Jack Emmert from Cryptic taking more, uhm, shall we say "evangelical" viewpoints with the others, especially Ray Muzyka (BioWare) defaulting to: "start with the game, then go where the audience is, and that will determine which platforms to use.

The next question set off the fireworks: "Micropayments: a viable North American business model?".  Jack was adamantly opposed to micropayments giving plenty of personal examples of how subscriptions are valuable to him (cable, phone, etc.) and that micropayments would never be a viable model.  When Min Kim (Nexon) dryly retorted "well, it's 85% of our business model and we seem to be doing fine" the audience erupted in applause.  The remaining dynamic for that exchange were pros and cons of different models, and ultimately a panel agreeing that many bizdev types are too quick to jump onto the "micropayments is THE model!" bandwagon and it goes back to first things first: what is the game, who is the audience, THEN decide the right business models that best work with that specific environment. 

The next question looked at the growing cost of MMO development, with the panel seeing a bifurcation of the market into blockbusters and low-budget.  Each studio discussed how they deal with that, but one thing I think they missed was that this is the model Hollywood has been operating under for decades, especially since the rise of the Independent Film movement.  There's definitely something they could learn from that experience, but there wasn't one mention of how Hollywood's been dealing (and NOT dealing) with this issue.

THe panel was then opened up to audience questions.  The first was whether SciFi as a genre could be successful as Fantasy, with Bioware speaking for the entire panel when they said: "go back to the game.  Have a great idea and it won't matter the genre.  Before StarWars, scifi was viewed as a niche film genre, afterwards EVERYONE wanted to produce a scifi film".

The next question was a rambling thing about UGC and rights and value; the panel didn't understand it and neither did I…and with 5 minutes left in the session took that as my exit cue. 

One session I attended yesterday but forgot to comment on was the WildTangent session.  They presented basically a sales pitch for their upcoming launch, which is pure digital distribution of games to PCs, including console games.  I'm assuming it means console games will be played through an emulator, which to me means they'll only be able to distribute older (pre-NextGen console) titles.  They signed up quite a few publishers, including THQ and Activision (I think).  Very much an iTunes buy-my-TV-show model.

It's certainly the right direction to be going in.  But at this stage I get the impression the major publishers are only populating it with their back-catalog and other older offerings, partly because of the technology limitations I mentioned but also because they're still testing the waters of digital distribution.  They'll have to ramp up quickly and get top titles fast, otherwise they're not that different from GameTap. 

Still trying to figure out why none of the HTML functions are working for me, so apologies for the text-only posting. 

Today was supposed to start with a Macrovision session on digital distribution, but the speaker never showed, so it was quality time with my coffee and Starbuck's Yogurt Parfait instead.

I next managed to get a seat at the jam-packed Ray Kurtzweil keynote address.  Last time I was in that room was for the Direct Marketing Association's 2007 show which had Richard Branson (of Virgin fame) as the speaker.  He's a very low-key, almost deadpan, public speaker but the audience was still very much entranced with this clearly brilliant mind.  He has a  gift for the understated joking aside, starting with his opening about how "games" in an unfortunate name for the industry given it's real value (a telephone conversation is "virtual", but does that make a verbal agreement over the phone any less real than one in person?  Of course not…so why do we treat games and virtual world interactions differently?")

To set up the topic, what was Games: The Next 20 years, he took a look back.  He observed that 95% of innovative projects fail because their timing is off.  One reason for that off timing is that growth is exponential, not linear, and our thinking processes are based on linear evolution ("there's something in the corner of my coming towards a certain spot…it'll get there in 20 seconds and I better not be in that spot…this is good for cavemen, not for us").  When we look at innovation and pace of change as an exponential function, the overall paradigm shifts become relatively easy to predict.  He then showed plenty of examples: over the past 40 years there's been a billion-fold increase in computing price/performance.  And that pace is accellerating: there will be another billion-fold improvement over the next 25 years.

The result is a democratizing of communications, tools of creation, and tools of production.  Example: his own Kurtzweil Reading Maching for the blind, in 1979 was the size of a washing machine.  You now have a much more powerful version on a smart phone.

So what's the implication for Games?  Well, if it takes >6months to design a game, you need to design it for where the technology/market WILL BE, not where it is now, otherwise it'll be obsolete by the time it gets launched.  Things like computing devices disappear by 2020, replaced by embedded computing in eyeglasses, clothing, mobile devices, etc.  

Definitely lots of food for thought, and not even sure what that means yet.   One of those thinking exercises perfect for quality time with a coffee and yogurt parfait.

Day 1 of the main sessions started today at Game Developers Conference San Francisco 2008 (GDC) here in a FINALLY sunny San Francisco.  After 3 days of rain the skies cleared this morning to a lovely day…perfect to be inside the entire time trolling about the show floor and sessions.

The IBM Booth setup this year is a pretty simple affair; I'll post photos by the end of the show.  We're in a not bad spot, thankfully far enough away from the noisy ones (did I say HP?). So far the Interactive Ray Tracing demo seems to be winning the lion's share of drop-in interest.  Since the link function isn't working in WordPress today, here's the URL to learn more: http://www-304.ibm.com/jct03004c/businesscenter/smb/us/en/contenttemplate/!!/gcl_xmlid=123753/?&ca=smbINDMediaGDC&tactic=&me=W&met=inli&re=smbindmediagamespromo2a

We already have some press coverage with our partnership announcement with Terremark on a project with ChinaDotCom.  Here's the URL: http://www.stockhouse.ca/news/news.asp?tick=IBM&newsid=6361711

We also hosted a session today on "Surprises from the Hellgate London Launch".  We had a good audience, 2/3 full in a room holding about 100, and a good sign: no one left until the 5 minutes before the end.  It was a candid discussion about the technical learnings from Ping0 and Flagship Studio's fall 2007 launch of Hellgate London, with a lot of lessons learned mainly around infrastructure sizing, coding processes, and the importance of "non-game" systems like user forums, billing, and more that wind up being critical to online game success.  David Laux, Global Executive for Games and Interactive Entertainment, moderated a panel.  Good (hard) questions from the audience; I got the impression people were happy to learn from Flagship's experience. Hellgate London: http://www.hellgatelondon.com.  GNi: http://www.gni.com 

I also attended a session hosted by Akamai on content delivery networks.  nVidia was a guest speaker, but to be perfectly frank I thought he spent too much time talking about nVidia's game successes and not enough on the direct linkages to digital content delivery and the challenges they face.  The Akamai speaker went into a little more detail on the benefits of a CDN.  Overall a decent high-level discussion, but I was hoping for a little more meat.

Oh, a shout out to Doug Mealy at OM-PR (http://www.om-pr.com) who's been in the biz for a long time and has been doing some fun stuff with us recently, including letting us co-sponsor a press booth at the show this year.  

Ah, and I ran into Jean-Michel Blottiere from NX Publishing (http://www.nxpublishing.com).  We worked together a few years ago on a virtual, live games summit.  We had speakers from multiple cities live via webcam, including Richard Garriott, Adam Joffe, Jeff Anderson, Julien Merceron and more.  For a newbie like me, bringing together all these big names on a little screen live from Paris, San Diego, Boston and Austin was very exciting, and without Jean-Michel it couldn't have happened.  A nice pleasure seeing him again.

Well, enough for now, will post more tomorrow.  

From the Jan 29 Hollywood Reporter (yeah, I know I'm 2 weeks behind on my reading): "Par plants promo flag in teen virtual world Habbo".  Money quote:

"…Under the terms of the agreement - one of the first between a major studio and a virtual world - Habbo will have merchandising rights throughout North America for "Beowulf", "Mean Girls" and the upcoming "The Spiderwick Chronicles"…" 

While this is more often than not a technology blog, it's also about the business of games too.  This announcement to me shows Paramount is thinking strategically about natural extensions of selected franchises to where their audiences are going (or already are).  Unlike "hey, this is cool, let's do a virtual world!", it shows someone has been thinking hard about how to leverage virtual asset sales and audience migration away from traditional media like cinema.

Time will tell, of course, whether there will be real value from the partnership.  But for all it's vaunted progressiveness, Hollywood is often a very conservative business, so this stands out in my mind.  Just look how long it took them to jump onto the digital distribution bandwagon.  MTV is ahead of the pack in this regards, of course, especially with their games studio expansion.

As a blog about the future of games business and technology, it might be interesting to see how games technology is being applied outside of traditional entertainment applications.  Two recent examples show how IBM is specifically looking at leveraging advances from game technologies in unrelated fields.

The first comes from the Consumer Electronics Show 2008.  IBM had a booth demo of one of our Business Partners, Broadcast International, which recently started using IBM Cell Broadband Engine-based Blade Servers (specifically the QS21) for video compression.  BusinessWeek's The Tech Beat wrote:

"Using software specifically designed for IBM's Cell Blade server, Broadcast International has developed compression that can take [15 megabits per second] down to less than 4 megabits, bringing internet streaming [of HDTV] within range on very fast connections."

The second example is IBM is partnering with the Mayo clinic to use software running on Cell blade servers to speed object recognition and increase image precision.  This was written about in both Medgadget, a medical tech blog, and Gizmodo.  This actually dovetails nicely onto a project using PS3 consoles as part of a grid computing exercise in protein folding to help find a cure for Alzheimer's.

Did I say two?  I meant three, but this one is much more closely related to games.  Another IBM CES booth demo was IBM Business Partner Emotiv Systems showing off technology that translates brain waves into commands to affect avatar behavior.  As Scientific American wrote:

"The applications of this sort of technology, as it continues to develop, could impact areas as disparate as the automotive industry and efforts to combat mental disorders such as autism."

Wow, there hasn't been a post here in a while, so time to kickstart an exciting 2008. Why exciting?  With all this talk of recession, isn't the Games Industry negatively impacted by slowdowns in consumer spending?

Perhaps in the short term, but don't tell that to Goldman Sachs.  As reported in the Hollywood Reporter on January 10, Goldman Sachs' M&E analyst Anthony Noto's pretty downbeat sector expectation was caveated: "…the Internet and video game businesses are among the few 'attractive' areas of the industry."

Don't tell Best Buy or other retailers, either.  A December 19 post by David Radd in GameDaily indicates that "…entertainment software sales were up nearly a quarter in comparable [Q3] same-store sales…nearly 20% of Best Buy's revenues."  Games also helped Microsoft and Nintendo of course.  A new NPD report on year-end sales figures, also discussed in Jim Goldman over at CNBC's TechCheck reported on January 17 a banner year for video games, with almost $18B up 43% from 2006.  Microsoft sold 1.26 million XBox 360s in December alone (just shy of first place Nintendo with 1.35 million), and it's Halo 3 came in 1st. 

This certainly makes IBM happy, too.  With our chips in all three next generation consoles, the 6.29 million Wii consoles, 4.62 million XBox 360 consoles and 2.56 million Sony PS3 consoles sold in 2007 led to a lot of microprocessor sales.

And we'll see the growing clout of the games industry continue to positively impact 2008, and not just in retail figures or consumer spending. The significant success of America's Army as both a recruitment tool AND game play shows how games and virtual worlds continue to expand into "Serious Games", useful for all sorts of non-traditional applications around recruitment, training, education, and collaboration.

IBM news from Consumer Electronics Show shows that technology developed for games is finding its way into areas like broadcasting and medical imaging.  Check out my separate posting on CES.  

A big thank you to our inimitable George Dolbier, who sent me some tantalizing tidbits that spurred me to write this post. 

Today was Day 2 of the IGDA Leadership Conference.  I did some additional blogging, with two posts: one on localization and the other on managing artists.

Overall I was pleased with the level of audience participation and quality of speakers.  Certainly a lot of thoughtful participation from current and future games leaders.