A perception seems to be developing that since the Nintendo Wii isn’t focused on exploiting the top end of the CPU power scale, it’s somehow underpowered compared to its next-gen competitors. Stories like this one often seem to position Wii as being all about “fun,” while XBox 360 and PlayStation 3 are all about “realism.” But as with many assumptions, it takes a fact and draws the wrong conclusion.

The “Broadway” chip inside Wii is a custom-built Power Architecture-based processor using Silicon-on-Insulator technology at 90 nanometers, and is built at our state-of-the art fab in East Fishkill (the same fab where our chips for XBox 360 and PlayStation 3 are made.) Some sophisticated advancements enable “Broadway” to deliver much higher performance while achieving a 20 percent reduction in power usage from earlier Nintendo processors.

Nintendo and IBM have collaborated for many years, going back to 1999 when IBM designed and built the chip for the first GameCube. Nintendo came to IBM with a very clear understanding of what they wanted to accomplish when they created the technical specs for Wii, and IBM worked with them to build a chip that met those objectives precisely. Many of the traits that make Wii as interactive and fun as it is are directly related to what’s inside the box.

Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo each have their own vision for the next generation of video games, and developed their technology in keeping with that vision. We’re insanely proud that we could work with all three of them, and help define the future of gaming. And if we’re asked which of our next-gen chips we “prefer,” the answer is simple: we love all our children equally!

Technorati tags: Wii, Nintendo, IBM

We probably don’t spend enough time writing about Second Life here on GT (we usually leave that to our friends over at eightbar,) but this Reuters story caught my eye.

First off, check out the byline: “Adam Reuters.” That, of course, is the name Reuters gave to its Second Life avatar (apparently in real life his name is Adam Pasick, a veteran Reuters journalist.) Then look closely at the masthead - the new story was issued from Reuters’ “news bureau” in Second Life. Reuters is consciously blurring the distinction between its Second Life-related activities and its “real world” stories. I’d be very interested to see how Reuters continues shopping stories from its Second Life “bureau” to mainstream news organizations.

Now to the substance. It’s clear that IBM is doing more than any other company in exploring how Second Life can become a powerful business tool. The quote from one of our Second Life evangelists - “e-business was a strategy for us; why not v-business” perfectly captures the attitude at Big Blue. In the past we’ve been burned by calling plays and then letting others execute them. Not this time. As long as serious companies like Reuters join our belief in Second Life as a legitimate platform for commerce, I think we’re going to come out very well.

I should also add that if this is the case, eightbar is poised to become an exceedingly influential blog.

The New York Times ran a fascinating story on new animation technology that creates an unprecedented depth of emotion in an animated character.  They also produced a companion video featuring the reporter, Sharon Waxman.
The key is “facial mapping,” which is able to capture the complex expressions of a live actor and transfer it to a digitized image.

My first thought was, is this another step towards the Singularity?  Let’s say we’re able to capture my full range of emotion, and transfer it to a digital avatar that exists in virtual space.  If you imbue that character with some form of artifical intelligence, what do you get?

My second thought was, this is gonna be a giant headache for AMPAS!

IBM recently launched a social networking initiative aimed at connecting up existing IBMers, and former IBM employees (”IBM alumni”). The initiative is called Greater IBM. There’s a blog if you are interested in learning more. Currently the network is organised around a group on the OpenBC network… OpenBC itself is changing to become Xing in the near future.

Tomorrow, there’s going to be a Greater IBM “bloc party” in Second Life. We recently held a very successful 3D Jam in SL internally, and we also held a press conference last month discussing some of the cool stuff that we’ve been involved with in SL. If you follow the eightbar blog, you might be aware of some of what we’ve been up to already…

Jupiter Research’s David Card must’ve woken up on the wrong side of the bed yesterday. How else to explain his grumpy smackdown of Steven Johnson’s profile of Spore in yesterday’s New York Times?

OK, so maybe some of the more utopian fantasies of Will Wright and Brian Eno are fair game for parody - I’m certainly sure that I’d never want my kids to be part of an educational system where videogames are part of the core curriculum. If you watch how kids interact with games, you’ll see them primarily relying on instinct. This may set Malcom Gladwell’s heart a-fluttering, but I think that also erodes deep critical thinking skills at the exact time they should be evolving.

But Card goes on to say “Studying videogames in a larger context is useful for UI/man-machine interaction, for immersive entertainment, and for non-linear storytelling. Not much else.” Really? What’s undeniable is that Spore represents some major advancements in how games are engineered, creating what might be termed a “biology engine” that has the same type of law-based properties as the long-sought “physics engines.” And if we’re able to fully replicate the properties of the real world, Card can’t see anything game-changing (sorry for the pun) about that? The impact on science, medicine and computing would be profound.

Card finishes by saying “Why doesn’t Johnson look at some real 21st century youth communication patterns, like IM, texting, or MySpace? I’d read that.” Right. Because MySpace and social networking haven’t been written about at all.

And besides, Spore looks like it could be kick-ass fun.

Survey: two-thirds of online gamers are female
The third annual release of the Nielsen “Active Gamer Benchmark” study is out, and it contains some surprises. The study looked at so-called “Active Gamers” (those who play video games on a consistent basis) and found that there were currently 117 million such gamers in the United States. While the majority of gamers (70 percent) are male, the balance shifts dramatically when limited to online gamers, which comprised more than half of the total. The study found that nearly two-thirds (62 percent) of online gamers were women. This statistic challenges an earlier study issued by ComScore that had pegged the latter figure at 52 percent.

This percentage is not limited to 3D action games, such as CounterStrike or massively multiplayer online role-playing games like World of Warcraft, but includes all computer and video games that feature an online component. Still, the fact that females outnumber males in any kind of aggregate measure of gaming is a massive shift away from conventional wisdom. The traditional, male-dominated games industry may have to sit up and take notice.

Roo Reynolds, one of the very cool Emerging Technology guys from IBM Hursley (also one of IBM’s Metaverse Evangelists), recently posted on the eightbar blog about his SketchUp to Second Life exporting script. Along with others in the team, he’s been looking at ways to build objects more easily using simple desktop tools, rather than creating things entirely in-world.

The story propagated to the usual Second Life-related sources like 3pointD and Second Life Insider (Roo has been keeping a list). Now, it finally made Slashdot.

Incidentally, this is another demonstration of how IBM is taking a serious look at MMO environments and how they can be useful in a business context. Some of the objects that we might want to build to support business events could be easier to create using desktop 3D modelling tools initially.