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TECHNOLOGY BREAKDOWN: The New Convergence X Factor
In addition to the opening of E3 this week, there was the announcement from Fox Television that, starting Tuesday May 9, 2006 the network would start making its most popular TV shows available for download on iTunes. Thankfully, the folks at Fox included 24, Prison Break and The Shield in the lineup to take the stink off the likes of Unan1mous, Stacked, and Buffy. Being a Jack Bauer fan, I checked out the 24 downloads, and found that the episodes available for download are for this season, Season 5. This means that in three weeks when Season 5 ends, you will be able to download the entire season's episodes.
I wonder what effect this move will have on the future sales of “24 – Season 5” DVDs. On the other hand, given the number of television viewers that using TiVOs, DVRs, as well as TV tuner equipped PCs, it could very well be that the “powers that be” over at News Corp. concluded that because viewers already have the means of compiling a complete season's worth of episodes, making episodes available for $1.99 per download on iTunes may be more profitable in the long run than selling DVDs.
In something akin to a variation on a theme, Warner Bros. also announced yesterday that the movie studio had reached an agreement with BitTorrent to distribute movies. What makes this announcement newsworthy is that for years the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) has vociferously campaigned against BitTorrent, claiming that the file sharing technology was intended solely for the purpose of copyright infringement. While it is no secret that other content producers (mostly software and game publishers) have been working deals with BitTorrent the Warner Bros. deal marks a reversal of attitude towards the hugely popular file sharing service. However, like most Hollywood deals, the Warner Bros./BitTorrent deal does come with some strings. For instance, the files being shared on BitTorrent will be “burn once” files, and they will only be playable on a computer. Pricing details were not announced, but it is widely viewed that the price for TV shows will be in the same range as the Fox downloads on iTunes and that full length DVDs will be comparably priced as well. Digital rights management (DRM) could become a sticky point in this arrangement, just as it is with iTunes and other services. However, we'll leave that for another day. Back to E3.
In his keynote address this morning, Entertainment Software Association (ESA) President Doug Lowenstein made some interesting remarks on the state of the video game industry. I found it comforting that many of Lowenstein's remarks were consistent with observations I've made in this column concerning the development of game consoles and the future of computing. But then again, seeing the trend where gaming systems will eventually replace most if not all the functions of a conventional home PC is not a tough call to make. With respect to the advancements in gaming technology, Lowenstein pointed out some really interesting examples of non-gaming uses for the CELL processor that IBM made for use in the PS3 (which, by the way, Sony announced would be released later this year), such as medical imaging and radar image processing. When the XBox 360 was released last year, I mentioned it was only a matter of time before the console became an interaction processor for all kinds of applications, not just gaming or even multimedia, replacing the PC. If you still don't believe me, ask yourself why Sony is putting its new Blu-Ray DVD technology into the PS3, and why is Microsoft looking at ways to get HD DVD into the Xbox. With its recent introduction of its new Windows Live! service, accompanying the already successful Xbox Live service, Microsoft today announced where they are going next with its new “Live Anywhere” initiative. The gist of “Live Anywhere” is to make gaming content available to consoles and devices everywhere – on the PC, on consoles and most importantly, on game ready mobile phones. In a way it is kind of ironic because the Live Anywhere approach to gaming content (“same content, play everywhere”) is similar philosophically to the “write once, run everywhere” mindset behind the architecture of the Java programming language by Microsoft rival Sun Microsystems.
One of the more interesting aspects of Lowenstein's address was his citing of facts and figures from a PriceWaterhouseCoopers study and an independent study done by J. Gregory Sidak of Georgetown University and Robert Crandall of The Brookings Institution which showed the video game industry contributing over $18 billion to the U.S. economy in 2004. In addition, Sidak and Crandall remarked that these figures did not also include investments made by gaming publishers to acquire/develop the technology required to develop the games. Interestingly enough, according to Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) formulas, the $8.2 billion of that total which is accounted for by video game sales in the U.S., supports approximately 144,000 jobs and based on the numbers, it is estimated that the video game industry will be able to support abut 259,000 jobs in 2009.
Looking again at the technological aspects of just recent advances in gaming technology in the context of convergence, many of the same windows of opportunity I have spoken about in this column before are still open, although quite a few of them are closing fast. In his speech though, Lowenstein made reference to one area of opportunity that just cries out to the geek in me, that being what will it take for movies to rival movies? Against the backdrop of this week's announcements, one thing we can be sure of is that more and more content will be delivered over the internet. Where Lowenstein goes astray is in looking for a crossover point where video games overtake movies instead of looking for that point where video games and movies become indistinguishable from each other. For years, gaming technology has not just focused on the technology that makes things happen on the screen, but also on controller technology to close the loop. If you look at a video game as an interactive story, then it is a relatively straightforward jump to the kind of totally immersive virtual reality along the lines of the one presented Neal Stephenson's novel “Snow Crash”. Now that would usher in a whole new age of entertainment.
Russell de Pina is a Principal for n2active, a technology consulting firm located in Houston, TX and Long Beach, CA. Russell can be reached by email at rdepina@n2active.com.
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