HomeWeekly News Roundup (17 October 2010)
Let’s start this relatively quiet week with some bad news. It is very likely I will have to cease updating a long running feature here. Sorry to stop all of you from leaping for joy at the demise of the WNR, I’m sorry to say that’s not what I’m posting about. Instead, it’s the NPD US video game sales analysis, in its 38th monthly edition already, but it looks like 39th may very well never arrive. You see, NPD is no longer releasing hardware and software unit sales numbers, and this makes writing an analysis very difficult. Luckily, there may be some data leaks by manufacturers, publishers and other analysts with access to the NPD numbers, and when that happens, an analysis may still be posted. So far for this first month, there does seem to be some leaks, so the 39th NPD analysis may very well be posted early next week.
Anyway, let’s start going over the news in this, as previously mentioned, relatively quiet week.
In copyright news, the Irish High Court has dealt a blow to the music industry’s attempts to shift responsibility of online piracy unto ISPs.
The court ruled that provider UPC was not responsible for what users do on its network, as Ireland had not yet implemented the EU directive on copyright. The next step for the music industry is to cry to the government and get them to help stop the nasty ISPs from hurting their billion dollar profits, and I’m sure they’ll find a sympathetic ear. As I’ve mentioned a billion times before, I don’t get the argument of the record and movie industries. If ISP should be made responsible for subscriber downloads, then why not the phone company, as most downloads are still done via good old phone lines and exchanges. What about the companies that maintain the routers and switches for the Internet – illegal traffic has to pass through their hardware eventually, so why not make them responsible too? So it’s only the websites that host torrent files (which don’t directly link to pirated content), the users who upload and download, and ISPs that the music/movie industries hold responsible (maybe Google and other search engines as well), but everybody else gets a free pass? Will hard-drive makers get sued too because they keep on making bigger hard-drives that are used to store pirated files? Where does the buck stop?
This is a question they can never answer, because the industry is passing on responsibility of fighting piracy to others, even though they are the only ones to benefit from any action taken. Governments can be lobbied take some of the responsibility, but other private companies are not just going to sit by idly and let the music/movie industries get away with it. And if the government, via new laws, make ISPs responsible, then what they are effectively doing is subsidizing the very profitable music and movie industries by taking money out of the Internet industry, just because one industry has a better lobbying organisation than the other. But I believe the saviour of the music/movie industry, if they need saving at all, will lie in the Internet domain, and so there’s more reason for them all to work together, giving users more innovative solutions, as opposed to working against each other while fighting the futile fight against piracy, while consumers are the ones hurt by all of this (either the lack of innovation, or financial and legal consequences, even for those that don’t pirate music and movies). But that’s just me.
Media Copyright Group is being sued by US Copyright Group for Trademark Infringement
And speaking of companies not working together for the common good, more evidence this week that copyright law firms don’t really respect copyright, as they steal (or allege others of stealing) from each other. The US Copyright Group is suing the Media Copyright Group for stealing their name, even though they have different names. This is after the USCG was caught earlier in the year stealing another copyright law firm’s website design, and even earlier when UK copyright law firm ACS:Law accused of another UK copyright law firm of stealing their mailing templates. But I’m not surprised that these firms are suing for each other, or that some of them don’t respect copyright. Because first of all, and just like the Scorpion and the Frog fable, it’s in their nature to sue anyone and anything. And second of all, they don’t respect copyright because their work means that they don’t need to respect copyright, because it’s all about the money. In fact, these law firms would have no business if piracy was stopped tomorrow, so it’s actually in their interest for piracy to continue. Is it going too far to even suggest that these firms are making money off piracy? Well, all I know is that when home users download a torrent, and subsequently upload portions of it while they’re downloading, they’re not making a profit from the operations, other than saving the money of purchasing the content. Some torrent website may make some money through advertising, but overall, online piracy is one “industry” that’s not really about making a profit – unlike the industries that has sprouted up to combat it.
But if money is to be made from piracy or anti-piracy, then Google wants a piece of it too. Instead of giving in to movie studio demands to take responsibility for sites in its vast index (by this principle, Google may very well be responsible for all the world’s ills at the moment thanks to all the websites it indexes. Except for News Corp sites. So that’s one less evil Google is responsible for, I guess), it has suggested, shock horror, that studios may need to pay a little bit of money to reduce piracy and improve the studio’s bottom line. I’m sure the studios are outraged at the suggestion that they would have to pay for actions that benefit only themselves. Crying to Congress about it may be their only hope!
An update on The Pirate Bay appeals case, it has now concluded and a decision is expected on November 26th. I have deliberately avoided covering this trial because I suspect there is only one outcome, and that the original verdict will be upheld. Or maybe I was just too lazy to keep track of it, I don’t know.
Not much happening in HD/3D land, except that Iron Man 2’s stats came out, and while it was impressive, it did not really outsell the likes of Avatar.
Iron Man 2 sold more copies on Blu-ray than on DVD, well sort of
What the Blu-ray version did manage to do was to get more than 50% of the market share, not the first time this has happened, but the first time for such a high profile release during the first week of release. In other words, when Iron Man 2 became available at retail outlets, most people purchased the Blu-ray or Blu-ray/DVD combo version, as opposed to the DVD only version. While this may suggest that Blu-ray has now replaced DVDs as the dominant format, there are a couple of caveats to this stat. First of all, overall Blu-ray market share is still only around 10% to 15% (it was up to 18% for Iron Man 2 week), mainly because not all titles are release yet on Blu-ray, but largely because people are being very selective when buying Blu-ray editions, as opposed to DVD editions. It’s all about the expected picture/audio quality I suppose.
Another important thing to note is that with the current pricing, it’s very bad value to buy any of the DVD-only editions, especially if one plans to upgrade to Blu-ray any time in the next couple of years. The reason for this is that the Blu-ray single disc version of Iron Man 2 was only priced a single dollar more than the equivalent DVD-only edition. The Blu-ray/DVD combo was even better value, at only $2 more than the 2-disc DVD edition. Now, even if I didn’t have a Blu-ray player, if the pricing differential was so insubstantial, I would never buy the DVD only editions. For $2 more, I can future proof my movie collection right now, and although I miss out temporarily on the extra features on the second DVD if I didn’t have a Blu-ray player, in return, I get two copies of the same movie, as opposed to just one. At the end of the day, even if I didn’t have a Blu-ray player, I still get to enjoy the movie on DVD and I will know that when I get a Blu-ray player, I won’t have to re-buy the movie. Of course, I think what has happened is that people were buying the single disc DVD version, as opposed to the combo version, which works out to be around $8 in savings. Still, when the two disc DVD edition costs more than the cheapest Blu-ray version ($5 more), if this doesn’t convince people to go and get a Blu-ray player, then I don’t know what will. The consumers that aren’t convinced will be difficult to convert into the Blu-ray cult, I think.
But Inception will be released in December, and I think that’s will be the title to beat for 2010.
Sony has announced its range of Google TV supporting TVs and Blu-ray players. It’s basically the tried and failed Internet TV platform, but now with a Google twist to make everything just a bit easier to use. Add the eventual support for the Android marketplace, and it can even become a surprisingly capable gaming platform for simple casual games. This convergence thing, that people, including me, were talking about years and years before, seems to be happening right in front of our eyes. Is a Sony TV with Google TV really just a TV, or a computer that can access the Internet, or a PVR that can record TV shows, or a games console? It only does everything, I suppose … oops, wrong company’s slogan.
And finally in gaming, as mentioned above, the lack of NPD stats make the NPD stats analysis feature a bit more difficult to write. But I have some experience in writing much about nothing, so maybe I’ll manage.
But for September’s figures, I think I will still be able to come up with an analysis because of some of the leaked numbers, which suggests the Xbox 360 won the month easily again, while both the Wii and PS3 were actually down compared to a year ago, 45 and 37 percent respectively. The PS3 numbers might surprise a few people, since it has seen huge year-on-year growth recently, but as I mentioned in the last few NPD posts, we’re finally comparing apples with apples, or rather, slims with slims (whereas before, we were comparing the low priced slims with the high priced fats) – and as I have been trying to explain, the recent PS3 sales figures aren’t that impressive at all when you take this into account, and September’s figure prove this point.
Halo Reach has become one of only three games to sell over 3 million copies in the first release month
The other interesting fact was that Halo Reach sold more than 3.3 million copies, only the third title ever to sell more than 3 million copies in the first month (in the US) – the other two are Modern Warfare 2, and the previous major Halo game, Halo 3. No specific figures were available for the Move, but the accessories sector grew compared to last year, the only one to do so, and this means the Move bundle probably sold well, but not well enough to have dragged the PS3 console sales any higher.
Anyway, I better stop writing before this turns into a fully fledged NPD analysis.
In other gaming news, Sony has a new way to combat the use of the PS Jailbreak device – new games, such as the new Medal of Honor, will come with firmware updates that disable the device, and if you want to play these games, you are forced to install the firmware. A typically heavy handed action by Sony, but it will probably work. Until someone pirates a hacked version of MoH that won’t require the new firmware, that is.
And that’s it for this week. Not a lot of news as I mentioned, but hopefully enough to tide you over until next week. So until then …