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Weekly News Roundup (27 February 2011)

Sunday, February 27th, 2011

The last week of the “high maintenance” month of February is upon us, and it’s a relatively quiet one in terms of news stories (quantity wise, anyway). I did finally write that US video game sales 2010 year-in-review blog that I promised over a month ago. And it was pretty short as promised as well, mainly thanks to NPD no longer releasing publicly all the figures needed to do a proper analysis. But really, the story of 2010 was the Xbox 360 revival (not that it was ever close to dying or anything), with the last of the three graphs I posted in the review blog being the most telling, showing the trend of the three major home-based consoles. Anyway, onto the news roundup.

In copyright news, let’s start with more bad news for isoHunt. Not only did they get sued again last week, now, even a potential ally in Google has come out blasting the BitTorrent search engine.

Now, on first glance, you might expect Google to back isoHunt, considering both are search engines. And since Google is fighting its own copyright battle against Viacom, surely this puts them on the same side as isoHunt. But that’s not really the case. Viacom’s strategy in their appeal of the YouTube verdict is to say that it’s no longer enough for websites to be DMCA compliant, that is to remove infringing content when requested. Instead, Viacom says that there is something called “red flag” infringement, which means that if it’s somewhat obvious that infringement is occurring, then Google/YouTube should take action even without any specific DMCA complaints. The problem for Google in regards to the isoHunt appeal is that the MPAA might just win the case against isoHunt on the basis of “red flag” infringement, and it would set a precedent that would disadvantage Google. So what’s Google’s legal strategy? It’s to paint isoHunt not as a search engine, but just a really really bad copyright infringer. It’s arguing that there’s no need for the MPAA to even use “red flag” infringement, because isoHunt is plainly guilty of actively and deliberately supporting piracy, something that Google/YouTube cannot be accused of. Yes, it really hurts isoHunt’s defence that they’re just a search engine, like Google, but this is Google in self-protection mode.

The so called "red flag" infringement ruling could spell an end to online innovation

Regardless, “red flag” infringement is actually quite a dangerous precedent to set, so I do support Google’s efforts in trying to fight against it, even if it means that isoHunt will be sacrificed as a result. The problem with “red flag” infringement is that it potentially could kill innovation on the Internet, because let’s admit it, a lot of even today’s most popular and mainstream web services had to tolerate or even support “red flag” infringement, to get their business up and running. Would YouTube exist today if people weren’t allowed to upload copyrighted content back when it first started out? Would Google, the search engine, have become the most popular search engine if it blocked all piracy related search results when it was first launched? Would any of the free file hosting websites even exist, allowing us to share large (legal) files that otherwise would be too big for email? “Red flag” infringement is basically the content owner’s way of stopping all innovation, even if there is a remote chance that infringement could occur at some unspecified time in the present or future, and that’s dangerous. And it also puts the onus on identifying infringing activity on the side of the website publishers, as opposed to the content owners, which doesn’t even make sense, since how would I know what content belonged to whom and whether it’s really authorized or not (case in point, Viacom’s own employees uploading copyrighted clips under fake accounts, to create fake hype and promote their shows)?

And so we move on to the next set of news, which is also about appeals. This time, it’s the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft’s (AFACT) appeal of a verdict from a year ago which found Internet Service Provider, iiNet, not guilty of authorizing copyright infringement committed by its subscribers, even though iiNet failed to act on infringement notices sent by the AFACT. The result of the appeal was announced this week, and it’s victory again for iiNet, even if it’s mostly symbolic at this point. While iiNet won the appeal, several decision has been overturned in favour of the AFACT, and it probably paves the way for AFACT stepping up its campaign to make ISPs the copyright police. iiNet’s victory apparently was more due to technical reasons, the precise design of the copyright infringement notices which the court found inadequate, and really, the decision probably gives the AFACT a very clear set of guidelines on just how to send infringement notices to ISPs. Basically, a symbolic victory for iiNet, but probably a more substantial win for the AFACT in the long run.

What frustrates me most about these types of trials, and about ISP warnings and/or three-strikes system, is that, in the end, it will be so so easy for users to bypass monitoring and escape being caught, or even cautioned. This is because anti-piracy monitoring today is basically just based on monitoring BitTorrent networks, which is only one way to obtain pirated content. Encryption, VPNs, or even just direct Internet downloads via digital lockers, can all escape the watching eyes of the piracy police, and so with millions of dollars being spent on lawsuits, and even more millions per year for monitoring and policing, the result will, as always, just push people towards using new piracy tools that will make online piracy harder and harder to track and stop. Remember in the good old days when websites simply hosted the pirated files, and how easy that was to stop compared to stopping torrents? Civil liberties are being sacrificed to give corporations a *false* sense of security, and that’s a really really bad reason to force us to give up our rights (is there even such a thing as a “good reason”?)

High Definition

Again, not much happening for HD/3D news, and I’m not even going to mention the stupid “Inception to be converted to 3D” news, because if there’s one thing worse than the 3D hype, then it’s “taking a 2D movie and converting it to fake 3D so we can squeeze more money out of the fans” phenomenon. Note to studios: not everything has to be in 3D!

XviD 1.3.0 has been released this week

While not exactly HD news, exactly, but a new version of Xvid has been released, version 1.3.0, and it’s the first new version in quite a while. MPEG-4 ASP based codecs may no longer be as sexy or “cool” as the MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 ones, but there’s still a place for the good old Xvid codec for medium quality video files.

And the absence of real news means that I will have to plug my weekly US Blu-ray (and DVD) sales analysis feature, the latest analysis found here. It’s a place where Blu-ray fans can go to bask in the glory of “their” format’s sales successes, and where die hard HD DVD fans like myself can go and find any signs that show Blu-ray’s weakening stance, no matter how statistically insignificant (“OMG, Blu-ray sales fell 20% compared to last week – it’s doooomed!!”).

And as part of compiling the stats, I also regularly update a series of related graphs, that are never actually posted anywhere (other than on our on-and-off “Blu-ray: The State of Play” feature). So instead, I’ll post some of the graphs here right now, for your enjoyment.

Every week, there are stats to show how Blu-ray revenue as a percentage of combined disc (Blu-ray + DVD) revenue, and here’s the stats plotted that compare the most recent weeks (in red) to the same week a year ago (blue):

Blu-ray Sales Percentage: Currents vs a Year Ago (as of 2011-02-12)

The graph below shows the same stat as above, except plotted in a linear time fashion, with a trend line showing Blu-ray’s growth.

Blu-ray Market Share Trend: As of 2011-02-12

And finally, this graph shows the Blu-ray growth rate (so if Blu-ray’s market share was 5% a year ago, and now it’s 10%, the the growth rate is 100%, or doubled), again with a trend line.

Blu-ray growth rate trend: As of 2011-02-12

And finally in gaming, which these days, should probably be renamed to the “PS3 Jailbreak” section instead. Last week ended with Sony banning a bunch of users from PSN for using hacked firmware, and now the hackers have fought back by hacking PSN to un-ban themselves, as well as make it possible to ban anyone they want.

Note to Sony: don’t try to out-hack hackers.

geohot's takes the battle with Sony to rap form

Then we had the news of Sony attempting to bring out a new PS3 SKU that would be hack proof (famous last words). geohot and others have already said that the only way for Sony to really combat the PS3 hack is to release a new hardware, and it seems Sony has taken their advice. At the same time, Sony is beefing up their own legal team as they seek to sue their way out of this mess (what could possibly go wrong?). Sony have also got the German police to raid the home of PS3 Linux hacker graf_chokolo, which will please the Linux/hacking community. You can read more on these stories here.

For those that think I’ve been too hard on Sony, perhaps you’re right. Personal history with the company aside, the main reason I and a lot of people detest Sony is solely based on their recent actions, best described in this Make article/rant. I started Digital Digest talking about how to play DVDs in Windows, back when commercial solutions were few and far in between, and with Pentium 4’s still an expensive early-adopter thing, you just needed to hack your way to play DVDs on PCs smoothly, from tweaking drivers to using custom decoders and more. And from then on, it’s always been about using products and software beyond the purposes intended by manufacturers and publishers. Sony’s hatred towards anyone that wants to do things outside of Sony’s own limited imagination, and their arrogance of forcing people to use Sony products in Sony’s own prescribed manner (and it’s not just end users, it’s also developers too, having to adapt themselves to Sony’s way of doing things, as opposed to the other way around – a philosophy that Microsoft, for example, do not share, which is why the Xbox 360 is a much more developer friendly platform). And it’s also the arrogance in their response, which is almost always an overreaction (eg. CD root-kit fiasco), because it’s as if they believe that using, developing for or even selling a Sony product is a privilege, and so if you make Sony angry, expect retribution. Point out a flaw in their security design? Sony will get you. Make their products do more than advertised? Sony will get you. Sell products to help Sony users in a way Sony doesn’t like? Sony will double get you (as geohot wisely raps in his video, “I shed a tear everytime I think of Lik Sang”).

Speaking of Microsoft as a “good guy” when it comes to consumer right seems quite wrong to me, but compared to Sony, there are a lot of “good guys”. But Microsoft’s response to the Kinect hacks (not the first response, which was similar to Sony’s, but the subsequent responses by openly welcoming the hacks) is to be commended, and really, it’s the best business decision as well (Sony’s actions have often hurt themselves more than anyone else, to be fair). And now Microsoft is following up by releasing an official PC developer kit for Kinect, available for free to non commercial users and researchers. Of course, opening up the development of an console accessory is different to the reaction of seeing your product hacked into oblivion, but still, it’s hard to imagine Sony reacting to the hack in the same manner (as the Make article mentioned, the Aibo hacking incident kind of shows what a typical Sony response might have been).

Also, Kinect will work with Windows Phone sometime in the future (not this year though), which given the recent Nokia announcement regarding moving to the Windows Phone platform, can only be a good thing for Kinect. Still, Kinect needs some better, more varied games, because frankly, I’m a bit tired (in both sense of the word) from playing Kinect Sports soccer and winning 4-3 all the time (I’m not that good at goalkeeping, which for me, consists of flapping my arms wildly).

Alright, enough ranting for this week. Have a good one.

Posted in Computing, Copyright, Electronics, High Definition (Blu-ray/HD DVD/4K), News Roundup, PS3, PS4, Video Technology | Comments Off on Weekly News Roundup (27 February 2011)

Game Consoles – 2010 NPD Sales Figure Year In Review

Tuesday, February 22nd, 2011

As promised, this is the 2010 year in review for US video games sales, based on figures provided by NPD. Due to the NPD withholding many figures towards the end of 2010, this year in review will be pretty short, with a sole focus on the hardware sales figures.

The total sales figures as estimated by the NPD for 2010 are as follows, listed in the order of best selling console to worst:

Wii: 7,069,900
Xbox 360: 6,764,089
PS3: 4,333,500

The major even that occurred in 2010 include the release of the Xbox 360 “Slim”, some Wii price cuts, and the release of Sony’s Move and Microsoft Kinect motion gaming add-ons for their respective consoles. Kinect and Move may have had some effect on PS3 and Xbox 360 sales, they occurred too late in the year to really make a huge impact for either console. But by far, the even that had the most impact was the release of the slim version of the Xbox 360, with took the industry by surprise when it was announced at E3. A picture tells a thousand words, or at least a few hundred, and the following graphs best illustrate the effect of the Xbox 360 “Slim” on console sales:

NPD 2010 Hardware Sales - Pre Xbox 360 "Slim"

NPD 2010 Hardware Sales - Post Xbox 360 "Slim"

As you can see, the “Slim” had a huge effect on Xbox 360 sales, and it affected both PS3 and Wii sales. Before the “slim”, the 30.74% of consoles sold were the Xbox 360 (42.42% for the Wii, 26.84% for the PS3). After the “slim”, it was 39.56% (37.66% for the Wii, 22.78% for the PS3). Which shows that the Xbox 360 gains came more from the decline in sales of the PS3, than the Wii, although that’s simplifying things too much since each console’s gain/decline could be entirely independent from the sales results of the other consoles.

But looking at a single year’s results is too much looking at it in a vacuum – without looking at the past years’ performances, we can’t really see the big picture. And the following graph tries to plot the trend in sales, and why the Wii is in trouble:

Console Sales: 2008 - 2010

The Wii’s steady decline is quite alarming, and shows just how close the Xbox 360 came to outselling the Wii in 2010, and if the early 2011 results are any suggestion, the Xbox 360 is set to become the best selling console in the US in 2011, surpassing the Wii for the first time since the release of Nintendo’s console. PS3 sales mostly remained level from 2009 to 2010, the actual decline in sales is only 1,000 units. The exact percentage changes are as follows (positive indicates growth, negative indicates decline):

Xbox 360:
- From 2008 to 2009: 0.75%
- From 2009 to 2010: 41.78%
Wii:
- From 2008 to 2009: -5.67%
- From 2009 to 2010: -26.31%
PS3:
- From 2008 to 2009: 22.3%
- From 2009 to 2010: -0.02%

The sales bump thanks to the PS3 Slim in 2009, as you can see from the above figure, is only half as big as that gained by the Xbox 360’s “slim”, although the Xbox 360 “slim” had a couple of months more than the PS3 “slim”. But it’s clear that Wii’s decline actually accelerated in 2010.

So what can we conclude from these figures? Nothing that’s not already quite obvious, that the Wii isn’t doing to well, while the Xbox 360 was the real winner of 2010, with the PS3 sales remaining completely flat.

Posted in Nintendo Wii, Wii U, Switch, NPD Analysis, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One | 1 Comment »

Weekly News Roundup (20 February 2011)

Sunday, February 20th, 2011

Another week, another WNR, but not before I do my usual promotion of the January NPD US video game sales analysis post, apologise for still not writing the 2010 NPD year-in-review that I promised a month ago, and then blame it all on some game I’ve been wasting my time on (finished Fallout New Vegas BTW, now moved onto the new iteration of the classic timewaster, Civilization V, and also finally completing some unfinished business/achievements in Dead Rising). Anyway, regarding the January NPD figures, I mentioned that the Xbox 360’s success (most popular console again) is now largely to do with Kinect, but some other commentators have rightly pointed out that Microsoft spent half a billion dollars promoting the 360 and Kinect, so the small sales increase compared to last year has come at a high price, literally. However, it’s useful to point that that total retail spending on the Xbox 360 in January reached $551 million, so Microsoft can easily afford to splash the cash to promote Kinect.

Alright, let’s get to the news roundup, I’ve got the Americans civilization to destroy afterwards, having spent the last 20 years surrounding their territory with Giant Death Robots.

Starting with copyright news, isoHunt is the target of yet another lawsuit, this time by the record industry as it seeks $4m in damages, and the closure of the BitTorrent indexer.

BitTorrent indexers are an interesting category of websites. On one hand, they’re basically search engines, like Google or Bing. On the other hand, they mostly allow you to search for pirated content, and so while they do not host pirated content, they do provide the tools to be able to find and start downloading pirated content. And most of the torrents on these indexers are piracy related, that’s a fact that can’t really be denied. So it’s quite easy to see why the MPAA and RIAA like to go after indexer, and because isoHunt is located in a country that isn’t so far from the HQs of these two industry lobbies (it’s closer than Sweden, anyway), it becomes a natural target.

Decentralized indexing is the next big thing for BitTorrent clients, and it will make shutting down torrents much much harder

Indexers are really the last centralized system for piracy left, with everything else decentralized in an attempt to avoid being shutdown (magnet links, DHT …). The only thing left now is to make indexing decentralized too, and it’s only a matter of time before all the major torrent downloaders incorporate something this feature. An open sourced BitTorrent client with decentralized indexing like Tribler is something the MPAA and RIAA should be very afraid of because it will be almost impossible to shut down, but it’s exactly what their actions are driving users towards. But I think it will be good if we get to a point where Internet piracy cannot be stopped, because perhaps finally, the industry will wake up and find better ways to combat online piracy than lawsuit after lawsuit and government intervention.

Looking at a country where online piracy already seems impossible to stop, Spain, the government’s attempts to stop people downloading pirated content is meeting with heavy resistance since piracy has become mainstream. And even famous actors like Javier Bardem, who came out to support the government’s initiative, wasn’t spared from the public’s anger. Bardem was booed and had eggs thrown at him for supporting the government. But even some in the Spanish film industry are against the government’s plans to introduce tougher penalties for downloaders, including the president of the Spanish Film Academy, Álex de la Iglesia. Well former president, since he resigned his post to protest against the government’s actions. Iglesia says that innovation, not litigation or legislation, is key to fighting piracy. And that viewers, even those viewing pirated content, should be respected because they’re the only reason the film industry even exists. I think piracy being accepted as something mainstream isn’t actually a very good development, because I still believe creators should profit from their creations. And this is why innovation must come before other countries face the same fate as Spain, and I believe innovation can save the film industry.

And litigation may become a lot harder as courts start to question the very basis of copyright lawsuits that are based on IP address evidence. Former copyright law firm ACS:Law, who tried desperately to avoid having to go to court, is in court and the judge is asking all the wrong questions, from ACS:Law’s perspectives anyway. The questions being asked relate to the IP address, and whether this single piece of evidence is really enough for a copyright lawsuit. Finally, we have judge that appreciates the technical subtleties between an IP address and an actual unique identifier of a person, because as the judge rightly states, an IP address at best identifies the account holder of the Internet connection, not the actual downloader. There’s also the issue of IP addresses being spoofed, or more commonly, connections being used without authorization. The judge then asks about an unauthorized access to the ISP account, or even authorized access but unauthorized usage, and whether this falls under the authorization clause of copyright law. If you lend your car to someone who says he’s using it to go the store to get a few things, and then he goes and robs the store, are you an accomplice? The copyright lobby and law firms say so, the judge is not so sure.

And an update on a story reported here back in December, Matt Drudge of Drudge Report has settled with Righthaven over the unauthorized use a photo on the website. Righthaven had requested $150,000 in damages plus the seizure of Drudge’s domain names for the extremely naughty use of a single photograph on the website. No detail of the settlement has emerged, so it’s an unknown how much Drudge had to pay, or even if any payment was involved. My personal opinion is that Drudge should have put up much more of a fight, because the lawsuit is unreasonable in asking so much for a single photo. Had Drudge put up the same amount of resistance as fellow political website Democratic Underground, then perhaps the settlement wouldn’t have been necessary – Righthaven has tried to extract itself from the Democratic Underground lawsuit, fearing that they may actually have to go to court and face the same kind of questions that ACS:Law in the UK is facing (not to mention the extra cost, which goes against the business model).

Not much happening on the HD/3D front this week, so we’ll skip straight to the gaming section, which is good because all of the gaming stories are copyright related anyway.

The first news I posted for this last week was the Crysis 2 leak scandal. What happened was that someone, probably someone on the development team, leaked a pre-release version of the eagerly awaited Crysis 2 game, and of course, hours later, millions of people were trying to download it.

A almost full version of Crysis 2 has been leaked, but don't blame the pirates, blame the person who leaked it

EA, the game’s publisher, took the unusual step to address this issue in their blog, blaming it all on online piracy and pirates as you would expect them to do. But that’s like blaming the people who are reading the Wikileak leaks, as well as the people who published the leak cables, and not the actual person that leaked it. For me, this isn’t an issue about piracy at all, this is an issue about not protecting your products properly, and the fault lies with Crytek and EA. A lot of those that downloaded the pre-release version would still buy the game, and those that had already planned to buy or ordered, would still download just because it’s kind of cool to be able to get the pre-release version.

Despite EA’s blame game, PC piracy is actually decreasing, says the new president of the PC Gaming Alliance, Matt Ployhar. Ployhar says that it’s mostly due to new game design, where MMO games like WoW means that piracy really isn’t possible, and also value-added content and services. Steam is the example that I always go to, and it’s a good example of how innovation can work. I mean, this is a company that got into the PC game sales business when everyone was saying it was doomed, and they have flourished thanks to the very Internet that publishers were blaming for the industry’s demise. Things like showing off your list of games to friends, your achievements, the social aspect of gaming, value-added and exclusive content and features, and of course, reasonable pricing, all counts in the end. As for DRM? Ployhar is on the sidelines when it comes to whether publishers should deploy strong DRM or not. But he does say that many legitimate users do break DRM to get a better gaming experience, something I can personally attest to having used cracks to escape the need to insert the game DVD every time (which is why I now prefer Steam games, since you can get the same thing legally – plus the in-game browsing is a big plus point, considering how crap I am at most games and how much help I need during play).

And finally, an update on the PS3 Jailbreak situation. Sony has, as expected, started to ban those with hacked firmware on PSN. Harsh, perhaps, but hardly unexpected. I’m just surprised Sony didn’t insert a virus into hacked PS3s that make them blow up, because you know that was probably their first choice of action until their lawyers talked them out of it. With the PS3 coming last in console sales in the US yet again, Sony can ill afford to take the focus away from their upcoming games, and onto this legal mess. Although with that said, none of this is new. Microsoft went through this, so have Nintendo with all of their consoles, and Sony are really lucky that it hasn’t happened to them until now. What they shouldn’t do is to overreact, which let’s be honest, is something Sony are famous for. Unfortunately, launching the lawsuits and trying to sue those that even watched the hacking video on YouTube does seem like a typical Sony overreaction (although the hack itself is unprecedented, in its totality and completeness, but that’s Sony’s own fault for having crap security).

Alright, that’s another WNR done with. Back to Civ 5 and blowing the smithereens out of the American cities with my stealth bombers equipped carriers (yes, it is possible to have stealth bombers to be stationed on a carrier despite the game not allowing you to do it direct. Simply build a plain old bomber first, base it on a carrier, and then upgrade to a stealth bomber).

Posted in Copyright, News Roundup, PS3, PS4 | Comments Off on Weekly News Roundup (20 February 2011)

Game Consoles – January 2011 NPD Sales Figure Analysis

Saturday, February 19th, 2011

I know I promised the 2010 year in review post, weeks ago, but rest assured, it’s still coming. I had hoped I would get around to it before the January NPD figures came out, but it looks like I waited too long! In any case, let’s get the January 2011 NPD done before worrying about 2010. Once again, there were enough leaks to present us with enough data to get January’s NPD analysis up. For those that are new to this, this analysis looks at US video games sales figures compiled by NPD.

The figures for US sales in January 2011 are below, ranked in order of number of sales (January 2010 figures also shown, including percentage change):

Xbox 360: 381,000 (Total: 25.8 million; January 2010: 332,800 – up 14.4%)
Wii: 319,000 (Total: 34.5 million; January 2010: 465,800 – down 31.5%)
PS3: 267,000 (Total: 15.7 million; January 2010: 276,900 – down 3.6%)

NPD January 2011 Game Console US Sales Figures

NPD Game Console Total US Sales Figures (as of January 2011)

My prediction from last month was:

I loathe to make a prediction for next month, but I think the Xbox 360 will probably gain back the number one spot, and a very familiar top 10 for software as well.

And gained it back it did. In fact, the Xbox 360 even outsold the DS this month, making it the best selling video games console of any kind. It was also the only console to receive a year-on-year sales increase. The software chart does have a few new entries though, and we’ll discuss this later on as per usual.

Obviously, Microsoft are very pleased with the sales result for the first month of 2011, and it bodes well for the console for the rest of the year. With a 14.5% year-on-year increase, it shows that the console is more than just “the one with the least number of lost sales”, and that the Xbox 360’s market share is actually growing. And this has to be largely thanks to Kinect, as there are simply no other explanations for it (the sales bump from the “Slim” should have dissipated by now, and there hasn’t been any recent price cuts either). Of course, Black Ops may be responsible for some of the sales, but Modern Warfare 2 would have been equally responsible for sales this time last year, and so it can be ruled out as a factor for the sales increase. And with strong software sales (combine revenue on the Xbox 360 makes it the top selling platform once again, in the US).

The Wii continues its 30%+ year-on-year decline, which is alarming because the sales decrease does not seem to have slowed compared to the same time last year (January 2010 was down 31% as well compared to January 2009). The rapid and steady decline should encourage Nintendo to consider bringing out the Wii 2 sooner than what they had planned before. It’s still doing relatively okay in terms of software sales, with Just Dance 2 doing enough to actually earn 2nd place in the combined-platforms top 10 (which is difficult to achieve for a single-platform release like Just Dance 2). But even this is slightly alarming, in that for dancing games, the Kinect will most likely offer the better experience in the future (the Michael Jackson Kinect Experience game should tell us whether this theory is true or not). The Wii is a Xbox 360/Kinect price cut away from being totally wiped out, in my opinion, as price is really the only reason why it continues to outsell at least the PS3.

Speaking of the PS3, the recent PS3 hacking issue could be a distraction Sony can do without, because once again, its flagship console came last place in the home console charts (not counting the PS2, which it appears, nobody is counting any more, certainly not the NPD). But on the software front, there are at least a couple of bright spots, Little Big Planet 2 and the console exclusive DC Universe Online. But instead of bridging the gap between it and the Xbox 360, the gap is actually getting wider, although Sony is definitely doing better in worldwide sales numbers (but the Xbox 360 is showing signs of improvement there as well). It doesn’t exactly help that the PS3 is still the most expensive console around, and even though some of the extra price is justified due to the Blu-ray playback functionality, which has just recently been upgraded for Blu-ray 3D, the ever decreasing cost of standalone players means that it’s becoming harder and harder to justify the PS3’s price premium. At the very least, Sony should be looking for price parity between its console and the Xbox 360.

In software, the top 10 does have a few titles from last month, but there are also a couple of new entries, the most notable being Dead Space 2, Little Big Planet 2, Dance Central and DC Universe Online. Three of these titles were platform exclusive (for consoles anyway), with two of them belong to the PS3. Which is why Sony can’t be too unhappy with the results. The other platform exclusive was Dance Central, a Kinect title, and this is the first Kinect title I think to make it into the top 10 “all-platforms” chart, which is hard for a platform exclusive, and Dance Central is more than just a platform exclusive, since it also requires an optional add-on accessory (if 20% of Xbox 360 owners have Kinect, and the Xbox 360 accounts for 34% of the console market, then it means only 7% of gamers could actually play Dance Central, and that’s not even including PC and portable console gamers). The leaks have also resulted in some actual numbers for software sales, with Black Ops selling 750,000 copies, Dead Space 2 selling 441,000, and Zumba Fitness selling “over 300,000” units. Anyway, here’s the full software sales chart for January:

Call of Duty: Black Ops (Activision Blizzard, Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, PC, DS)
Just Dance 2 (Ubisoft, Wii)
Dead Space 2 (EA, Xbox 360, PS3, PC)
Little Big Planet 2 (Sony, PS3)
Zumba Fitness: Join the Party (Majesco, Wii, Xbox 360, PS3)
NBA 2K11 (Take-Two Interactive, Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, PS2, PSP,PC)
Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood (Ubisoft, Xbox 360, PS3)
Dance Central (MTV, Xbox 360)
Michael Jackson: The Experience (Ubisoft, Wii, DS, PSP)
DC Universe Online: The Next Legend Is You (Sony, PS3, PC)

So, prediction time. My brain tells me the hardware ordering will be the same, but my heart tells me there could be some surprises. A resurgence for the Wii? Xbox 360 suffering a sales slump after the holidays? PS3 sales up thanks to Killzone 3? Speaking of Killzone 3, it is one of *the* titles for February, while Bulletstorm seems to be selling well right now, along with Marvel vs Capcom 3. And the recent hits will be in the top 10 too.

As for the 2010 review, I will aim to get it up during the week, but again, it’s a busy week for me so I can’t guarantee anything. Actually, I’ve already got all the graphs done and the conclusion is already pretty clear, so it may just be a very short analysis since there’s not a lot of data to play with, especially during the last few months of 2010.

See you soon.

Posted in Nintendo Wii, Wii U, Switch, NPD Analysis, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One | 4 Comments »

Weekly News Roundup (13 February 2011)

Sunday, February 13th, 2011

Sorry for the slightly late edition of the WNR, couldn’t be helped unfortunately. Luckily, there weren’t too many news stories this week, especially if you really count the whole PS3 jailbreak saga as just one story, so hopefully we can get through this rather quickly.

And don’t forget our Facebook/Twitter competition where anyone who likes/follows will enter into the draw to win some $20 Amazon gift cards. The more likes/follows, the more prizes (up to 15 GCs – I have to save the rest of the website earnings for food), and from the current count, I should be handing out something like 7 or 8 of these GCs. So get clicking, and good luck!

Let’s start with the copyright news. Last week. I talked about how increasing access to content reduces piracy, and if you take the same principle and use it for the other side, then decreasing access should lead to more piracy.

Making TV shows exclusive to a subscription channel could increase piracy

Which is exactly what experts are warning now that the UK has a new subscription channel that has made a lot of shows, previ0usly available on free-to-air TV, a channel exclusive. It means that for popular shows like Boardwalk Empire, the only way to actually watch these shows is to sign up to Sky Atlantic, or wait until the show hits DVDs/Blu-rays. Legally, that is. Illegally, well, you won’t really have to wait more than 2 hours after the original US airing date to find torrents posted everywhere for that particular episode. In fact, I bet that the torrent release schedule probably beats the airing schedule of Sky Atlantic, probably even by days or even weeks. So release windows, exclusive broadcasts, and no legal free option will only really drive people to pursue less than legal options. Those more adventurous (and technical minded) will go for torrents, while there are still plenty of file sharing and streaming sites that offer the rest the ability to watch the shows without the associated legal risk (since most of the legal focus is on BitTorrent downloads these days). Now, somebody will benefit financially from exclusivity and release delays, but it all seems very short term to me, and the reason why TV piracy is on the up. It’s more understandable for US cable based shows, that were never really on free-to-air anyway, but for shows that air in the US on the big networks, there’s no reason why these shows shouldn’t be shown simultaneously around the world (taking into account time zone differences). Do that, and I think piracy rates will be lowered by quite a bit. Yes, pirated shows don’t have ads, which is a big draw card, but with PVR/DVRs and a little bit of fast forwarding, it’s probably worth the pain to avoid the risk of receiving a letter from an opportunist law firm.

Hotfile is being sued by major Hollywood studios for promoting web piracy

Speaking of file sharing sites like Hotfile, Hotfile has just been sued by the MPAA and five movie studios it represents. Now, I don’t think anyone can deny that there are lots of pirated files on Hotfile, but it is an upload service, and it’s the users that populate their servers. Like how people upload pirated Viacom clips to YouTube, and look how that turned out for Viacom, in the court room. The MPAA claims that Hotfile rewards users for uploading pirated movies and TV shows, because Hotfile has an affiliate program where you can earn movie depending on how popular your downloads are and how many of your downloaders sign up for the premium service. Now, I think it’s also fair to admit that many pirates are probably making money this way, but then again, in my line of work, I see a lot of software publishers that also use Hotfile and other file hosting services to save money on file hosting, as well as make a couple of bucks back. So Hotfile’s affiliate program really is just about growing their business and rewarding their customers, whomever they may be, and can you really blame a business for trying to do this? As for the ratio of legal to illegal downloads? I have no idea. But what can a company like Hotfile do to fight piracy, other than not exist (which is the MPAA’s preferred option – in fact, I think they’d rather the Internet not exist either, the same opinion also held by quite a few dictators around the world right now). They can try and filter based on file names, but all users will do is to name their downloads sdkj3489sd.zip or something similar, and piracy will continue. They can actively scan downloads, but pirates can then simply password protect and/or encrypt files (if they’re not doing it already), and piracy will continue. Hotfile can put in a system where copyright holders can submit removal requests, but they already have such a system which the MPAA studios appears to be not very fond of (mainly because it means they will actually have to do a bit of work themselves). So what’s a digital file locker hosting website to do? What can they do? They can get sued, apparently. And the likes of RapidShare and MegaUpload are surely not immune from similar lawsuits, although it’s understandable why the MPAA chose a lower profile website like Hotfile to sue, since it’s like RapidShare, which already has a lot of experience in the courts, will put up a much stronger fight.

6,500 people have been added to the “The Expendables” mass lawsuit. Nothing really surprising there, because as long as you have producers who don’t care about public opinion and a negative backlash, law firms like the US Copyright Group will continue to have clients.

The PS3 jailbreak stuff will be posted under the Gaming section as per usual.

High Definition

In HD/3D news, again, not a lot happening. I did catch a few 3D Blu-ray titles on sales at Amazon and elsewhere online recently, and so even without Fox/Panasonic’s mean-hearted/short-sighted-ness in making Avatar 3D an exclusive (now selling for a little bit less on eBay, around $150).

The one I was tempted to buy was Piranha 3D. I loved the original Piranha movies, and this latest edition of the latest remake has both the 2D version, as well as the anaglyph version (red/blue glasses version), in addition to the 3D Blu-ray version, so it’s a good introductory package for 3D (because you can always go back to the 2D version in case 3D is not for you, or if you don’t have a 3D Blu-ray system right now, you can still enjoy the old fuzzy, washed out colours, style 3D with the cheap paper glasses).

While neither HD or 3D related, I did post a news item about publishers moving away from Apple’s iTunes towards Android and other more open marketplaces. While software restrictions are the real issue right now, it also I guess applies to movies, and some of these movies might be HD (I’m really stretching here, aren’t I). Basically, you have Apple who wants to control everything and then some, and it may be their right since they did produce the excellent iDevices in question, and most of their income is derived from having so much control. And there’s also the issue of quality control too. But being able to play any movie you want simply by using a USB cable to copying it, like you would do with any USB storage device, means that Android phones appeal to those who simply cannot stand iTunes or the idea of being locked to the software. And for publishers, it means they can publish without having to hand over 30% for every transaction, or to have to abide by Apple’s stupid licensing restrictions, which requires even free software have use Apple’s DRM (hence the whole VLC player for iOS debacle).

And finally in gaming, most of the news as you may have guessed relates to Sony’s legal action against the security researchers who uncovered the major security hole within Sony’s own security infrastructure, and famous/infamous PS3 hacker George Hotz, who did the awful thing is re-enabling homebrew on the PS3 (but not piracy).

The week started with Sony attempting to get the likes of YouTube and Twitter to hand over user information in relation to anyone remotely related to the PS3 hack, even those who simply watched the hacking video on YouTube. Their intention was to expand the case to include anyone who releases or distributes custom firmware and other security hacks. Basically, a fishing expedition. But one that was ultimately denied by the judge for the case.

I might have some sympathy for Sony if they only went after those that release firmware that included the ability to play copied games. But to go after fail0verflow, basically just a security research team, and also geohot, who has time and time again denounced piracy and went out of his way to ensure his custom firmware cannot play pirated games, it seems Sony have chosen the wrong targets really. And then to try and go after Linux hackers like Graf_Chokolo, whose sole aim was only to bring Linux back to the PS3, a feature that Sony once fully supported, it just seems unnecessary.

Major Nelson pokes fun at Sony's Kevin Butler "Battleship" SNAFU

And then Linux community responded by fooling fake PS3 VP and twitter personality Kevin Butler into re-tweeting a hacked PS3 security code. Embarrassing, and even Xbox 360’s Major Nelson poked fun at the incident, but what’s more worrying for Sony is that all of these are taking attention away from the console and the great games that they will have out this year, and that’s something they can’t really afford at the moment, not when the race with the Xbox 360 is so close and with the threat from Kinect hanging around.

And speaking of Kinect, the PlayStation Move’s creator (Dr. Richard Marks) seems a bit jealous of the attention Kinect has gotten with the PC community, and wants something similar for the Move, except to make it even more accessible. I suppose this means that instead of having access to just the raw data, some of the software and processing algorithms may be opened up too, if Dr. Marks is able to overrule Sony’s “we don’t like anyone poking their heads under the hood” stance. Of course, what most interested the programmers was the potential of Kinect, and how different it was to any consumer tech on the market (something like this would otherwise be thousands and thousands of dollars, for the professionals market). The Move, while somewhat innovative, is really just a more accurate Wii, and programmers have already had their fun with hacking the Wii-mote when it first came out. If anything, the PlayStation Eye is a more interesting device, but one that still can’t compare to the Kinect in terms of innovation.

And so, we come to the end of another edition of the Weekly News Roundup. Enjoy your week!

Posted in Copyright, Electronics, News Roundup, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One | Comments Off on Weekly News Roundup (13 February 2011)

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Archive for February, 2011

Weekly News Roundup (27 February 2011)

Game Consoles – 2010 NPD Sales Figure Year In Review

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Weekly News Roundup (13 February 2011)

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