The top 12 tech stories of 2012

Heather Kelly
Fri December 28, 2012
http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/27/tech/web/top-tech-stories-2012/

Facebook struggled with its new life as a publicly traded company, and Instagram, the photo-sharing network it acquired in April, was dragged along for the ride.

There were inspiring stories, such as the Internet coming together to protest anti-piracy legislation. And there was darker news, like the Israeli military live-tweeting its strikes against Gaza.

And as always, the world's dominant and most closely watched tech company was all over the news. Apple did a little bit of everything in 2012, from hit new products (the iPad Mini) to high-profile failures (Apple Maps) to some old-fashioned courtroom drama in its patent war with Samsung.

Here are our picks for the top 12 tech stories of 2012. What did we leave out? Let us know in the comment section below.

Microsoft's big push

This was the year Microsoft took a big, bold and surprisingly fun step with a new version of Windows, an updated mobile operating system and its very own iPad rival.

The company, best known for its efficient but stodgy desktop software, needed to do something fresh to get customers' attention in 2012 and started with its flagship product. Windows 8 is a complete overhaul of the Windows operating system. Microsoft nixed the Start button and mixed a playful touchscreen interface with a more traditional desktop experience that runs on tablets, traditional computers, and hybrid machines.

The company also made a leap into the hardware market, releasing its first tablet, the Microsoft Surface, which ran a truncated version of the new Windows 8 operating system. And finally, there was Windows Phone 8, a major revamp of its smartphone operating system, which Microsoft hopes can compete with Apple's iOS and Google's Android.

It's still too soon to judge any of the new releases as successes or failures, but give Microsoft credit for taking chances.

SOPA backlash

In January, a pair of anti-piracy bills united the Internet in outrage. The proposed legislation, the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA, and the Protect IP Act, or PIPA, would have restricted access to sites associated with pirated content, including the search engines and ad networks that do business with them.

The Internet cried censorship, and on January 18 some of the most popular sites blacked out their pages in protest. Reddit, Craigslist, Boing Boing, The Oatmeal, the English-language version of Wikipedia and thousands of other sites went dark. Even Google put a black censorship box over its logo. There were also petitions and organized boycotts of companies that supported the bills.

The protests worked, as both SOPA and PIPA were shelved. It was an impressive demonstration of the power of an organized Internet community.

Live-tweeting war

Violence and war have long been documented on Twitter and other social networks -- typically by journalists and by regular people on the ground (notably the Pakistani witness to the 2011 raid that killed Osama bin Laden).

But in November, the Israeli military took this concept to a new level. During its conflict with Palestinian forces in Gaza, the Israel Defense Force tweeted updates, including the news it had "eliminated" Hamas leader Ahmed Jabari. The military arm of Hamas responded on Twitter with its own provocations.

The back-and-forth between the warring sides signaled a jarring evolution in how war is broadcast in real time.

iPhone 5 and Apple Maps stumble

Every Apple hardware release is a big news story, starting with rumors months in advance and peaking with a well-oiled Apple press event, followed by usually glowing reviews and huge sales numbers. But in 2012, Apple made a major misstep when it released the iPhone 5 and its new operating system, iOS 6.

The company dropped the Google-powered maps that had come pre-installed on every iPhone since 2007. In its place, Apple introduced its own mapping app. Apple Maps looked stunning, with 3-D graphics and neat features like Flyover and turn-by-turn directions. All it was missing was transit directions and accuracy -- the maps were riddled with mistaken locations and outdated information.

The resulting criticism inspired an apology from CEO Tim Cook and led to an executive shakeup at Apple. Customers turned to third-party map apps until Google finally released an iOS version of its popular maps in December.

Apple vs. Samsung

It was the biggest tech trial of the year. Two of the top phone and tablet manufacturers went to war when Apple accused Samsung of infringing on its iPad and iPhone patents for a variety of tablets and smartphones. The drama culminated in a federal jury trial over the summer that offered a rare peek into how notoriously secretive Apple operates.

The story became huge because of the large amount of money at stake and the implications that its verdict would have on Samsung's business and the Android platform.

The jury decided in Apple's favor, awarding the company just over $1 billion in damages. But the case is far from over. Lawyers for both sides will continue bickering over potential appeals for months and possibly years to come.

Facebook's botched IPO

It was the most anticipated IPO of the year, and one of the largest ever for a tech company. Social-media darling Facebook looked primed for a big public opening: The company was valued at $104 billion, snapped up popular photo-sharing app Instagram and was still growing.

But then an array of problems and misjudgments led to a botched IPO in May, and the company's stock plummeted. The initial offer price of $38 was too high, too many shares were issued, its opening day was marred by Nasdaq's technical glitches, and underwriter Morgan Stanley was fined for improperly influencing share sales.

The stock price dropped significantly, hitting a low of $17.55 on September 4. Facebook is still struggling to recover some of its early-2012 luster.

The Instagram boom

Instagram started out scrappy two years ago as a fun little app for sharing sepia-shaded photos with friends. But when its user base skyrocketed, Facebook bought it for $1 billion in cash and shares of Facebook stock. That amount later dropped to $735 million as the value of Facebook shares plummeted.

By September, Instagram had more than 100 million users. The app capped off its big year with a rite of passage for social networks: a bungled update to its terms of service that sparked user outrage and led to a hasty backtrack by founder Kevin Systrom.

Instagram's challenge for 2013 is to figure out how to grow its free service into a business that makes money so that Facebook can begin to get its money's worth.

Megaupload and Kim Dotcom

The Megaupload case would have been mildly interesting on its own. A popular file-sharing company and its various sites were shut down by the F.B.I for piracy. But when Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom was arrested in January at his lavish New Zealand estate, he went from unknown entrepreneur to a flamboyantly rich cult hero.

Dotcom (he legally changed his last name from Schmitz in 2005) did what any self-respecting boy video-game nerd would do with millions of dollars. He bought a yacht, helicopter, luxury cars and motorcycles. He lived with his model wife in a $24 million rented mansion in New Zealand where he spent hours playing "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3," earning a spot as the top-ranked player in the world.

But after Dotcom was jailed and his assets were seized, he slowly emerged as a leader for Internet freedom activists who thought he was unfairly targeted. He's still fighting the charges and using his newfound fame to launch new projects. His current plans include a new file-sharing site that encrypts all its files, and a streaming music service called Megabox.

Mid-sized tablets take off

It was the rare case of Apple following a trend instead of setting it. Apple introduced its 7.9-inch iPad Mini in October to take on its new rivals in the tablet market: cheaper 7-inch devices from Google and Amazon. While the Kindle Fire and Nexus 7 were only selling modestly compared to the iPad, Apple quickly recognized the growing demand for a smaller, more portable device.

The iPad Mini proved especially notable because Apple's late CEO, Steve Jobs, famously stated a 7-inch tablet would never make it in the market because it was "too big to compete with a smartphone; too small to compete with an iPad." This may have been one of those rare cases in which Jobs was wrong.

Nintendo launches Wii U

In November, Nintendo released a new version of its popular Wii game console, which while groundbreaking when launched in 2006 was badly in need of a refresh.

The Wii U's most novel feature is a touchscreen tablet controller called a GamePad, which communicates with the main console. Inside the tablet are motion control sensors, speakers, a camera, buttons and other bells and whistles -- all of which the gamer uses to interact with what's happening on the larger screen.

It's a bold move for the company and brings a new perspective to console gaming, although the Wii U has received mixed reviews so far.

Yahoo hires Marissa Mayer

Aging Internet giant Yahoo was facing slumping revenues and internal strife in July when it hired Google exec Marissa Mayer as its new chief executive. The hire made headlines for many reasons: Mayer was a bold choice that showed Yahoo was serious about shaking things up. She was also young, a Silicon Valley power player, and a woman who was expecting her first child.

There was much media hand-wringing over her pregnancy, with some pundits wondering aloud whether Mayer could juggle a newborn baby and a demanding new job. Many saw her as a role model for working mothers.

But when the news settled, the real question returned: Could Mayer save the floundering Yahoo? So far she has shaken up Yahoo's executive team, given employee morale a much-needed boost and begun to improve the company's mobile offerings, including a stunning new Flickr app.

It will take a while to properly gauge her impact, but investors seem optimistic. Yahoo's stock price has risen $4 a share since her hiring was announced.

Tech's role in the presidential election

Technology issues such as net neutrality weren't discussed much during the 2012 presidential election, but tech played a huge role in rallying supporters and getting out the vote. President Obama, arguably the most tech-savvy of U.S. presidents, went on Google Plus and Reddit to take questions from voters.

And both his campaign and that of his GOP challenger, Mitt Romney, sent social media messages almost daily in attempts to sway media reports and public opinion.

But the most impressive use of tech took place behind the scenes, where both sides used new and powerful computer databases to target voters. The Romney campaign's get-out-the-vote program, called Orca, suffered technical glitches on Election Day and was perceived to have been outflanked by Obama campaign software which compiled massive amounts of data on voters and dispatched volunteers to pinpoint locations across the country.

Review: Wii U isn’t perfect, but worth the price

M4d Ski11z
November 19th, 2012
http://blog.chron.com/houstongamer/2012/11/review-wii-u-isnt-perfect-but-worth-the-price/

Wii U
Made by: Nintendo
Price: $299 for 8gb model with Gamepad controller; $349 for 32gb premium model with Gamepad controller and “Nintendo Land” game
Available: Now
Available at: Major retailers but supplies are very limited if you didn’t preorder the unit.

There’s no doubt in my mind that the Nintendo Wii U will be one of the biggest (and most sought-after) gifts this holiday season. There’s no doubt that finding a Wii U won’t be hard. With stores sold out of the console, the real question is how much will the device cost you?

Nintendo enjoyed a huge consumer demand for their newest console, the Wii. The Wii, which included the popular WiiSports, sold millions of units, most of it from word of mouth. Mothers and older citizens loved it. Children loved it. Nongamers enjoyed the Wii. Hardcore gamers, however, often were skeptical of the Wii’s success. It wasn’t made for the hardcore players – it was made – and pushed – by people who weren’t traditional gamers. Hardcore gamers wanted HD graphics, action mixed with violence and awesome performance in video games.

Nintendo, faced with criticism and sagging sales, decided to revamp the Wii. They decided to offer HD graphics, increased performance and hardcore games to win back veteran gamers – and have achieved their goal with the Wii U.

The Wii U not only offers great graphics (up to 1080P, via HDMI) and the ability to play Wii games on the console (and use Wii accessories, such as the Wii Remote), but it offers a new way to play games. The controller, called the Gamepad, offers the ability to play Wii U games on the Gamepad’s screen. On a few games, you can use the Gamepad as a second display, showing a map on it while your main television screen shows the actual game.

Not a fan of what’s on television? You can use the Gamepad to watch Netflix, Hulu Plus and YouTube (at press time, these features were not available to try out), surf the Web and visit amazon.com and buy more Wii U games. You can also program the Gamepad as a universal remote. You can control your television inputs with the Gamepad, volume and change channels. It had no problem finding my television maker (Vizio).

As slick as the Gamepad is, action games with dual displays (this can be disabled) – the same action on both displays – can be very distracting. When I played “Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor’s Edge,” I played the game on the Gamepad as it was shown on the television screen. However, duplicate displays are only good if you are watching another TV station. It can be very distracting and your eye will hate switching between your television and the Gamepad. While I played “Ninja Gaiden,” the action was so intense my mind had a very hard time figuring out which display to keep an eye on.

Another drawback for the Wii U? You can’t play your original Wii games on the Gamepad. As slick as the Gamepad is, you have to dust off your Wii accessories and sync them if you want to play “Trauma Center” or “Red Steel” – or even “Wii Fit.” Yes, you can play your Wii game, just not on your Gamepad.

If you aren’t comfortable getting your game on with the Gamepad? You can buy a Pro Controller – which resembles a Microsoft Xbox 360 controller – and play several games with it. It gives you the look and feel of a controller that several console gamers are used to.

Overall, I have been bombarded with questions about is the Wii U worth the upgrade, especially from people who own original Wiis that haven’t been turned on in years. After spending time with the Wii U, I think it’s safe to say it’s definitely WORTH the price. If you have Wii games and accessories already, you are good to go. From the new party games – “Nintendo Land” to the action games – “ZombiU” and “Ninja Gaiden 3” – the Wii U offers something for every gamer. The only challenge you will likely face is finding on for the original retail price.

My recommendation? BUY.

Videogame Next Gen: Coming 2012

Microsoft and Sony were hoping to wait until 2014, but Nintendo has forced them to change their plans. With the Wii U coming out next year, the Xbox 720 and the PlayStation 4 (at least what they're being referred to by Yahoo News) will be released in 2012 as well...
Wii U is pushing the Xbox 720 and PS4 to debut sooner, says Ubisoft CEO
Jeffrey Van Camp
Tue, Jul 19, 2011
http://news.yahoo.com/wii-u-pushing-xbox-720-ps4-debut-sooner-154348071.html

Wii 2: The Nintendo Revolution

From PCWorld.com:
Almost five years after the Nintendo Wii launched, broke sales records, and revolutionized gaming with the introduction of motion-sensitive controllers, the console is slated to get a successor by E3 in June 2011.

Game Informer has "confirmed with multiple sources" that the Wii 2 (I'm hoping it'll be called the Nintendo Revolution; the Wii's pre-release code name) will be capable of HD gaming. Game Informer wasn't certain whether or not the Wii 2 will be powerful enough to compete with rival powerhouses the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, but IGN's sources say it'll be capable of 1080p resolutions, be "significantly more powerful than the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360," and is Nintendo's attempt to "recapture the hardcore market." By that I presume they mean 1996, with the Nintendo 64.

Either way, a more graphics-capable Wii 2 will improve Nintendo's relationships with developers who are understandably tired of creating games that might as well be on the GameCube...

Wii 2 on the Way: Nintendo is Growing Up
Brennon Slattery
Apr 14, 2011
http://www.pcworld.com/article/225300/wii_2_is_on_the_way_nintendo_is_growing_up.html

Nintendo Goes 3D

Nintendo has released it's 3DS system, a handheld machine that has 3D gaming without the goofy glasses.
Yes, it's $250, more than a Wii, XBox 360 or an iPod Touch. Still, new gaming hardware always starts with a higher premium price. It allows you to take 3D photos and videos, and is backwards compatible with most Nintendo DS titles. The resolution is 320 X 240 pixels on the lower screen and 800 X 240 on the top, and soon will be able to stream movies and TV shows from Netflix. One big negative: a 3.5 hour battery life, which cuts down on portability for now. There's already two winner titles for the system: LEGO Star Wars 3: The Clone Wars and Nintendogs + Cats.

Robalini's Verdict: if Nintendo gives me a free one, I'll plug this shamelessly...

Six things to love (and hate) about the Nintendo 3DS
Winda Benedetti
3-25-11
http://ingame.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/03/25/6343754-six-things-to-love-and-hate-about-the-nintendo-3ds

Wii2 – For and Against

http://wii.ign.com/articles/113/1136075p1.html
Wii2 – For and Against
Nintendo's next console – are we really ready for it? Choose your side.
Australia, November 28, 2010
Patrick Kolan

Nintendo must lead the charge into the next generation of gaming consoles – this much is certain. While Microsoft and Sony place bets on different forms of motion control styles, Nintendo is surely looking at advancing the market even further – looking for the 'next big thing' that will take concepts established by the Wii and put Nintendo even farther ahead of the competition.

With this in mind, we've weighed up strong arguments for and against the release of Wii2 in the near future. Will the Big N carry on in the face of Move and Kinect? Or are we going to see a new paradigm shift just around the bend?

For:

Dated Hardware

The Wii has not aged gracefully – from a strictly visual standpoint – but that is, in many ways, very much intentional on Nintendo's part. The company has always maintained that it was backing away from the constant hardware/graphics treadmill that has plagued and underpinned gaming since day one. That said, further refinements in the areas of social interaction, motion control and even efficient rendering and processing power has made the Wii something of a hidey-hole for cheap and nasty ports, rush-job games and poor franchised titles.

More Direct Competitors

Sony now has Move and Microsoft just launched Kinect – not to mention Apple's touch interface platforms. Clearly the market has embraced the motion control and direct-feedback paradigm in a big way – and all of these competitors are slowly chipping away at Nintendo's mighty empire. Each time a direct competitor emerges, a little more shine is stripped from the Wii, and the platform looks less and less enticing in the eyes of Joe Consumer. The Wii2 might reset the standard and bring the focus back to Nintendo again in the living room.

Third-Party Pressure

The Wii has never traditionally been the lead platform of choice for many developers and, despite Nintendo's insistence, the system still isn't the cash-cow developers hoped it would be. Third party games still rarely sell as well as Nintendo's own franchised titles. While the situation isn't dire, a new console might stimulate development activity and bring the quality of the games back in line with its competitors – perhaps undoing some of the damage done by the glut of shovelware the currently plagues the Wii's library.

Nintendo Favours Half-steps

The Wii2 might well be a half-step forward, rather than another revolution in gameplay. By coupling in HD output, Wii MotionPlus and media streaming services, Nintendo might well do what the DSi did for the ageing DS hardware – refining a proven concept and bringing it more in line with changing market demands.

Nintendo Decides The Next Generation Debut

If the Wii2 is coming, it might well be an entirely new way of approaching games. Nintendo decided to upset the gaming industry with the Wii and DS, and it's through this disruptive approach that Nintendo technically declared a new generation of gaming consoles. The Wii2 might herald the true start of the next generation race – leaving Microsoft and Sony to play catch-up once again. It's a smart approach to take; the goalposts keep moving just as the competition gets its head around your previous efforts.

Against:

3DS

Nintendo has a new trump-card piece of hardware in the Nintendo 3DS handheld. Already garnering major press globally and terrific buzz from within the core gaming community, 3DS itself is a very valid reason for Nintendo to hold back the Wii2. Why dilute interest in 3DS by having to compete with another major Nintendo platform retail within the first year or so of its life?

The Hardware is Still Selling Well

Why rush out the next-generation replacement if the current generation is still doing solid bank? That's the fundamental argument behind this point. The Wii, despite more technically powerful competitors and advancements in the same space, has continued to power forward off the back of a few strong first-party game releases each year. Like DS, Nintendo knows better than to rush out a replacement and risk dampening sales. In fact, if the Wii2 is announced, like the 3DS, we'd expect a tight turnaround between announcement and shelf-date.

With the 3DS and MotionPlus, has Nintendo delayed the launch of the Wii2 indefinitely?

Is the Market Ready?

Motion control has taken the market by storm – and it's taken a few years to really cement itself as a genuine alternative to traditional game controls. Essentially, changing market perception was always going to be a gradual process –but the market's resistance to further change might take years to overcome. Wii2 might not be on the agenda simply because the market might not be as willing to embrace further gameplay refinements and revolutions.

Is Nintendo R&D Ready?

It's entirely possible that Nintendo's internal research and development team are toiling away on new technology and control advancements –and this takes time. If Nintendo isn't entirely confident about next steps forward, or if a suitably worthwhile jump isn't on the cards, it's possible that Nintendo itself might be sitting on Wii2 for the foreseeable future.

No Price Drop ...Yet

Off the back of a recent report from a Nintendo shareholder meeting in Japan, Nintendo has no plans to drop the price of the Wii at retail... yet. That is a strong indicator that Nintendo has no short-term plans to introduce new hardware, simply because it has confidence in the ongoing retail viability of the platform. If and when the price does drop, that might be the best possible indicator that the platform is slowing and Nintendo is gearing up for a new hardware announcement. On that note, IGN'll keep you in the loop as news comes to hand!

Why You'll Fall in Love With the Xbox Kinect

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/11/06/fall-love-microsoft-xbox-kinect

Holiday Gift Guide
Why You'll Fall in Love With the Xbox Kinect
By Clayton Morris
November 05, 2010 | FoxNews.com

I just lost 100 calories playing a video game!

Microsoft's brand-new, much-hyped Kinect for Xbox is finally out -- in all of its motion-controlled glory. Forget the Nintendo Wii. Kinect is sure to be the biggest family-fun hit of the holiday season.

When Microsoft unveiled Kinect two years ago, I wondered to myself: Could a system really abandon the joystick controller and rely on the movement of our bodies to play games? The answer is a resounding yes!

I've been testing Kinect -- or should I say, kickboxing, dancing, and rafting Kinect -- for about a week now, and I'm more than impressed. Remember how cool it was when you first used Nintendo's Wii controllers? Multiply that impression by a factor of 10 and you come close to the experience of Kinect.

Kinect isn't a new system. It's an add-on to the existing Microsoft Xbox gaming console, one which plugs into any of the systems. It uses four microphones and three video lenses to locate your body. The setup is fairly simple. Once it scans your body to identify your height and facial features, you're off and running ... or jumping.

Kinect uses microphones to recognize your voice, letting you speak commands and navigate menus. Microsoft is really proud of this feature; I am not impressed. It sounds like a great idea but it's too clunky. Even in a small room Kinect had difficulty recognizing commands such as "Xbox: Play Kinect Adventures" or "Xbox: Sign In." Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. I ended up getting frustrated and often gave up, going back to using my arms in midair to navigate menu settings.

Nintendo hit a home run by including Wii Sports in the box with the Wii console. Microsoft took a page from Nintendo's playbook, including a copy of Kinect Adventures -- a series of five incredibly addictive games that are fun for the whole family.

Rally Ball is a lot like dodgeball, Reflex Ridge is an Indiana Jones-styled obstacle course, and Space Pop forces you to pop bubbles in midair. In 20,000 Leaks, you try to keep fish away from your undersea boat; in the amazing River Rush, multiple players control a white water raft through wild river rapids.

But my favorite game for Kinect is from MTV and Harmonix: Dance Central. It tracks your body's movement while you attempt to dance alongside professional dancers to some of today's hottest songs. Notice I said attempt to dance. The way I play this game can only loosely be interpreted as dancing -- let's just say I made sure the shades in my house were drawn before I started.

If you want to lose weight, Microsoft Kinect has you covered too. Your Shape includes workouts created by Men's Health and Women's Health. I've been doing cardio kickboxing, yoga, and tai chi. While you're exercising you receive feedback from a personal trainer on the screen. And because Kinect is tracking all of your movements, it'll know whether or not you're doing the exercise correctly.

Beware, however, if you're thinking of getting one: Your existing layout may no longer work. You may need to mount your Kinect sensor bar on top of the television for best results. But for many people that's not an option, thanks to modern thin televisions that the sensor bar simply won't sit on.

My television was too thin for the sensor bar, for example. I had to put it underneath the TV, and that's a problem because Kinect requires about 6 feet of space from the television to where you're standing in order to scan your body from head to toe. I live in a New York City apartment -- it's as small as you've heard such places are -- so the backs of my legs kept hitting my couch.

I imagine this would be a problem for college kids in a dorm room, as well. My advice is to put your Kinect console in an area where you have plenty of space to move around.

But ignore those few annoyances. Kinect is a major advancement in gaming technology and one that's sure to be on millions of kids' Christmas lists this season. And adults' lists too!

Clayton Morris is a Fox and Friends host and the tech godfather behind the Gadgets and Games show.

Microsoft is a dying consumer brand

http://money.cnn.com/2010/10/27/technology/microsoft_pdc
Microsoft is a dying consumer brand
Steve Ballmer, and the company he leads, are struggling with "the vision thing."
David Goldman, staff writer
October 27, 2010

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Consumers have turned their backs on Microsoft. A company that once symbolized the future is now living in the past.

Microsoft has been late to the game in crucial modern technologies like mobile, search, media, gaming and tablets. It has even fallen behind in Web browsing, a market it once ruled with an iron fist.

Outgoing Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie called out Microsoft's lost ground in a blog post over the weekend.

"Our early and clear vision notwithstanding, [competitors'] execution has surpassed our own in mobile experiences, in the seamless fusion of hardware & software & services, and in social networking & myriad new forms of internet-centric social interaction," he said.

It's not like Microsoft didn't foresee the changes ahead. With a staff of almost 90,000, the company has many of the tech world's smartest minds on its payroll, and has incubated projects in a wide range of fields that later took off. Experiments like Courier (tablets), HailStorm/Passport (digital identity), and Windows Media Center (content in the cloud) show the company was ahead of the game in many areas -- but then it either failed to bring those products to market, or didn't execute.

"In this age, the race really is to the swift. You cannot afford to be an hour late or a dollar short," says Laura DiDio, principal analyst at ITIC. "Now the biggest question is: Can they make it in the 21st century and compete with Google and Apple?"

Some influential analysts think not. Several have downgraded Microsoft's (MSFT, Fortune 500) stock in recent weeks, as PC sales continue to slow and Microsoft struggles with its tablet strategy. The company's stock is down more than 17% this year.

What's wrong with Microsoft

A rundown of Microsoft's major consumer projects finds trouble in almost all of them.

Internet Explorer's popularity has been waning for years, and one recent study showed that for the first time in more than a decade, more people are using alternative browsers. The browser is becoming the single most critical piece of software on a device -- potentially eclipsing the operating system -- but all of the major innovations of the past few years, like tabbed browsing and add-on extensions, came from outside Microsoft.

Windows Phone 7 has promise, but Microsoft dug itself an enormous hole with the subpar Windows Mobile platform. With its market share currently sitting below 5%, developers are taking a "wait and see" approach.

Microsoft's media platform Zune was dead on arrival.

Bing is growing, but substantially all of that growth has come at the expense of its business partner, Yahoo -- not its archrival Google.

Microsoft's attempts to build a social network through Windows Live have failed to gain traction. It has no real answer to Facebook.

Six months after Apple's release of the iPad, Microsoft still has virtually no presence in the tablet market. And its strategy for taking on Apple -- Windows 7 on a tablet, rather than a tablet-specific operating system -- is leaving potential partners cold. Lenovo's technology director recently told PC Mag that his company won't be building around the platform: "The challenge with Windows 7 is that it's based on the same paradigm as 1985 -- it's really an interface that's optimized for a mouse and keyboard."

With Xbox, Microsoft succeeded at innovating: It created a competitive video game brand for hardcore gamers. But even Xbox was outdueled by Nintendo with the Wii, which outsold Xbox by appealing to casual gamers.

Then there's the epicenter of the Microsoft universe: Windows. Microsoft likes to point out that its operating system is its biggest consumer brand and Windows 7 has been selling rapidly. Its new version has sold 240 million licenses in a year, making it the fastest-selling OS in Microsoft's history.

But Windows' momentum isn't from consumers. In fact, consumers are a worry for the Windows division, because they have dramatically slowed their purchases of PCs in recent months.

Rather, the fast sales are coming from businesses, which significantly delayed their purchases of new Windows licenses because Windows Vista was bug-ridden mess. Then the recession hit. A years-overdue corporate PC refresh cycle is now happening all at once.

Meanwhile, Microsoft's executive suite is in turmoil. CFO Chris Liddel, entertainment unit head Robbie Bach, device design leader J Allard and business division chief Stephen Elop have left within the past year. Ray Ozzie joined the exit parade last week.

Consumers matter

Microsoft has a lot of questions to answer, and it will have an opportunity to do so at its Professional Developers Conference in Seattle, which kicks off Thursday.

But PDC, which used to be one of Microsoft's most important and widely attended conferences, is going to be relatively small this year, with only a few thousand people making the trip, analysts say. PDC's hottest news this year is about cloud computing -- vital to enterprises, but not exactly sexy stuff.

So is this Microsoft's Waterloo? Will it become the next IBM (IBM, Fortune 500) -- crucially important to businesses but an afterthought for consumers?

"Microsoft is at a transition point, and there is a risk of that happening," says Al Hilwa, analyst at IDC. "But Microsoft cares much more about consumers than IBM ever did. It's in its DNA, and it understands that it is necessary to stay relevant. I don't see Microsoft ever abandoning consumers."

As Apple has proven, success in consumer products can fuel explosive growth. Apple surpassed Microsoft's market value earlier this year, and is on pace to eclipse the company in sales for 2010.

And if Microsoft cedes consumer ground, it risks its enterprise stronghold. Businesses are becoming more willing to allow employees to use their personal devices for work purposes, and a growing number of those gizmos are Macs, iPads, iPhones and Android smartphones.

So it's up to Microsoft to turn that around by being a leader, rather than a follower, in the consumer market.

Windows Phone 7 is a good start. Internet Explorer 9 has some exciting new features that other browsers lack. And Xbox's controllerless Kinect -- the first of its kind -- is coming this holiday season.

Microsoft just has to hope it's not too late.

10 Things Not to Buy in 2010

http://www.smartmoney.com/spending/budgeting/10-things-not-to-buy-in-2010/

Consumer Action by AnnaMaria Andriotis
December 31, 2009
10 Things Not to Buy in 2010

Ten years ago, most homes relied on dial-up connections to access the Internet and iPods, flat-screen TVs and the Nintendo Wii didn’t exist.

As we prepare to ring in 2010, consumer should expect to see more revolutionary products supplanting old mainstays. In media, DVDs, books, newspapers and magazines will continue to lose ground to services like in-home movie rentals and gadgets like the Amazon Kindle. In big-ticket items, the push for energy efficiency will continue to influence consumer decisions on cars and home upgrades.

As a result, some consumer products appear poised for a dip in sales, which could be a prelude to obsolescence. Here are 10 items not to buy in 2010.

DVDs

The days of going to a video shop to rent a movie are at an end. In September, Blockbuster said it plans to close roughly 22% of its stores by the end of 2010; meanwhile, third-quarter revenue was down 21% from the year-ago period. (The company didn’t return calls for comment.)

Looking ahead, DVD purchases could turn cold, as well. On average, DVDs sell for at least $20 each. That’s pricier than signing up for Netflix or renting movies from cable providers’ on-demand channels. Netflix charges as little as $8.99 a month to rent one DVD at a time (with no limit to the number of monthly rentals).

Time Warner Cable offers thousands of movies on demand for around $4.99 each. Verizon Fios cable service charges $5.99 a month to download unlimited movies.

Home telephone service

It will probably take a while, but home landlines could become as archaic as the rotary phone.

According to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study, more than one in five U.S. homes (22.7%) had cellphones – and no landlines – during the first half of 2009, up from 10.5% during the same period in 2006.

Ditching your home phone is easier now than it has been in the past, as cell phone companies compete for greater market share and alternatives to the home landline continue growing. For example, magicJack provides phone service when it’s plugged into a computer’s USB port and a home phone. It costs $39.95 and includes a one-year license for calls in the U.S. and Canada; after that, service costs $19.95 per year. (By contrast, Time Warner Cable’s digital home phone service costs $39.95 per month.)

And, consider Skype, which is free when you communicate with other Skype users; this software application uses the Internet as a platform to make calls, hold video conferences and send instant messages.

External hard drives

Consumers who keep their computers for years and upload thousands of songs, videos, movies and photos will need to get more space at some point.

External hard drives are one option, but an up-and-coming alternative might be simpler and save you another transition down the road. Online backup services, like Carbonite.com or Mozy.com, allow users to back up data over the Internet.

These services are more expensive than purchasing an external hard drive, which typically starts at around $70. At Carbonite.com, a one-year subscription starts at $54.95, and at Mozy.com monthly subscription costs total $54.45 for a year.

Smartphone also-rans

In the past few years, several smartphones hit the market with similar features to the iPhone and BlackBerry, but they haven’t generated the same buzz. As a result, fewer developers are likely to create applications and other products that cater to those phones.

Today, the BlackBerry dominates the smartphone market with 40% market share, followed by the iPhone with 25%, according to data released by ComScore in December. In the near term, both are expected to stay at the top. ComScore found that most consumers who’ll be shopping for smartphones in the next three months plan to purchase a Blackberry (51%) or an iPhone (20%).

By contrast, only 5% of respondents said they planned to purchase T-Mobile’s MyTouch. The Palm Pre and Palm Centro received 2% and 1% of the vote, respectively.

A possible upcoming competitor that could shake up the space is Google’s Android. According to ComScore, as of October, the Android’s market share had doubled to 3.5% in the past year.

Compact digital cameras

For nearly a decade, digital compact cameras were must-haves for most consumers.

But during the past several years, another type of digital camera has been slowly rising in popularity: the single-lens reflex (SLR) camera, from manufacturers including Nikon, Canon, Sony and Olympus. Although bulkier, these cameras produce pictures that more accurately represent what’s in their viewfinders than those that use older technology.

They’re also pricier. For example, Canon’s digital compact cameras start at $110, while the SLRs start at $570.

Newspaper subscriptions

The past few years have been unkind to the publishing industry.

In 2008, newspaper advertising revenues declined by 17.7%, according to the Newspaper Association of America. Meanwhile, average daily circulation at 379 newspapers fell 10.6% from April through September 2009, compared to the same period a year ago, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations.

Magazines haven’t fared any better. In 2009, more than 360 magazines shut down. During the first half of 2009, ad pages fell 27.9% when compared to the same period in 2008, according to Publishers Information Bureau.

The morning newspaper has been replaced by a growing online media presence – much of which is accessible for free. The Amazon Kindle – even with its price tag of around $250 – and other eBook readers could increasingly become one-stop sources to access newspapers, magazines and books.

CDs

When was the last time you bought a CD or even walked into a record store?

The past decade was one of the worst for the industry. In the beginning, there was Napster. Then came iTunes, which was introduced in 2001 and offered affordable pricing and easy accessibility. Face it, CDs aren’t coming back.

Record stores are feeling the pinch. Most Virgin Megastores in the U.S. have shut down following declines in sales and revenues. In 2004, Tower Records entered bankruptcy and by 2006 most locations had closed.

New college textbooks

Unless a student absolutely needs brand-new textbooks, they can use several alternatives to save.

Shop for used textbooks, which can help you save 70% to 90% off the retail price, says Mike Gatti, the executive director at the Retail Advertising and Marketing Association, a trade group. Check out web sites like CheapestTextbooks.com, Booksprice.com or Amazon.com. Many college bookstores also sell used texts.

Another option is downloading books online. Sites like Coursesmart.com sell subscriptions to digital copies of more than 7,000 textbooks. TextbookMedia.com allows students to download textbooks for free. You can also rent textbooks on Chegg.com.

Gas-guzzling cars

Skyrocketing gasoline prices dominated headlines during most of the decade, and they remain volatile.

The Energy Information Administration estimates that crude oil prices will average around $77 a barrel for the fourth quarter of 2009, up from $42.90 in the first quarter. The EIA also projects prices will rise in 2010 to their highest point in more than two years: $81.33 a barrel.

Recent announcements by car manufacturers to mass produce fuel-efficient cars could help push consumers away from gas-guzzling vehicles.

According to the Department of Energy, the most efficient cars include the Honda Civic Hybrid, which gets 40 miles per gallon (mpg) in the city and 45 mpg on the highway, the Volkswagen Jetta and Golf (both run on diesel), which each get 30 mpg in the city and 41 mpg on the highway, and the Toyota Prius hybrid (51/48 mpg).

Energy-inefficient homes and appliances

Ten years ago, shopping for home upgrades involved looking at a product’s functionality and aesthetic. Now, there’s another component: energy efficiency.

Today, the products most touted by manufacturers and retailers are those that are Energy Star certified and those that meet new federal environmental standards – most of which have higher price tags than their counterparts but help to lower heating and cooling bills.

The government is offering a federal tax credit of up to $1,500 on energy-efficient home upgrades through Dec. 31, 2016. But many are set to expire by Dec. 31, 2010; these include eligible insulation, roofs and windows and doors.

The Top 10 tech trends of 2009

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/12/22/top.tech.trends.2009/

The Top 10 tech trends of 2009
John D. Sutter
December 22, 2009
On the go, yet still connected: Smartphones and portable gaming devices entered the mainstream in 2009.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
CNN lists the 10 biggest tech ideas of 2009
This isn't the year we changed technology; technology changed us
At the end of 2009, we're more digitally connected than ever before
Sites such as Facebook, Twitter and smartphones matured this year

Engineers didn't make huge improvements to technology in 2009. The year's big tech names -- Twitter, Facebook, Google, Apple, Amazon -- all existed before January.

Instead, this is the year technology changed us.

At year's end, we're connected to each other and to the Internet like never before. In 2009, we carried tiny computers in our pockets, through which we fed the Internet constant real-time info about where we were and what we were doing.

Our app-laden phones helped us manage our on-the-go lifestyles; our books fell off the shelves and into e-readers; our televisions and video games unchained themselves from home entertainment centers; and our mobile updates helped organize protests and even threaten governments.

We could have done any of these things in 2008. But we embraced in unprecedented numbers a digital-centered life in 2009.

Here's a look back at how it happened. It's CNN.com's 10 biggest tech trends of the year, listed in no particular order. Think we missed something? Please let us know in the comments below.

Smartphone craze

By the end of 2009, having a basic cell phone wasn't good enough anymore. Now the standard is a smartphone -- a mobile phone that also acts as a computer -- and links its users to Facebook, Twitter and the rest of the digital universe.

Despite the economic recession, the smartphone market expanded. It was fueled in part by the popular iPhone but also by an increasingly diverse set of smartphone choices, including the Droid, BlackBerry and Pre. Smartphone sales worldwide for 2009 were up 24 percent compared with 2008, according to Gartner Inc., a research company.

Thanks to these phones, people this year grew accustomed to sending e-mail, uploading photos and videos and posting status messages from anywhere, at almost anytime.

Facebook grows up

This was the year of the Facebook mom and grandma. Founded in 2004 for college students, the online social network exploded in 2008 and might have been expected to level off this year. Instead, it went global and expanded into new and older demographics.

About 70 percent of Facebook's users now live outside of the site's home base in the United States, according to statistics released by the company.

The site's importance in our lives grew in tandem with these demographic shifts. Facebook now has more than 350 million users -- that's more people than live in the United States and is more than double the 150 million people who were on Facebook at the start of the year. Half of Facebook users log on to the site at least once on any given day; the average Facebook user spends nearly an hour a day on the site.

Bloggers threaten regimes

Individuals became publishers in 2009, using the micro-blogging site Twitter to post instant, bite-sized updates to the world. The site was founded in 2007 but grew exponentially this year.

The political ramifications of the micro-blogging trend became evident in June when Iranians used Twitter to organize and publicize protests of a disputed presidential election. The protests grabbed the world's attention. Terms related to the Iranian election made up 3 of the Top 10 news trends of the year on Twitter.

Books go digital

Sick of lugging hefty books with you on vacation? Portable, electronic readers -- with their easy-on-the-eyes displays and ability to carry hundreds of titles without gaining weight -- started to make inroads on their hardback cousins in 2009.

E-book sales brought in $13.9 million in revenue in the third quarter of last year, according to International Digital Publishing Forum, a trade organization. The same time period this year saw $46.5 million in e-book revenue -- a 235 percent spike.

The Amazon Kindle, originally released in November 2007, found some competition this year with the release of the Sony Reader and Barnes & Noble's Nook. Meanwhile, libraries, authors, publishers and Google continued to haggle out the details of a settlement that could give the Internet giant permission to create the world's largest library -- online only.

Info in an instant

In 2009, it's no longer enough to search for information that was current 30 minutes or an hour ago. Now, Internet junkies look for their news, Tweets and links to be updated in "real-time," just as they are on Twitter.

Search engines bought into this idea in 2009. Microsoft and Google struck deals with Twitter to pipe in or replicate its real-time search function. The micro-blogging site lets authors post short bursts of information, which become searchable the moment someone clicks send.

App mania

In 2009, mobile phone customers made a strange realization: The phone isn't as important as the applications that run on it. Droves of iPhone owners downloaded games, widgets and tools for their phones from Apple. By September, just over a year after the company started selling apps through its iTunes App Store, 2 billion of the applications had been downloaded.

App mania was far from limited to Apple products, though. Research in Motion, maker of the popular BlackBerry devices, launched its own app store. And smartphones that run on Google's Android system started campaigning around Android apps, which are not subjected to Apple's rigorous and somewhat controversial approval process.

Games leave the living room

Remember the days when people played video games on huge TVs in their living rooms? That was so 2008. This year, gaming became mobile and social.

Instead of hovering around an Xbox or a Wii, it was cooler this year to plant virtual vegetables in FarmVille or run a mobster empire in Mafia Wars -- two games that run through the social network Facebook.

The iPhone and its cousin, the iPod Touch, also became popular mobile gaming platforms, shaking up the idea that video games must have great graphics and be backed by huge entertainment companies to succeed. Many of the year's popular phone-based games cost less than a buck.

Government gets techie

Government has a reputation for lagging behind the technological curve. But in 2009, the Obama Administration tried to prove that bureaucrats could be hip and tech-savvy, too.

The administration launched DATA.gov, a clearinghouse of information on how the federal government works and how tax money is spent. It also backed digitizing health care records, held the country's first online town hall meeting and moved toward the more efficient cloud-computing model, which essentially outsources some storage and processing of government files to companies such as Google.

Search engine wars

Google is still the world's dominant search engine, but it faced its first real challengers in 2009 as smaller search companies came up with new ideas about the way people can and should find information online.

An oddball search engine called Wolfram-Alpha made big news in the spring when it debuted as a tool that calculates the answers to user queries instead of sending Web surfers to lists of Web site links, as Google does.

But the major newcomer was Microsoft's Bing, a "decision engine" that introduced new ways to sort through photos online and to search for products. Bing quickly grabbed a foothold, gaining 10 percent of the search market by the end of the year.

'Smart' electricity use

The economic recession and a federal stimulus package prompted a old-ish idea in frugal gadgetry to take off in a new way: "smart" technology invaded homes and public works projects in hopes of making our use of fossil fuels more efficient.

Smart-grid technology monitors energy use and helps steer consumption to times of day when other people aren't using much electricity -- a time when it is cheaper to power appliances and more juice is available.

The federal government invested billions in a smart grid in 2009 that connects homes and apartments with power plants. Consumer-level devices took off, too. Google released a PowerMeter service that gives homeowners reports on their energy use on the Web or on mobile phones. General Electric and others promoted smart appliances, such as hot water heaters, that help further help control energy costs.

Most homes didn't have smart meters in 2009, but that leaves room for plenty of expansion next year.

'Uncharted 2' top the Oct. sales chart

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/gamehunters/post/2009/11/uncharted-2-top-the-oct-sales-chart/1

Nov 12, 2009
'Uncharted 2' top the Oct. sales chart
Mike Snider

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves was the top-selling video game of October, according to market tracking firm The NPD Group.

Other top performers: NBA 2K10, which sold 575,000 across all platforms, and Borderlands, with 530,000 total on the Xbox 360 and PS3.

Overall video game sales ($1.07 billion) were down 19% compared to last year ($1.3 billion), however, the month resulted in the third best October in sales on record, behind October 2007 and October 2008, NPD's Anita Frazier said. She forecasts that the industry is on track to sell $20 billion to $21 billion by year-end, which would put it just below last year's total of $21.3 billion.

"The continued economic turmoil, and in particular the troubling unemployment rate, is undoubtedly impacting industry sales," she says. "Our latest Economy Tracker indicated that although consumers' general opinion about the economy is improving, their outlook on their own personal situation is worsening. If consumers' personal outlook continues to erode, they could very well be much more conservative with their holiday shopping this year."

She predicted a strong November with "the excitement already being generated by Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, and the incredible buzz around upcoming titles, New Super Mario Bros. Wii, and Assassin's Creed II, November is poised to be a strong month for the industry."

The Nintendo Wii regained the top spot as the highest-selling console of the month. Consumers bought 506,900 Wiis, compared to 320,600 PS3s and 249,700 Xbox 360s. Sales of game systems have dropped 10% (in units), compared to the same time period last year, Frazier said. "Recent price cuts helped spur a one to two-month increase in unit sales, and this month's Wii sales reflect that boost, but the other platforms have not sustained the sales momentum post price reduction," she said. "It will be difficult to discern the impact of the price cut into November and December just because those are always the two best months for the industry anyway, and we'd expect to see a sizeable lift in hardware unit sales as a result of seasonality."

Software sales decreased 18% for the month, but only 11% on a units basis, she said." The average retail price of software decreased 8%, which led to the greater dollar sales decline."

Roughly half the sales of No. 2 game Wii Fit Plus came in sales of the edition with a balance board, "which points to a lot of newcomers to the franchise," Frazier said.

For NBA 2K10, October's top game across all platforms, "it was a great launch for the game, outselling last year's NBA 2K9 by 60% in its launch month," Frazier said. "Sales on both the Xbox 360 and PS3 platforms improved substantially over last year."

Even though sales of music games continued to drop -- amounting to $53 million, compared to $137 million in October 2008, Frazier said that "both Rock Band: Beatles and Guitar Hero 5 have the potential to be good gifting items for the holidays, so we should expect to see an uptick in sales over the next two months."

Guitar Hero games sold a total of $12 million in October. "That's really down a lot year-over-year," said Wedbush Morgan Securities' Michael Pachter. Culprit of the lower than expected hardware sales: "that damn recession."

Just missing the top 10: Brütal Legend. The game, says analyst Jesse Divnich of Electronic Entertainment Design and Research. "going to be a slow burner. It reminds me a lot of Jack Black movies. I never seen one in theaters, but for some reason I own all his DVDs. Brütal Legend is a very entertaining game. It's just not a first choice game. It's one you are going to eventually pick up."

NPD's Top 10 Games for October

1) Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (Oct., PlayStation 3) 537,000
2) Wii Fit Plus (Oct., Wii) 441,000
3) Borderlands (Oct., Xbox 360) 418,000
4) Wii Sports Resort (July, Wii) 314,000
5) NBA 2K10 (Oct., Xbox 360) 311,000
6) Halo 3: ODST (Sept., Xbox 360) 271,000
7) NBA 2K10 (Oct., PS3) 213,000
8) Forza Motorsport 3 (Oct., Xbox 360) 175,000
9) Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days (Sept, NDS) 169,000
10) FIFA Soccer 10 (Oct., Xbox 360) 156,000

Nintendo drops Wii price to $199

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10360550-1.html

September 23, 2009
Nintendo drops Wii price to $199
by John P. Falcone

Nintendo has officially announced that the price of the Wii will drop to $199.99, effective on Sunday. The long-rumored $50 price cut comes in the wake of recent price drops for the PlayStation 3 ($299, with built-in Blu-ray player) and Xbox 360 ($299 for the 120GB version with built-in DVD player and Netflix support), which have boosted sales of the Sony and Microsoft consoles. (To date, the Wii remains the best-selling home game console of the three.)

Other than the price cut, there are no other changes to the current Wii bundle--you're still getting the console, along with the Wiimote and Nunchuk controllers and the bundled Wii Sports game. By contrast, there's at least one rumor that the U.K. will get a Wii package that adds the MotionPlus peripheral and Wii Sports Resort to the mix. Meanwhile, white remains the only color choice in North America (Japanese consumers can choose black as well).

Nintendo also took the opportunity to officially announce the release date for New Super Mario Bros. Wii, which had previously been slated for a vague "fall 2009" window. The multiplayer Super Mario game will hit store shelves on November 15.

Sony slashes price of PlayStation 3 by $100

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-playstation19-2009aug19,0,2690520.story

Sony slashes price of PlayStation 3 by $100 to $299
The Japanese electronics giant, which is seeking to boost sales ahead of the crucial holiday shopping season, also unveils a sleeker, thinner model of the game console.
By Alex Pham and Ben Fritz
August 19, 2009

Sony Corp. slashed $100 off the price of its entry-level PlayStation 3 game console to $299 on Tuesday in an effort to goose sales ahead of the crucial holiday shopping season.

The Japanese electronics giant also unveiled a thinner model of the PS3 that packs a 120-gigabyte hard disk drive. The newer model, 36% smaller and 32% lighter than the 80-gigabyte version, is expected to hit store shelves by Sept. 1. The 160-gigabytye PS3 also took a price cut, and is now $399.

"This is a game-changing moment for us," Peter Dille, Sony's senior vice president of marketing, said in an interview. "There's a lot of pent-up demand for the PS3. It's been a tough economy, and a lot of people have been sitting on the fence waiting for the price cut."

The move was widely anticipated by a number of analysts, who said a price cut could help Sony regain momentum.

"A price cut is long overdue on the PS3," Colin Sebastian at Lazard Capital Markets said. "We expect an uplift in unit sales. But the question longer term for Sony is whether they can sustain market share gains, especially when competing platforms, such as the Xbox 360, lower their prices as well."

Although the PlayStation 2 was the dominant console of the last generation of devices, the PS3 so far has lagged behind Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360, which has sold more than 30 million units worldwide, and Nintendo Co.'s Wii, which has sold more than 50 million consoles. Sony, meanwhile, has sold roughly 24 million PS3s as of June 30.

One of the main reasons has been the PS3's price: Sony launched the PS3 at $599 in November 2006. It lowered the price two years ago to $399, but that was still more than the Xbox 360, whose entry-level model cost $199, and the Wii, priced at $249.

Sony has maintained that the PS3's built-in Blu-ray disc player justifies the expense.

"Even in the tough economy, families have been reluctant to give up their at-home entertainment," Dille said. "For $299, you're getting a game machine, a Blu-ray player and a 120-gig hard drive you can use to download movies. It's a tremendous value."

Many in Hollywood have been eagerly awaiting a PS3 price cut in hopes it would boost sales of high definition Blu-ray discs at a time when the overall DVD market is contracting.

Blu-ray disc sales rose 91% in the first half of the year to $407 million in the U.S., according to the Digital Entertainment Group, an industry trade organization. However, that's still a tiny percentage of overall consumer spending of $9.73 billion on home entertainment in the same time period. The Blu-ray disc sales also did little to alleviate an overall drop of 13.5% in disc purchases.

alex.pham@latimes.com
ben.fritz@latimes.com

Xbox 360 Elite dropping to $299 (finally)?

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10308200-1.html

August 12, 2009
Xbox 360 Elite dropping to $299 (finally)?
by Scott Stein

Treat this right now as very likely, but still a rumor--a photo of a catalog page posted to Kotaku shows the 120GB hard drive-and-HDMI Xbox 360 Elite going for $299. The Meijir catalog (a Midwest store chain) in question is slated for August 30, which would mean a nice holiday surprise for future Xbox 360 buyers.

Other rumors have it that the price-dropped Elite and the bare-bones, hard-drive-free Arcade system will be the only 360s left on the market. It's a move that makes sense, since 120GB is not exactly a luxurious amount of storage space anymore, and is far more suitable for the mainstream than a fine-in-2005-but-now-piddling 20GB.

The 360 wasn't the system that most needed a price drop, after all. But then again, Sony might be following close behind with a cheaper (and redesigned) counterpunch of their own.

This leaves the Xbox 360 Elite at a price that's only $50 more than a Wii. And, for that price, you get a system that streams Netflix, plays DVDs, has robust online gameplay, and has far more storage than Nintendo's white box (even adding in a mountain of SD cards).

While we have absolutely no problem with getting more Xbox 360 for less, this raises a rather sharp sticking point with the prices of Microsoft's proprietary Xbox hard drives. An impassioned rant from Gizmodo accurately and appropriately skewers the currently ludicrous $160 retail cost of the 120GB hard drive. When half a terabyte can be had for the same--and when Microsoft, after all, wants us to buy more downloads than ever before--this hardly seems logical. Then again, maybe hard drive price drops/capacity increases are also on the horizon. In fact, wouldn't that be expected? If 120GB is the mainstream, there has to be a larger capacity to upgrade to.

Or, even better: Wi-Fi built in, and a slimmer, more reliable 360. How about that?

Scott Stein, a New York Jets fan and CNET senior associate editor, has written about tech, entertainment, video games, and viral culture for outlets including Laptop, Wired, Maxim, Esquire Online, Asylum, and Men's Journal. He also appears on the Digital City podcast. In his spare time, you might see him performing improv in New York City (when he's not being a dad).

MadWorld, Chinatown Wars showing poor sales

http://www.neoseeker.com/news/10482-madworld-chinatown-wars-showing-poor-sales/

MadWorld, Chinatown Wars showing poor sales
Sean Ridgeley
Friday, April 17th, 2009

Nintendo's adult audience not worth the trouble?

A criticism from many gamers of Nintendo is how tame they've been in what content they allow on their platforms, particularly the DS and Wii.

As with its predecessors, though, Nintendo has been willing to sneak at least a minority of "adult" titles in there, this being a particularly popular trend lately with the likes of high profile titles Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars and MadWorld seeing release, and to great reviews.

Many gamers, especially with analyst predictions, have been hopeful sales would prove robust and "show Nintendo the light", so to speak, but unfortunately this has not been the case (at least not in the U.S.), with poor sales for both those titles -- House of the Dead, published along with MadWorld by Sega, suffered a similar fate at 45,000 first-month sales -- and the usual first-party "tame" releases still dominating the charts, an exception being Pokemon Platinum (great game, but doesn't help).

MadWorld came in with 66,000 units, having debuted March 10. Chinatown Wars, on the other end, reported 89,000 units (a significant difference from the estimated 200,000 - 450,000), and released March 17. Sega apparently is happy with both their titles, however, as we see from a recent interview with their vice president of marketing Sean Ratcliffe on VentureBeat:

"House of the Dead has done very well and has absolutely met our expectations. The first set of data for Mad World is very encouraging, as well.

If [MadWorld] resonates with the audience [...] we absolutely want to make that into a franchise. I think it’s unique, and there are many aspects of that game which are sort of pushing boundaries. And it’s just great fun."

Going by the Entertainment Software Rating Board's (ESRB) data, the DS currently hosts seven M-rated games out of over 1,000, with the Wii at 26 out of just under 1,000.

Are Nintendo's consoles best left to the younger generation?

New Spore Games Target Kids, Wii Players

http://blog.wired.com/games/2009/01/electronic-arts.html

New Spore Games Target Kids, Wii Players
By Nate Ralph
January 22, 2009

SAN FRANCISCO — The long-awaited release of Will Wright's evolution game, Spore, wasn't the end of the journey. It was just the beginning.

At a chic San Francisco art gallery Wednesday evening, Electronic Arts unveiled its plans to expand on the franchise in 2009. Wright and Co. are looking to bring a wide variety of new players into the Spore universe. A new Creature Keeper game is aimed at young kids who want to play Tamagotchi with the monsters they create. Spore Hero is an action-adventure game for Wii. And a new expansion pack to the flagship PC game allows players to tweak the gameplay, creating their own adventures and challenging other players.

Spore, which was released last September, had years of hype behind it. The game promised to recreate the entire path of evolution, from cells swimming in the primordial ooze all the way to space travel. Critics were largely in agreement that while the game's creature-creation tools and procedurally-generated universes were stunning in their complexity, the gameplay laid on top of it was lacking.

Electronic Arts hopes it can evolve the series this year.

One of the most praised parts of Spore was the creature creator that allowed players to pull and prod body parts every which way to design amazing creatures, which would then animate in a lifelike fashion. Spore Creature Keeper takes those monsters and dumps them into a virtual-pet game aimed at kids.

In addition to ensuring that their little creation gets its daily exercise, players will be able to decorate their critter's living space, and invite friends over for play dates.

EA says it expects to release Creature Keeper in the summer.

Will Wright has said repeatedly that his company had planned on releasing a version of Spore for Nintendo's Wii console. EA finally made the official announcement last night: Spore Hero will be available this fall.

Spore Hero will allow players to create and interact with a fully rendered creature, and then lead them on a casual adventure to become their galaxy's champion, with a number of challenges along the way. While EA held back on the details, it said that the game will maintain the franchise's focus on creating content and interacting with friends. But the Wii format will bring new challenges — it'll use the console's motion controls — and probably a whole new audience.

A Nintendo DS version of the game, Spore Hero Arena, is also scheduled for a fall release.

The highlight of the event was Spore Galactic Adventures (pictured above), the game's first expansion pack for PC and Mac. It expands the creative pathways open to players by allowing them to create their own gameplay.

Spore allows you to play God: prodding a single-celled organism along the evolutionary road, you design entire civilizations to explore vast tracts of space, befriending (or conquering) neighbors. And with the social networking trappings of "Sporepedia," a compendium of user-created content, your universe is automatically populated by the creations of other players hooked in to the network. (EA said Wednesday that over 65 million creations are currently on the servers.)

But once you reach the final Space stage of Spore, the gameplay becomes a bit underwhelming — once countless solar systems are at your fingertips, you'll quickly realize that there isn't very much to do. Galactic Adventures seeks to flesh out the final bits of Spore by adding a potent new tool set dubbed the "Adventure Creator," which allows you to create their own challenging levels and play others.

While we weren't allowed to get hands-on with the world-shaping, the demo that EA showed us demonstrated that Adventure Creator should be just as intuitive a tool as all of Spore's others. You won't be able to alter the size or shape of a planet, but geological features like lofty volcanoes or winding lakes can be planted with a click of your mouse. You can change the temperature from a ball of magma to a frigid wasteland or anything in between.

Once you've crafted the ideal layout, the full bulk of the Sporepedia will be available, allowing you to populate your world with any number of creatures, buildings, vehicles and objects that other users have created.

Once the stage is set, it's time to start crafting an adventure. Much like Sony's creative PlayStation 3 game LittleBigPlanet, the definition of an adventure will largely be up to the individual designer. One quest I saw involved rescuing a princess from the clutches of a massive predator, while another challenged players to defend creatures from their hostile neighbors, as they migrated from one end of a planet to another.

Players will be able to create vehicle races, hedge mazes, or even platforming puzzles based on navigating a hazardous environment. The tools are fairly open-ended, and adventure-designers will have a great deal of control over how characters and objects interact with one another, including adding dialogue or controlling the feelings and reactions that a particular quest's actor has towards a player's character.

Every adventure is tied to the planet that you create. Once you've completed your opus and uploaded it to the Sporepedia, it functions much like any other user-created object will — you can search the web page for new content, or simply play the game as you normally would, and wait for the adventures to come to you. As you travel around the Spore universe, you'll occasionally encounter a player-created quest, and Galactic Adventures will allow your creature to beam down onto the surface of a planet to explore.

New equipment and abilities will be added with this expansion pack, tools of the trade that no self-respecting spacefarer should be without. These include all sorts of rocket launchers and laser blasters to ward off hostiles, in addition to jet packs and hover boots, to help space explorers navigate treacherous terrain.

Players will be able to rate the adventures they encounter, and popular levels with higher ratings will spread about the Spore-universe, while the drivel will fade into obscurity. Adventures will also have leaderboards, so that players who complete a level will be able to see how well they performed, when compared to players around the world.

When Galactic Adventures debuts later this spring, it will ship with a few dozen adventures crafted by the game's designers, but it will largely be up to players to create the universe as they see fit. If the success of the current content creators are any indication — over 200,000 new items are being uploaded every day — it's going to be an exciting time to be a Spore fan.

Wii Sports is best-selling game ever

http://videogames.yahoo.com/feature/wii-sports-is-best-selling-game-ever/1276855

Wii Sports is best-selling game ever
Jock blockbuster topples Mario.
By Ben Silverman
1-5-9

Well, that didn't take long.

According to game-tracking website VGChartz, sales of Nintendo's pop-culture phenom Wii Sports have surpassed those of legendary platformer Super Mario Bros., making the breakout Wii title the best-selling video game of all time. And it only took two years and two months to do it.

The data is based on cumulative worldwide sales figures ending the week of December 27, 2008, which indicate that lifetime sales of Wii Sports have exceeded Mario's staggering 40.24 million units.

Shocked? Don't be. Unlike most video games that can be bought at retail, Wii Sports comes bundled with the Wii hardware in every territory other than Japan and Korea. In other words, if you bought a Wii, you bought Wii Sports whether you liked it or not (chances are, you liked it). With over 45 million Wiis sold worldwide to date, it's only logical that Wii Sports would start smashing records sooner or later.

And before you brand Wii Sports a false champion due to being bundled with hardware, consider that Super Mario Bros. was also sold as a bundle with the original Nintendo Entertainment System during its mid-80's heyday. Plus, Wii Sports has been a major hit even in non-bundled form, topping Wii sales charts in Japan at over 3.2 million copies sold in 2008 alone.

A new version of the game, Wii Sports: Resort, is due out later this year.

Wii will, Wii will rock you

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/12/11/MNP714MI95.DTL

Wii will, Wii will rock you
Ryan Kim, Chronicle Staff Writer
Thursday, December 11, 2008

The Nintendo Wii is poised to dominate the holiday season for the third year in a row, an unprecedented trifecta for a gaming console that is proving impervious to the economic recession.

While the gaming industry historically has been able to resist the drag of economic slowdowns, the Wii has managed to soar, thanks to its innovative motion-sensing control scheme and broad appeal among non-gamers. The wonder device continued to fly off shelves even as Nintendo announced it was increasing production for the holiday selling season by 50 percent over last year.

The NPD Group, a consumer research firm, reported Thursday that Nintendo sold 2 million Wiis in November, twice as many as last year. It was a record number for a non-December month and a staggering feat considering that the machine was released in November 2006. The company also sold 1.57 million Nintendo DS portable gaming devices, also impressive for a handheld that has been on the market for four years.

"Everything about the Wii is unprecedented," said Cammie Dunaway, Nintendo of America's executive vice president of sales and marketing. "The strategy of making it fun for anyone to play video games, the innovation with the Wii remote and the broad category of titles and the sales levels, it's all unprecedented."

Low price, broad appeal

The tough economic times might actually be lifting Nintendo's sales. The relatively cheap price of the $250 Wii console along with its appeal across an entire family makes it an even more appealing choice for households, said Dunaway.

"Families are looking for inexpensive and fun activities that they can enjoy at home together, and the Wii solves that need," she said.

Overall, the video game industry, aided by the Wii and DS, looks golden heading into the home stretch of holiday sales. According to NPD, the industry last month raked in $2.9 billion in the United States, a 10 percent increase over last November despite having seven fewer post-Thanksgiving shopping days. The industry is still on pace to hit a record $22 billion in sales this year, NPD analyst Anita Frazier predicted.

Thanks to increased production, the Wii frenzy appears to have eased a bit for customers, who in previous holidays were left to camp out at stores or pay a hefty premium online for the device.

Frenetic chase

But the Wii is still a huge seller and dominates gift conversations. And in many cases, the chase for a Wii feels just as frenetic as it did last year.

"Demand for the Wii System is actually the same or higher than at the same time last year," said Marc Owens, the customer experience manager at the Best Buy store in Pleasant Hill. "Positive word of mouth about the benefits of the system has continued to drive demand at sell-out levels for the console."

Online auction site eBay said the most searched product on Black Friday was the Nintendo Wii, of which 3,171 were sold that day. Even on Cyber Monday, Nintendo Wiis were selling for an average of nearly $350, a $100 premium over its list price. In the past 90 days, eBay has sold 125,211 Wiis for about $45 million collectively.

Even non-gamers like it

Ted Pollak, market analyst for Jon Peddie Research and portfolio manager for the Electronic Entertainment Fund, said the Wii has the chance to be the most successful entertainment product ever. He credits Nintendo with expanding the market to include not just hard-core gamers but more women, girls and older players.

"Nintendo came up with a platform that's unique in that it appeals to core gamers and totally untapped gamers," Pollak said.

Two years ago, when the latest generation of hardware fully got under way, analyst Michael Pachter of Wedbush Morgan Securities projected the PlayStation 3, the Xbox 360 and the Nintendo Wii would walk away with about equal shares of the market. Now, he believes the Wii could sell as much as its other two rivals combined and ultimately eclipse the lifetime sales of the PlayStation 2, which he once thought was untouchable.

The PS2 sold 43.2 million in the United States over its lifetime and peaked at 8.2 million in 2002. The Wii, which has moved 15.4 million units so far, has sold about 8 million through 11 months of this year and is poised to shatter the PS2's annual record with a strong December showing.

"If Nintendo sells 400,000 more units in December, they will have sold more consoles this year than in any other year," Pachter said. "That's mind boggling that the Wii is on pace to be the most successful console of all time."

E-mail Ryan Kim at rkim@sfchronicle.com.

Sony Set To Launch Online Virtual World

http://www.informationweek.com/news/personal_tech/virtualworlds/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=212400212


Sony Set To Launch Online Virtual World
Home, PlayStation 3's long-delayed online 3-D social networking service, will debut Thursday.
By Antone Gonsalves, InformationWeek
Dec. 10, 2008

Sony on Wednesday said it would launch its online 3-D social networking service, Home, Dec. 11, ending months of delay in the long-awaited service for users of the company's PlayStation 3 video-game console.

Home is similar to Linden Lab's Second Life in that it lets people create virtual characters, or avatars, to interact in cyberspace. PlayStation 3 users will be able to join the virtual world through a free software download.

Home is the latest online service for the PS3. Sony recently added video downloads to the PlayStation Network, which, according to the company, has 15 million subscribers worldwide. Nevertheless, Sony is seen as behind rival Microsoft, which makes the Xbox 360, in launching online gaming and video-download services.

In addition, Nintendo, which launched its Wii video-game console the same month as Sony launched PS 3, November 2006, has outsold Sony more than 2-to-1. Nintendo has sold 34.5 million units worldwide, compared with Sony's 16.8 million units.

Sony is hoping Home will help take its struggling video games unit to profitability. The unit has lost about $3.8 billion over the last two years, according to BusinessWeek magazine.

While PS3 users will enter Home for free, Sony hopes to make money by charging companies to interact with participants. The first companies to join Home include clothing designer Diesel, furniture designer Ligne Roset, energy drink maker Red Bull, film studio Paramount Pictures, and video content providers Hexus TV and Eurogamer.

Besides offering mini-games, videos, and special events, Home will make it possible for users to create their own social networks and set up meetings in their own virtual apartments or in public gatherings. Home will offer instant messaging, voice, and video communications.

Sony first announced Home in March 2007, saying it would launch the service later that year. The company announced the first delay in October 2007, and again in April 2008. Sony launched a trial of the service to a limited number of PS3 users in August.

Star Wars: Episode 3.5?

http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1823817,00.html

Thursday, Jul. 17, 2008
Star Wars: Episode 3.5?
By AP/DERRIK J. LANG

Consider it Star Wars III and a Half — complete with a pivotal plot twist.

When LucasArts releases Star Wars: The Force Unleashed on Sept. 16, the video game will serve as George Lucas' official median between 2005's Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith and 1977's Star Wars: Episode IV — A New Hope. In the game, players become Darth Vader's secret apprentice and use The Force to hunt the remaining Jedi.

Force Unleashed allows gamers use supercharged Force powers to bust through objects, wield a lightsaber, blast lighting bolts and fling around foes. The game will also change the way fans view Episode IV through Episode VI — Return of the Jedi, LucasArts project lead Haden Blackman told The Associated Press at the E3 Business and Media Summit.

"There's a couple of big twists and turns in the story," said Blackman. "One revelation in particular really impacts the rest of the saga as a whole. It goes way beyond filling in gaps. We try to make a bridge on every level. The story has a real implications on Episode IV. In some ways, without the apprentice, Episode IV couldn't happen."

Versions of The Force Unleashed will be available on the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii, PlayStation Portable, Nintendo DS and PlayStation 2. Blackman and his team worked with Lucas to craft the original saga, which mixes both pre-established elements from the Star Wars universe as well as new characters, locales and details from game developers.

"We pitched a number of different story ideas and concepts to him," said Blackman. "With him, we picked and chose the strongest elements. As we worked on The Force Unleashed, he encouraged us to create new characters as well use existing characters. He told us, 'If you're going to use Vader, that's fine, but here's how you can use him.'"

In the first level, players will plow through the Wookie homeworld of Kashyyyk as Darth Vader. Subsequent levels find players serving as Vader's apprentice and traveling to such locales as a TIE Fighter construction facility, the Jedi Temple on Coruscant, the overgrown planet of Felucia and back to an Empire ravaged Kashyyyk.

"Story-wise, we left some openings for a sequel," said Blackman. "The concept of 'The Force Unleashed' could be taken in any direction. We could potentially do a Force Unleashed game set in a different Star Wars time period with a new storyline. We were definitely cognizant to leave some doors open at the end."

Lucas will premiere the new computer-animated film Star Wars: The Clone Wars, which takes place between Star Wars: Episode II — Attack of the Clones and Episode III, on Aug. 10. The film will be pegged to a new weekly animated TV series as well as new Clone Wars video games for both the Nintendo DS and the Wii.