Jon Peddie Blogs

Microsoft unveils AMD-powered Xbox One

Posted by Jon Peddie on May 22nd 2013 | Permalink
Categories Blogs, Games
Tags: amd radeon x-box apu

I want one! Microsoft announced its new Xbox, the follow-on to its Xbox 360. This is the next-generation game console, like Sony’s new PS4, but Microsoft is positioning it as the center of the (your) home entertainment system. The Xbox One is as much about playing movies and music, watching TV, and video conferencing as it is about games, but locally and online. The Xbox One comes with a new controller design and a new Kinect. It also comes with some very impressive voice and gesture recognition capabilities. The demos showing the accuracy and speed of the features were impressive. To…

Travel insights

Posted by Kathleen Maher on April 29th 2013 | Permalink
Categories Blogs, Games
Tags: 3d adobe vfx game

Industry is facing the same issues all over the world - it’s just the timing that changes If you care, I’ve been pretty much on the road since early March. I’ve enjoyed myself and I’m possibly smarter, though I’m further behind on my work with each airplane ride. In fact, at a certain point I may just have to stay out of town permanently rather than face the music about where various deliverables might be. As you could read in this paper, I’ve been to SXSW, NAB, COFES, Smart Geometry, and the FMX conference. We haven’t quite gotten to writing up Smart…

New technologies for old problem

Posted by Kathleen Maher on April 10th 2013 | Permalink
Categories Blogs, Games
Tags: 3d adobe vfx game

Could the game industry really be the source of salvation? Years ago, when I worked at a publishing house I was on a committee to figure out how the company would go digital. This was a publishing company that was already more than a hundred years old. It had hundreds of titles and millions of back issues. Usually we spent the first part of every meeting staring at each other in horror. The last 15 minutes were dedicated to screaming at each other. A big part of the problem was we didn’t even understand what was meant by “going digital.” By…

Exergaming and Physutainment

Posted by Ted Pollak on July 10th 2012 | Permalink
Categories Blogs, Games
Tags: exergaming, physutainment, wii, move, console games,

  The above video is of me getting my daily exercise playing “Rowing Simulator 2012”. The feel of pulling through water, the sound of the liquid displacement, and the visuals of the beautiful scenery all make for a vigorous, yet relaxing and healthy exercise. Not only can I select the type of boat and environment that I row in, but thanks to the head tracking feature, I am able to look around in full six degrees of freedom. You may notice the movement of my head and also me turning to check my course on occasion. Other single player features that…

Playing at War

Posted by Jon Peddie on November 28th 2010 | Permalink
Categories Blogs, Games
Tags:

I got Activision's "Call of Duty – Black Ops" (CODBO) and EA's "Medal of Honor" (MOH) a couple of weeks ago, but due to travel schedules didn’t get a chance to try them until late last week, so I’m behind every reviewer in the world, but I've got a few things to say. I play single person on a PC, on some pretty good, no excellent, equipment. Underutilized hardware I ran CODBO first and tried to get it to play in stereovision on my Nvidia 3D Surround Vision system with three 23-inch (1920 x 1080) monitors and dual GTX480 AIBs. This…

Gaming PCs and consoles; those damn numbers

Posted by Jon Peddie on August 24th 2010 | Permalink
Categories Blogs, Games
Tags: pc gaming console gaming game developers gaming machines console shipments pcs vs. consoles

Someone said you can make statistics prove anything you want and that person is right. It all comes down to what you use for definitions of the item under scrutiny.  It also has to do with how you count things. The PC Gaming Alliance (PCGA) recently put out a press-release that stated, “Annual shipment volumes for the PC Gaming hardware market in 2009 were over two times larger than the combined Wii, PlayStation  2, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 console units shipped in the same period. They then estimated the worldwide number of consumers gaming with discrete graphics solutions on their…

A New Model Cometh

Posted by Ted Pollak on April 29th 2010 | Permalink
Categories Blogs, Games
Tags: gaming ea mmog subscription model battlefield bad company 2

One of the biggest challenges for PC gaming is the revenue and refresh models. When I refer to refresh model I am talking about creating sequels. Often there is so much pressure to crank out another version of the game that sequels can end up deflating the franchise and ultimately hurting the game. Generally MMOG’s avoid this phenomenon because they add content along the way. This refreshes the franchise without forcing the gamer to the cash register for a new base software package. This is a better model and the only time the gamer should be forced to the cash register…

A Theory of Wiivolution

Posted by Ted Pollak on May 28th 2009 | Permalink
Categories Blogs, Games
Tags:

The Wii SD; Factors for Success. There's no question that the Nintendo Wii SD (the current standard definition Wii) has been a huge success. With sales of over 50 million units, it has almost single-handedly changed the video game industry by drawing people to gaming that probably would not have made the shift with the other offerings on the market. The more obvious factors that Nintendo had going for it were a very large and devoted fan base and the revolutionary controller. Nintendo's ultra-fan base, consisting of some 20 million gamers, are people with such rabid brand enthusiasm that they are…

The Biggest Untapped Opportunity in Home Entertainment

Posted by Ted Pollak on May 17th 2009 | Permalink
Categories Blogs, Games
Tags:

The biggest untapped opportunity in home entertainment is interactive television. I know I am not the first to say this but there seems to be a belief that iTV has a tech barrier around it, and that we are not “there yet” technologically. I believe there IS a currently achievable form of iTV and think the first logical step, which would be widely accepted, economically viable, and a true a paradigm shift in home entertainment, is an alternative data presentation screen, or overlay, for sports programming. This type of enhancement for television sports viewing could actually start right now, with no…

The Art of Marketing and Selling PC Gaming Hardware Internationally

Posted by Ted Pollak on February 8th 2009 | Permalink
Categories Blogs, Games
Tags:

What actually makes a gaming PC? High power processors? No. Neon lights? No. The factor that actually makes it a gaming PC lies in the mind of the purchaser. It is a measure of influence and motivation which can be measured as a percentage of total purchase motivation. It is a key factor in our PC Gaming Hardware reports. Once a person influenced by games decides to purchase PC hardware, there is another very important factor which influences the equation. What hardware do they need to satisfy their gaming requirements? There is an art to making a PC attractive to gamers. It…