With its Xbox 360 successor, Microsoft may just one-up Google for once.

The new Xbox will reportedly be able to control your television and cable/satellite box, similar to what Google (unsuccessfully) attempted with Google TV, reports the Verge.

The console would reportedly connect to your cable box via an HDMI pass-through (just like Google TV), which means you’d be able to view both the next Xbox and your standard TV programming in the same video input. It would display an overlay on top of your existing TV content, enabling the next Xbox to offer features around what you’re watching without the need to process the video.

VentureBeat attempted to confirm this report. A Microsoft spokesperson said that the company doesn’t comment on rumors.

You could say we should have seen this coming. After selling its MediaRoom IPTV platform last week, Microsoft noted that it will focus on the Xbox as its core TV strategy. The Xbox 360 has proven to be an incredibly popular video consumption device, thanks to apps from Netflix, Hulu, and others, but it makes sense for Microsoft to aim much higher with its next console entry.

This isn’t the first time such rumors have cropped up, either. Video game industry insider — he calls himself a “fixer” — Kevin Dent says he’s been forecasting this since the summer.

Not surprisingly, the Verge is hearing that the console — which gamers have nicknamed the Xbox 720 — would also require an Internet connection to use the entertainment services. If these rumors hold true, you would have the next Xbox running practically the entire time you’re in front of your TV.

Gamers have been suspicious about rumors of “always-on” consoles  (so-named because they require a constant Internet connection) as we gear up for this next generation in gaming — especially since recent always-on games like SimCity and Diablo III had major issues at launch. For game publishers, being always-connected also adds another level of piracy protection. But gamers don’t appreciate the inflexibility of not being able to play their games offline.

The rumor follows some controversial comments from Microsoft Game Studios’ Adam Orth, who didn’t see much of a problem with always-on consoles (and didn’t have much sympathy for those living in the boonies). Microsoft ended up apologizing over his remarks, but it didn’t outright deny that the next Xbox would be always-on.

I’m a big fan of what Google tried to do with Google TV, but slow hardware and a lack of decent content kept it from being a success. It sounds like Microsoft wouldn’t make the same mistake, as the Verge notes that the company already has partnerships with content providers. (And unlike Google, it’s not trying to promote cord-cutting.)

Microsoft’s Kinect sensor is also said to be a big part of the next Xbox’x entertainment experience. The updated version of the motion controller would reportedly be able to detect multiple people within a room, and it could even pause what you’re watching when you turn your head.

If this particular rumor is true, Microsoft would also have a leg-up on Sony (once again) when it comes to entertainment. Microsoft wisely maneuvered to make Netflix exclusive to the Xbox 360 for more than a year before it was available to the PlayStation 3 or Wii. We haven’t seen much of Sony’s PS4 entertainment plans yet, other than the fact that it will support 4K video.

Microsoft will reportedly unveil its next Xbox on May 21, which should lead directly into this year’s E3 convention in June.

As a lifelong player of console games, I’ve cringed watching the industry change this year. Old guard mainstays like THQ are getting hacked apart and sold to the highest bidder while the majority of the industry keeps releasing uninspired sequels. When you consider we’ve been killing the same aliens in Halo for the last 12 years, you begin to feel a bit like Sisyphus — pushing the same boulder up a hill without ever really progressing toward anything.  

This year was supposed to be the year Sony and Microsoft knocked our pants off with earth-shaking console reveals, and so far, the PlayStation 4 just feels like my grandma trying to pitch me on a Zune. “You kids like sharing things, right? We made a whole button for that!”

Then we have the new kid in school. The Fonz to console’s Richie Cunningham: mobile gaming. The market, which is estimated to generate over $9 billion globally in 2013, has come of age. As mobile devices become more technologically advanced, major names like Disney and Electronic Arts have begun to take them seriously while still leaving room for indie success stories like Imangi Studios and its hit series, Temple Run. The writing’s on the wall that our generation will probably see consoles finally pass the torch to mobile.

But how will these two segments interact with each other during the change? How will the transition happen? What’s to become of the developers? What about all that beautiful intellectual property? Here are three things to be aware of as mobile gaming continues to grow.

Mobile should take the IP and run

As we learned from Netflix with House of Cards, great exclusive content can boost consumer interest in a platform. One sad side effect of console developers shutting down is a lot of great games will get lost in the shuffle.

Sure, a lot of the recognizable games will be bought and carry on with a different developer, but not all of them. Nobody, for instance, has picked up the Darksiders franchise since THQ’s collapse. That series, despite its faults, has a lot of potential and room for at least two more sequels.

Larger mobile developers have an opportunity to buy the rights to these games and relaunch them as mobile titles. This would be a great idea for new consoles trying to gain a market share, like Ouya (pictured at top) and Nvidia’s Project Shield. The gameplay lends itself to that type of console, and it comes with a built-in fanbase. Additionally, it gives mobile a chance to offer a home to all the forgotten and neglected console gaming franchises out there.

Console developers can make better use of free-to-play

Ask any gamer on Xbox Live what the most divisive issue in gaming this year is and, after telling you how they slept with your mother, they’ll probably say in-game purchases.

Spearheaded by EA, console developers have seen just how much money there is to be made from free-to-play mobile games and have begun adopting the business model. Now you can buy better guns in Dead Space 3, and Borderlands 2 is constantly rolling out more downloadable content. Whether or not this enhances the game experience, it doesn’t have the same feel as free-to-play on mobile — mainly because it’s not free. When a gamer has already spent $60 on a title, it’s hard not to look greedy when you start asking them to pay for DLC that might keep the game fresh and interesting. It leaves the same bad taste in gamers’ mouths as having to see ads in the Xbox Marketplace even though they’re already paying a monthly subscription fee.

If console developers want to take the freemium model seriously, they need to lower the barrier of entry to their games. Put the price tag closer to $10 and implement pervasive monetization opportunities beyond that. This extends the game’s shelf life. Good freemium models will also help developers earn more revenue off their user base instead of having one big purchase point, which will eventually be lost to a used games market that they have no stake in.

Technology like Ouya might bridge the gap

One of the stand-out stories at South by Southwest (SXSW) this year was Ouya founder Julie Uhrman’s keynote interview, in which she discussed her Android-powered console’s place in the gaming market. It’s easy to imagine Ouya as the chosen child destined to bring balance to the Force. It’s got the body of a console but the brains of Android. It will target players in their living room while delivering mobile-type experiences with free-to-play games.

If Ouya’s low price enables it to gain mass market appeal, it could very well bridge the gap between console and mobile. It also seems like it could attract the right developers to make quality freemium games in the living room.

The big picture is this: History has shown that great games don’t necessarily need specific platforms to exist. Facebook and Apple were both accidental gaming platforms that were responsible for two of biggest trends in gaming this decade: mobile and social. When the chips fall, the developers will go where the gamers are. This is why Microsoft is trying to make the Xbox a home entertainment console as opposed to a gaming console. As smartphones continue to penetrate the market globally, most people will soon be walking around with great games right in their pockets. While smart TVs and PCs will keep traditional gaming alive, mobile is poised to be the apex of the market.

---

GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

---

Earlier this morning we posted a story about Microsoft’s Xbox 360 successor potentially being called the “Xbox.” The news came from a Pocket-lint report, but now a prankster has come clean to reveal the entire story is a hoax.

We apologize for the error, and it’s something we’ll be keeping an even closer eye on as we approach E3 in June. This particular rumor had an ounce of credibility since it seemed to fit into next-gen Xbox details leaked a few days ago. And I’ll maintain that the name “Xbox 720″ still doesn’t make much sense.

Gamers have taken to the Xbox 720 moniker as they became antsy for a new console — but that name likely won’t work for general consumers. Symbolically, the term “720″ doesn’t have the positive spin that “360″ did.  The Xbox 360 ended up being a living room hub that could tackle all of your entertainment needs — a 360-degree solution. Nobody ever talks about a 720-degree solution.

---

GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

---

Apparently oblivious to the jokes that initially surrounded the Wii’s name, Nintendo just announced the Wii Mini — a budget console that offers fewer features than the original Wii but is much cheaper.

The Wii Mini will sell for just $100 when it’s released in Canada on December 7. For some reason, Nintendo is keeping the console exclusive to the country for this holiday season, and it isn’t saying anything about availability elsewhere.

To make the Wii Mini so cheap, Nintendo had to chop out many features, like networking capabilities and compatibility with GameCube games. The Wii Mini will only be able to play Wii game discs (Nintendo says there are now more than 1,400 disc-based Wii games available). The console comes with a Wii Remote and Nunchuk controller, and it’ll offer all of the motion gaming capabilities the Wii is known for.

By stripping out extra features and focusing on a core experience, Nintendo is clearly aiming to extend the life of its existing Wii hardware. And given that the new Wii U console starts at $300, Nintendo may be able to tempt some budget buyers who somehow missed out on the original Wii with this smaller console.

---

GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

---

I love Nintendo. I hate Nintendo. As the company that first got me into gaming and technology, Nintendo will always hold a special place in my heart. But I’ve been frustrated by its move toward casual gaming with the Wii and its past missteps with the 3DS.

Now Nintendo is gearing up to release the Wii U, its newest console. It sports high-definition graphics and a tablet-like game controller. Yesterday the company announced that the Wii U will be available in the U.S. on November 19, starting at $299 for the base model and $349 for a deluxe model with added memory and a copy of Nintendo Land. It’s also taking a stab at living room entertainment with Nintendo TVii, a unified interface for searching and interacting with media across live TV, Netflix, Hulu Plus, and other services.

At the launch event in New York City, I got Nintendo’s executive vice president of sales Scott Moffitt take on the announcements. After joining the company last year, Moffitt has become the main person responsible for creating excitement for the Wii U. And as you can see from our conversation below, he’s thought quite a bit about what makes the Wii U compelling.

GamesBeat: Can you talk about the $299 price for the base model? That’s more expensive than the current consoles, and it also doesn’t come with a game. What was the decision in terms of pricing?

Scott Moffitt: Yah many factors go into pricing. … Let me talk first about our goal with going to a two-tiered model, to have two prices and two configurations, is to give consumers choice and provide flexibility. …  That philosophy really permeated a lot of the decisions. It permeated what price point it should be but also what to pack in with each of the configurations.

The $299 price point in the basic sense allows the broadest amount of consumers access to the Wii U and all of its technologies at a really affordable price. For $299 you get everything you need to enjoy Wii U, and you have the capability to add memory as you want, and we know the price of memory is dropping precipitously. But it also allows you the choice of game…you’re not locked into a certain game.

Certainly, we think a lot of those consumers may really enjoy Nintendo Land if they choose to buy it — but they may not. They may choose to buy New Super Mario Brothers U; they may choose to buy Zombie U. We don’t know. It gives them at least one option that does not have a game, that allows them to choose a game. The deluxe set [$349] comes with added memory, a couple of added accessories, and it comes with Nintendo Land, all of which also puts it at a great value for those consumers that know they’re going to want that extra memory and they know they want that game.

GB: So Nintendo Tvii, it seems like this has been a long time coming. How exactly are you guys trying to differentiate from what the Xbox and PS3 is offering?

Moffitt: So the idea behind Wii U is first we want it to be an everyday device. We wanted it to be the entertainment hub in the living room, in the family room, and we want it to be used every day. There are many ways to do that. Not everyone has a chance to sit down and play a three-hour video game every day, but they may want to access the web every day. They may want to watch TV every day. So having an application like Nintendo TVii increases the probability that consumers will turn on the system every day, use it every day, and interact with it every day.

Nintendo TVii is a great innovation. It differentiates ourselves from other consoles in a couple different ways: First of all…the vision is you can find, you can watch, and you can interact with TV like you’ve never been able to before. Starting with “find,” the gamepad allows you a very intuitive way to search for content regardless of its source. Whether it’s VOD, whether it’s live TV, coming from Direct TV or your normal cable provider, or any recorded content that you have, it searches all possible sources and displays for you what your options are. So it makes TV for me more fun and more intuitive, and easier to find something.

Once I find something you can activate it right from the gamepad controller, you can turn on that program, and it starts displaying on your TV. Then the interesting part begins, you can interact with that content  in ways you haven’t been able to before on a gaming console. You can share thoughts about the program you’re watching, you can let your friends know about that content and if they’re not watching it at that time you can message them and say, “Hey, great show here, you may want to turn it on,” and you can chat back and forth. So it integrates the social and interactive component with TV in a way that hasn’t been possible before.

Next: Wii U as Nintendo’s tablet stab, and the mystery of the tablet gamepad’s battery life

Pages: 1 2

In a call with investment analysts today, Electronic Arts chief executive John Riccitiello reported that his company is investing $80 million in what he called “fourth-gen” console development.

He also expressed a strong opinion that console gaming would continue to gain in the coming years, and that EA plans to get in on the new upswing with this significant investment in research and development.

EA also said that, as a result of its increase in next-generation console investment, it will have a small round of layoffs and eliminate some licensed titles that are not part of that strategy.

This may only indicate strong Wii U development at this time, with Sony playing it cagey and Microsoft not saying much of anything about new consoles coming down the road.

This is, however, the first confirmed commentary on EA’s commitment to the next-generation console business, especially with its increased activity in casual, downloadable PC, and mobile games.

The rumors are true. Microsoft confirmed today that it will offer a $99 Xbox 360 console and Kinect bundle (with a $15 monthly subscription fee) in its retail stores.

The deal will be available via the above online coupon, which Microsoft’s Xbox spokesman Major Nelson tweeted this morning. As we reported last week, the deal includes an Xbox 360 with four gigabytes of storage, and the $15 subscription fee includes Xbox Live Gold service (typically a $40-$60 annual cost).

The news is a fundamental change in the way the console market works. Typically, companies debut expensive new consoles that are heavily subsidized, with the hopes of making back money with game sales. As the years pass, consoles become cheaper to make, and companies are able to make a profit from the hardware itself. Given that the Xbox 360 is now almost seven-years-old, Microsoft can afford to be creative with its pricing model.

To purchase the same Xbox 360 + Kinect bundle now, you’d have to shell out $299, plus another $120 for a two-year Xbox Live Gold contract, for a total of $420. With the new bundle, you’d be paying $459 over two years — a difference many consumers likely wouldn’t mind.

In comparison, Sony’s cheapest PlayStation 3 model is $250, and its cheapest bundle with its Move motion controller is $350. With the confirmation of this deal, Sony will likely offer some sort of discount on the PlayStation 3 (a $199 price announcement at E3 doesn’t sound too unlikely). But that doesn’t include Sony’s pricy Move controller.

Given that the PS3 is much more expensive to produce than the Xbox 360 (thanks to the Cell processor), it’s unlikely Sony will ever be able to match Microsoft’s $99 + subscription pricing. But with the conversation quickly shifting towards next-generation consoles, Sony could just try to downplay Microsoft’s news by teasing the next PlayStation in the coming months.

---

GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

---

In a move that will surely stir up plenty of fanboy fervor, Microsoft is reportedly gearing up to announce a $99 Xbox 360 + Kinect package, which will be subsidized by a $15 monthly fee, reports The Verge.

Sources tell the site that the new Xbox 360 bundle could launch as soon as next week in Microsoft’s stores, and it will contain a 4 gigabyte and Kinect sensor (which retails for $150 on its own).  The $15 monthly subscription will last for two years and will provide access to Xbox Live Gold, and potentially access to streaming content companies as well. Even better, the bundle will include a two-year warranty.

We’ve asked Microsoft for comment, and will report when we hear back.

To purchase the same Xbox 360 + Kinect bundle now, you’d have to shell out $299, plus another $120 for a two-year Xbox Live Gold contract, for a total of $420. With the new bundle, you’d be paying $459 over two years — a difference that many consumers likely wouldn’t mind. The subscription bundle would open up the Xbox 360 to an entirely new market of users, including broke college students and families that could never justify the cost of an Xbox previously.

In comparison, Sony’s cheapest PlayStation 3 model is $250, and its cheapest bundle with its Move motion controller is $350. The Xbox 360 launched at a cheaper price than the PlayStation 3 (mainly due to the expensive Cell processor used in the PS3), and Microsoft has also managed to drop its prices much more quickly than Sony.

The news, if true, would be a fundamental change in the way the console market works. Typically, companies debut expensive new consoles that are heavily subsidized, with the hopes of making back money with game sales. As the years pass, consoles become cheaper to make, and companies are able to make a profit from the hardware itself. Given that the Xbox 360 is now almost seven years old, Microsoft can afford to be creative with its pricing model.

Not surprisingly, the Verge notes there will be an early termination fee for customers who break the contract. I don’t think Microsoft will have much of a problem with consumers dropping off though, as the low initial cost and reasonable monthly fee doesn’t give gamers much to complain about.

Photo via Scott Akerman

---

GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

---

“There hasn’t been a hi-res free-to-play game on the console yet, and we still don’t have any definite announcements or dates, but we’re actively working on it,” Hi-Rez Studios chief operating officer Todd Harris said in a recent interview. “We are in talks with both console providers, specifically Sony and Microsoft, about how best to support free-to-play on consoles.”

Free-to-play refers to any title that is accessible at no cost and generates revenue through microtransactions and in-game advertising. The business model, commonly used in massively multiplayer online role-playing games and social games, has gained in popularity over the last few years. A study by market research firm Newzoo found consumers spent $4.9 billion on F2P MMOs in 2011, a 24 percent increase over the previous year.

However, despite their growing popularity, F2P titles have had little-to-no presence in the console gaming market. But that could soon change.

Last year, Todd Harris told Eurogamer that F2P games supported by microtransactions on the Xbox 360 are “inevitable.” He still stands by that position, and believes the business model is better for both studios and gamers. “[A free-to-play] game succeeds on its own merits because people can just try it out for themselves. Consumers choose how much they want to pay.” He adds that it also gives developers incentive to deliver content and features that their communities want.

Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter has a different opinion. He believes Microsoft is not interested in adopting the business model on the console. “The margin isn’t that good for them, and free users suck up server space,” he said. “Given that Microsoft gets only 30 percent and has to run the servers, it isn’t likely all that profitable.”

Pachter points out that Facebook, which has over 800 million users, makes about a third of its profit from sales of virtual currency for F2P games like Zynga’s FarmVille. He estimates that Xbox Live Gold, Microsoft’s paid subscription service that has around 17 million users, would make maybe $10 million a year. “I’m sure Microsoft doesn’t think it’s worth the hassle. I think Microsoft thinks about profit per user, and they don’t need to cannibalize existing traffic by offering free-to-play.”

R.W. Baird & Co. analyst Colin Sebastian disagrees. While he says the last thing publishers want is to shift gamers from buying $60 titles, he thinks F2P will become a monetization option across platforms. “One thing that companies such as Zynga have taught us is that there is no inherent risk in adopting a free-to-play model as long as the core gamers are willing to play and pay,” he said. “If Microsoft still gets their royalty and subscription fees, then it shouldn’t matter as much to them how publishers price the games.”

GamesBeat contacted Microsoft for this story and was told that the company “is always evaluating different business models, but has nothing to confirm at this time.”

---

GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

---

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Microsoft had mostly good news to report in its third quarter earnings today, although one division stood out as the biggest loser: Entertainment & Devices, home of the Xbox and Windows Phone.

The division reported revenue of $1.62 billion, down 16 percent from a year ago. Microsoft blamed “a soft gaming console market” for the decline. Indeed, the company remains the leader in the video game console market, with a 42 percent share, even though Xbox 360 sales were down 48 percent at 1.4 million units sold.

Microsoft also noted that Xbox 360 platform revenue was down 33 percent at $584 million, due to the slower console sales (and reduced Kinect sales), which was offset by higher Xbox Live revenue.

As always, Microsoft didn’t break out Windows Phone sales in the earning report, likely because there isn’t much to report just yet. But with the console market slowing down — which won’t pick up until the next generation console war begins next year (not including Nintendo’s Wii U release this Fall) — it’s becoming increasingly clear that Windows Phone will have to start earning some money for the Entertainment & Devices division. Microsoft can’t afford to have two major product lines sagging and bringing down an entire business division.

We’re only a few weeks past the launch of the Windows-Phone based Nokia Lumia 900 in the U.S., so it’s a bit too early to tell how well the phone is doing. But with multiple reports of sellouts online and in retail stores, there’s a good chance the Lumia 900 will finally put Windows Phone on the map.

At this point though, Microsoft can’t afford to take things slow with its new flagship device. It needs to work double-time on encouraging sales before Samsung’s Galaxy S III and the iPhone 5 steal all of its thunder.

According to Microsoft’s 10-Q quarterly filing today, the division’s operating income also decreased, due to payments made to Nokia (Microsoft is paying Nokia $1 billion over the next few years for the Windows Phone partnership), a 33 percent increase in R&D costs, and a 50 percent increase in sales and marketing expenses.

Photo: Devindra Hardawar/VentureBeat

Sony knows that its new portable console, the PlayStation Vita, is going to live or die on how good its games are. So said Guy Longworth, senior vice president of marketing and PSN at Sony’s games division, in a dinner interview at the Consumer Electronics Show. The ads and marketing campaigns beginning soon will reflect that.

But with the PS Vita, Sony has a chance to appeal to the larger mass market of non-gamers because it can do a lot more than just play games.

The PS Vita debuts in the U.S. on Feb. 22 (it has already launched in Japan). If it takes off, Sony has a chance to fend off the dual threats of the Nintendo 3DS and the Apple iPhone in portable gaming.

With the PS Vita, Sony has a chance to capture the crowd of serious gamers who have been waiting for a great portable system to play hardcore games such as first-person shooters. But it also has a chance to get mainstream users by incorporating apps such as Twitter and Flickr.

Longworth agreed that the PS Vita could become the mainstream controller for the home and life on the move. In that way, it represents a big challenge to Apple’s iOS devices — the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch — which have made huge inroads into portable gaming in the past few years. As Sony sees it, the PS Vita will be like a companion screen that you can use while watching TV, which is a role that smartphones and tablets are already playing in the home.

“This is why we consider the PlayStation Vita to be a generational shift in portable devices,” Longworth said. “We still all look at these devices as having long life cycles. The hardcore customers will buy first. But with accelerated competition, the life cycles move faster. We cannot wait four years before we move from the hardcore gamer to the mainstream users.”

The core of the device will still be the video game experience, however.

“We really wanted to focus on the games. We really wanted to make that it had the biggest and the best experiences possible” when it came to games, said John Koller, director of hardware marketing at Sony’s game division in the U.S, in another interview at CES. “We also wanted to make sure the social component was built into each game. Separate from that, we wanted to make apps that were relevant to gamers and really allowed them connect with their community.”

As the team was designing the PS Vita, it saw that community was important to creating bigger and better experiences for gamers. By contrast, the PlayStation Portable was really a device for individuals playing a single-person game. That’s part of why the PSP lost out to Apple’s devices.

The Twitter user interface is different from what you see on the PC. The Twitter app is written from the ground up for the Vita, with the emphasis placed on letting gamers share their exploits in games with fellow gamers or the rest of the world. You can finish a game and immediately tweet the results to your friends.

You can take photos with the camera on the PS Vita. It has a web browser for sharing and ways for you to chat with your friends. The Flickr interface looks slick and clean and it lets you post your photos automatically to the photo sharing site.

“We want you to interact with the world and the world to interact with the device,” Koller said.

Besides Flickr and Twitter, the PS Vita can also run Skype, Netflix and Facebook. On the PlayStation 3, Netflix is the most-used non-gaming application, so it could be a popular one on the Vita as well. You can use the Vita to watch high-definition movies, listen to music, and shop for online games.

“We will never have an app store like the Android Market, but we will have relevant apps that allow gamers to be social,” Koller said. “That’s very important. We don’t want 10 billion apps. We want relevant, core apps for the experience.”

Don’t be surprised if future apps allow you to view PlayStation Vita content on a big screen and do things such as replace the remote control of your TV set with the touchscreen controls on the PS Vita. For now, you can control your PS 3 console with a PS Vita, meaning that the Vita itself can serve as a wireless controller for PS 3 games in the living room.

Sony has also added is own apps such as Near, which allows gamers to see who is nearby among their gamer friends. The Party app lets players send text messages and do voice chat in real time with their PSN friends.

---

GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

---

Speaking at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco, Tretton said that the PlayStation Vita is Sony’s latest push in mobile gaming and an attempt to compete with the likes of smartphones such as the Apple iPhone. The Vita will feature some spectacular games such as Uncharted Golden Abyss, which looks very console-like in its graphics and can be controlled with a swipe of your finger on the touchscreen.

Sony will also launch the Vita on Feb. 22 in Canada, Europe and Latin America. It will sell for $299 for a WiFi/3G model, and $249 for WiFi only.

The Vita will debut in Japan in December, and now Tretton has spilled the beans on the U.S. as part of a conversation with author Jane McGonigal, author of Reality is Broken, a book on video games and how they can save lives.

Tretton said that Sony’s game consoles have been able to get into a quarter of homes, but you could look at that as a “glass half empty,” Tretton said, since three out of four homes still don’t have a gaming device. The Vita represents an attempt to reach a lot more consumers, partly by being much more social.

The new Vita will have built-in integration with a number of sharing networks. You can, for instance, capture a scene from a game and upload it directly to YouTube from the Vita, which can be connected to wireless networks, without leaving a game. You can do the same with Twitter, Skype and Facebook.

The Vita will allow new kinds of marketing promotions as well. You can go to a store, for instance, and wirelessly pick up digital goods or rewards that you can use in your games.

Tretton said that Sony has 17 million gamer fans on Facebook and it has 24 million users on its PlayStation Home social network on the PS 3.

“All the heavy lifting has been done — now comes the fun part of figuring out how to use it well,” he said.

Game hardware and software developers should now focus on finding new ways to engage gamers, Weisman said. That can include new ways to control games — such as controlling games with motion and physical actions — or new types of gaming devices, like kids’ toys that also fit into video games. Weisman made the comments at the GamesBeat 2011 conference in San Francisco, Calif., on Tuesday.

Weisman is the second experienced game executive to make dark-sounding pronouncements about the state of the game industry today. Earlier, Electronic Arts founder Trip Hawkins said we are living in a “dark age” of video game development.

One example of a game fitting into Weisman’s scheme is Skylanders, a video game from Activision-Blizzard. That game stores game information on a toy that connects to a Nintendo Wii or an Xbox 360 video game console. When players want to change the character they play as in the video game, they connect a different toy to the game. Then, kids can play with those toys outside of the video game — just like other normal toys.

Weisman has a long history in the game industry. He started making toys and games in 1980, when he founded FASA, which made the Shadowrun and BattleTech toy and game franchises. He founded Virtual World Entertainment, a virtual reality franchise, in 1987 and sold the company to Disney in 1992. He started a video game version of FASA, FASA Interactive, in 1995 and sold it to Microsoft in 1999.

“I’ve spent half my career building games that don’t require technology and the other half designing game platforms that require multiple billions of dollars to develop,” Weisman said. “At the end of the day, the brain doesn’t care about the format.”

Weisman’s last company, Smith & Tinker, was able to raise $29 million in venture capital because its founders — Joe Lawandus and Weisman — are heavyweights in the game and entertainment industries. That company focused on hybrid games that fit in with toys.

---

GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

---

Nintendo has been competing on the gaming front with Sony and Microsoft for years, so it’s a little funny to see the company using footage created for the other consoles. Sony’s PS3 and Microsoft’s Xbox 360 have had strong graphical advantages over Nintendo’s Wii console since its release in 2006, and both the PS3 and Xbox 360 can transmit high-definition images while the original Wii cannot. The Wii U will work in 1080p HD.

The Wii U will be released sometime in 2012. The console features an inventive new touch-screen controller that expands gaming possibilities and interaction. One of Nintendo’s goals with the new system is to expand upon the more casual audience of the Wii by adding stronger third-party support that caters to hardcore gamers.

The three-minute reel for third-party games included footage from THQ’s Darksiders II, Sega’s Aliens Colonial Marines, Ubisoft’s Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Online, Namco’s Tekken, and Tecmo Koei’s Ninja Gaiden 3.

Watch the full reel below:

---

GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

---

The MicroConsole TV adapter and a wireless controller will cost just $99, and yet it will allow gamers to play high-end computer games on flat-panel displays in 1080p high-definition running at 60 frames per second, or faster than a blink of the eye. OnLive will start delivering limited quantities of the Onlive Game System starting on Dec. 2. For the holidays, the company is offering a free game with any OnLive Game System purchase.

OnLive launched its instantly playable server games in June. But the MicroConsole represents the fruition of entrepreneur Steve Perlman’s vision to turn the video game industry upside down. If it truly works, the cheap MicroConsole hardware could potentially eliminate the need for players to keep buying more and more powerful and expensive game consoles.

The disadvantage for the console rivals is that they will never be able to match the low costs of OnLive’s MicroConsole, given the simplicity of OnLive’s client hardware. Even the relatively cheap Nintendo Wii costs $199, and its performance isn’t as good as OnLive’s in terms of quality of graphics. This bold strategy explains why OnLive was valued at $1.1 billion during its latest investment in the summer.

“It marks the beginning of a new era,” Perlman said in an interview.

The OnLive system uses a cloud-based design to allow it to deliver high-end games on low-end hardware. Current consoles such as the Xbox 360 do all of the serious computing of games on the console itself. But with OnLive, the games are processed in the cloud, or web-connected data centers. Those images are then sent at lightning speed over the broadband connection to the MicroConsole, which adapts the images so they are properly displayed on the high-definition TV.

Normally, web connections are too slow to handle so much data. A lot of skeptics said Perlman’s scheme would never work. But OnLive has worked for more than eight years on its data compression technology so that it can make the games instantly playable, as long as the MicroConsole is connected to a data center that is less than 1,000 miles away.

The MicroConsole itself is just a tiny pocket-sized box connected to broadband, with a high-definition multimedia interface (HDMI) connection to your TV. The MicroConsole adapts the images to your TV screen. You can play pretty much any game that runs on the PC as long as the game publishers have authorized the game for TV play. As many as 35 titles are expected to be available at launch. Those games could be better and newer. But that is a problem that can be fixed over time.

Beyond enabling players who can’t afford consoles to play premium games for a lower price, OnLive lets you log in from any computer and play games on a PC or laptop. You can also play those same games in your living room on the TV now, without ever having to load a disc or download a copy of a game. You can also be a spectator, watching live multiplayer games in progress and move from game to game as if you were surfing channels on TV.

I tried out the MicroConsole, and it works as advertised. Within ten or 15 seconds of activating OnLive, I was playing a tennis game with the wireless controller. There is no frustrating load time. The console is silent, with no noisy fan. And it is so small it doesn’t take up space on your entertainment center.

The set-up is hassle free. You connect the MicroConsole to the internet and your TV. Within minutes, you can browse OnLive’s Marketplace and play games instantly. The wireless controller has media controls to enable one-touch Brag Clip video recording, which lets you to take a video of your exploits to share them with friends.

Up to four OnLive wireless controllers can be used at the same time. You can also attach your own keyboard and mouse if you care to. Perlman says that the performance of OnLive will improve with time, as the company can easily make changes by upgrading its hardware or software in its data centers. OnLive can improve its game performance without revamping its hardware. The one thing that OnLive lacks now is motion-sensing hardware. But that could conceivably be added sometime down the road.

You can demo games for free, rent them, or purchase them. Rentals cost $3.99 to $8.99. Full game purchases range from $4.99 to $49.99. Later this year, OnLive will add a monthly flat-rate subscription plan. Those pricing models are aimed at tempting users who aren’t exactly sure how much they’ll play a given game.

“For those who want an all-you-can-eat plan, we offer it,” Perlman said.

Titles include Borderlands Game of the Year Edition, Just Cause 2, Mafia II, NBA 2K11, Shaun White Skateboarding and more. Coming soon are titles such as Driver San Francisco, Homefront, Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood, FEAR 3, Red Faction Armageddon, Deus Ex Human Revolution, Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon 4 Future Soldier, and Duke Nukem Forever. Some of these titles are available on OnLive as soon as they come out in stores. Full told, more than 100 games are in the pipeline, Perlman said.

To publicize the launch, OnLive will be launching TV commercials and other ads. I don’t expect OnLive to make too big a splash because its MicroConsole won’t be widely available. But it’s time for the console makers — Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo — to pay attention because they have a new competitor.

For 40-inch and larger TVs, users will need a broadband connection with a speed of 5 megabits per second. For 30-inch to 40-inch TVs, the speed required is 4 megabits per second. For sub-30-inch TVs, 3 megabits per second is needed.

Palo Alto, Calif.-based OnLive now has more than 200 employees. Investors include Warner Bros., Autodesk, Maverick Capital, AT&T, British Telecommunications, and the Belgacom Group. In other news, Perlman showed how OnLive can run in demo mode on an iPhone or iPad. He also showed it working on Android version 2.2.

---

GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

---

Redspotgames marketing and sales director Adrian Loudero spoke to Joystiq at the Gamescom conference this week: “We have seen some stuff on the PC, and we [are] talking to the companies to see if they will agree to release on the Dreamcast. We also have plans for 2011, maybe a new release, but this is really all I can say right now.”

The company only sells a few thousand copies of its Dreamcast releases, according to Loudero. Since it can’t rely entirely on Dreamcast aficionados alone for its business, it has recently started developing WiiWare and Xbox Live Arcade titles. Its recent games include the 2D racing game Rush Rally Racing, and the classic shooter Last Hope.

Similar to the release of Halo 2600 for the Atari 2600 — an adaptation of Microsoft’s insanely popular first-person shooter series for the classic console — Redspotgames caters to enthusiasts who adore the Dreamcast, even though it was discontinued in 2002. The console will live on in other ways as well: Sega recently announced that it would publish classic Dreamcast games on the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 via  Xbox Live Arcade and the Playstation Network.

Image via Joystiq

---

GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

---

The results show that it’s still possible for one hit game to swing the monthly sales numbers in either direction. But it also shows that the console game market is relatively weak, even as there is explosive growth for games on the iPhone, Facebook, and online web sites. StarCraft II sold 721,000 units at retail in the last four days of July. On a relative basis, July sales were better than June sales, when the industry was down 6 percent compared to a year ago. Year to date, overall console game sales are down 8 percent year to date. Part of the reason is the recession and its impact on gamers, who now have many options to play games for free on emerging online and mobile platforms.

Console game hardware, software and accessory sales were $846.5 million in July, down 1 percent from $850.6 million a year ago. Game hardware sales were $313.8 million, up 12 percent from $281.1 million a year ago thanks to the June launch of Microsoft’s slimmer version of the Xbox 360. Console game sales were $403.3 million, down 8 percent from $438.0 million a year ago. Accessories for consoles sold $129.3 million, down 2 percent from $131.5 million a year ago.

For the second month in a row, the Xbox 360 was the top-selling console at 443,500 units sold. The Nintendo Wii sold 253,900 units, while the PlayStation 3 sold 214,500 units. The Nintendo DS sold 398,400 units and the PlayStation Portable sold 84,000 units. Sony said its PS 3 sales are up 45 percent year-to-date in the U.S. and are up 76 percent from a year ago.

Microsoft said that its hardware has outsold the PS 3 for seven consecutive months and the Wii for two months now. Overall money spent on Xbox 360 hardware, software and accessories in July was $290 million.

Electronic Arts had the top two positions in the top games of the month on consoles, with NCAA Football 11 on the Xbox 360 at No. 1 and on the PS 3 at No. 2. Microsoft’s Crackdown 2 title was No. 3. Nintendo’s Super Mario Galaxy was No. 4 and LEGO Harry Potter Years 1-4 from Warner Bros. Interactive was No. 5. Red Dead Redemption slipped to No. 6 on the list, which means it sold fewer than 141,000 units in the U.S. Overall, there were four Xbox 360 titles on the top-ten list, three Nintendo Wii titles, one PS 3 title, and two Nintendo DS titles.

“The PS3 and the Xbox 360 platforms both saw significant increases over July ’09,” said Anita Frazier, analyst at NPD Group. “In fact, Xbox 360 was the top-selling hardware platform for the month, driven by sales of the new slim format.  It’s the first time since September ’07 (Halo 3 launch) that the 360 was the top-selling hardware platform.”

---

GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

---