A Tree Falling in the Forest

Someone asked Steve Jobs about television at the all things D Conference and he explained why Apple TV remains a hobby. In the clip above he explains the existing market market is heavily subsidized by cable operators who "give everybody a set top box for free, or for $10 a per month. That pretty much squashes out the opportunity for innovation because nobody's willing to buy a set top box." Everything makes so much sense when he says it. . . but Microsoft got consumers to purchase their set top box and through the sale of content they are able to turn the sale of the box and operation into a profit center. He then says the problem with adding a box to the user's experience is they end up with a variety of different boxes each with its own remote and user interface. "The only way that's ever going to change is if you can really go back to square, tear up the set top box, redesign it from scratch with a consistent UI across all these different functions...

Last week, we heard the news of Onlive. The view of the company's potential really depends on the perspective of the viewer. The mainstream media, the rapture is upon us . The game industry is in a state of turmoil and publishers are fighting a losing battle here on earth while those who signed with Onlive are ascending to heaven, only to return in the 4th quarter when all other publishers died on the swords of their own hubris. The gaming press is looking at it the way a cat paws at a dead rat hoping it will jump up and start to play, all the time saying "so tell me again why this is better than Steam?" Either way, I just wish I had a piece of it because these guys are going to make a lot of money. With Mike McGarvey involved, it is no surprise the company is a press juggernaut. In a former life, Mike, Dave Cox, Paul Baldwin, Sutton Trout and a handful of others launched Tomb Raider from a then two month old Eidos, generating a ton of press and instantly turnin...

I was just sitting down to write a post about our need to expand beyond the core gamer. We are really good at making games for the 2 million people who buy good games and 5 million who buy great games, but that barely covers our budget. Sure Nintendo brought more people to the game market, but they only buy Nintendo games. The tie ratios are no where near what we need to consider the platform disruptive. Then I saw the post I stole and copied below from Appleinsider.com . Remember, Apple entered the MP3 player and smartphone markets when they appeared to be mature. All of the apps in the app store could easily run on Appletv and with incremental improvements on interface and design of the Wii mote, Apple could just skip over the hardcore gamer and pull the mainstream right in. This would not be the first time Apple the innovator borrowed a great idea. The Mac interface famously came from Xerox Parc, the iPod was introduced into a robust MP3 market and even iTunes was acqui...