Well to make the Revolution renaming matters worse, Engadget is reporting on a leaked presentation slide for the Nintendo GO. Now, some are calling it the possible renaming for the Revolution. I think it’s more likely to be the name for Nintendo’s Online service. At least Nintendo might have the good sense to not boast about how their service will be Live, as Sony did last week.
The Mercury News is reporting that Microsoft is working on a portable game system based around the Xbox brand. It’s being assumed that this portable gaming device is going to be some kind of iPod/PSP/DS killer. I really just don’t think that Microsoft can pull it off. Wait, let me rephrase that. I sincerely hope that Microsoft doesn’t rip off the PSP or the iPod because if Microsoft does that, the Xbox Portable would be a failure. The iPod is great because of the fantastic iTunes integration and a super-simple interface. It’s does all the important things right and is a huge success because of it. Competitors who have tried to kill the iPod have failed because they tried to do the whole bigger is better/more features thing that just doesn’t work in consumer electronics.
The PSP is successful because of the Playstation brand and that’s it. There are a handfull of games that are good, but it’s mostly overpriced trash rehashed from the PS2. To combat the lack of real games Sony has opted for a media strategy with the PSP. Make it do everything other than games and people will love it. Where this strategy falls short is that it doesn’t do music as well as the iPod and it doesn’t do games as well as the Nintendo DS. In most respects I think that the PSP is a pretty weak product among gamers. I and I’m sure many others don’t even use mine anymore and am waiting for the Nintendo DS Lite. The hottest thing to do on a PSP is to play emulated (and illegal) copies of old Nintendo and Super Nintendo games. Even UMD sales are slowing to a halt.
Microsoft, take notice of these facts. You need to create a device that capitalizes on the coolest innovation that you’ve created in gaming - The Xbox Live Arcade. Don’t try to do what Sony has done and made a portable PS2. Instead, make a cool device that plays Xbox Live Arcade style games - fun games that I can pick up and play for a few minutes and stop as needed. Geometry Wars on a portable console would be incredible. Gamers don’t want to play through an hour long Halo level on a portable gaming machine. Gamers want quick fun that they can put down at a moment’s notice. If gamers have to spend ten minutes getting to a save point, then you’ve already lost the battle. Take a page out of Nintendo’s playbook. Make the Xbox Portable cheap, make it have some killer games, and make it “portable fun” instead of living room fun. After all, the Gameboy, Gameboy Advance, Gameboy Advance SP, DS, DS Lite are the gaming machines that are on top, not the PSP.
I know that the Video iPod is one of the most talked about Apple products that has not yet been released. Yes, the 5G iPod can play videos, but Steve Jobs and company are very careful to say that the 5G iPod is a music playing device first and that it just happens to be able to play videos. However, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that the 5G iPod wasn’t made specifically for playing movies. It has a 4:3 screen ratio, a somewhat limited video content selection currently available, and most importantly, a horrible battery life for playing movies. If Apple wants to sell full movies on iTunes, they are going to need a device capable of playing movies in a widescreen format at the very least.
Now, before the latest Apple annoucements, a lot of rumor sites reported on a possible video iPod being announced. Someone even went so far as to make a really excellent fake of a real production sample of the iPod Video. It was really joke on everyone. Needless to say there are many people out there who think that it’s only a matter of time before Apple launches the iPod Video. I tend to agree.
So, this latest bit of rumor comes from the good folks at Apple Insider. According to the site Apple has put the “at risk” classification on the 5G 60GB iPod. That means that within the next 60 days the product could get replaced and that retailers should carefully monitor their inventory levels.
Now, I will be the first to admit that rumors and speculation mean absolutely nothing until the real products are unveiled. This is especially true with Apple. I don’t think that this Apple Insider report proves that Apple is going to unleash the iPod Video soon.
Also, this week iTunes did start selling a Disney Movie. It wasn’t a big hit movie like the Lion King. Instead, it was a Disney Channel movie, so it seems like more of Apple testing the market, rather than making an honest attempt at selling whole movies on iTunes.
So, will we see the iPod Video during Apple’s 30th birthday celebration?(probably the next Apple event) I honestly don’t know. The last two Apple media events have been a bit of a letdown for me. Macworld unveiled the MacBook Pro, and the February event unleashed the iPod Hifi. I realize that the MacBook Pro is really exciting to a lot of people, but we all knew Apple was going Intel, so it wasn’t exactly a shock. Ever since the “one more thing” event there hasn’t really been “one more thing” for Steve to unveil. I hope that Apple has been saving the good stuff for the 30th anniversary. Otherwise, we won’t be seeing an iPod Video, we’ll be seeing the iProjector - a LCD projector that has a built in iPod dock. Whoop-de-do.
A lot of sites today are posting about the rumor that the next Bungie project is going to be a Halo game that isn’t Halo 3, but does exist in the Halo universe as more of a prequel. I know what you are thinking, sequels suck but prequels are worse and I agree. This project is being called Forerunner, a refrence to the race of beings that created the Halo rings in the first place. Most sites are calling this pure rumor or speculation. It’s possibly an April fool’s joke.
Now, being that I am the mole and I love to banter about such rumors I have to put my two cents in on what is likely to happen. As you may already have read, I was pretty much right about the PS3 annoucements earlier this week, so maybe I can go 2 for 2 on rumor prediction for the week. Ok here goes:
The next game will be online. MMOFPS if you want to call it that. Let’s just call it Halo Online. Ok, so Halo Online will be all about being a huge multiplayer battleground. The battle will probably be for Earth and the player can pick a side and battle in huge battles - 100+ people trying to take over a base and 100+ people trying to hold the base. Instead of getting tons of XP to level a character as you would in a MMORPG, players will need to carry out missions to get better equipment, tanks, and just more bases. The game will probably launch this fall, let’s say around November or at the very least will be announced at E3. Halo Online will be as big as World of Warcraft and will be Microsoft’s first “billion dollar game.” Don’t be surprised if this game gets 10 million subscribers paying $10-15 a month within the first three years. That would be over a billion dollars a year in revenue.
I know this all sounds a bit crazy, but here is the reasoning. Bungie originally promised huge multiplayer battles and epic battles for earth in Halo 2. That didn’t happen, but I’m sure Bungie tried to make it happen. At the same time World of Warcraft has been making huge waves in the gaming world with it’s 6 million subscribers worldwide paying $15 a month just to play. A couple years ago those kinds of numbers would have been seen as pure insanity, but Blizzard’s near-perfect execution of the MMORPG genre in World of Warcraft made 6 million subscribers a reality. Bungie is one of the few studios who could make the same thing happen to the MMOFPS on a console. After all, Sony and Nintendo pretty much wrote off online console gaming before Halo 2 came out and lauched online console gaming into a viable business. Now even Sony is raving about how the PS3 games are going to be “Live” and online(just like Xbox games have been for the last couple years).
In short, Halo Online is just too big of an opportunity for Microsoft to pass up. It’s a billion dollar idea that if they don’t do they would be completely foolish. The Halo fanbase would go crazy for it and it would be the biggest game of the next generation. If Bungie and Microsoft make Halo Online happen, the Xbox 360 will will the next-generation console war. Period. Not only that, but a version of Halo Online playable on Windows Vista would ensure that gamers who don’t have an Xbox 360 will still upgrade to Vista.
Gaming Age is reporting that the recent rumors of a PS3 announcement on March 15th are true. Joystiq and others have already reported this. So, is it really going to happen? What are they going to announce?
Here is a short recap of the various PS3 rumors and their probability of being confirmed:
Playstation 3 Delay - Will the PS3 hit it’s supposed spring launch date? I really doubt it. At this point everybody is expecting a delay. Nobody really knows when the PS3 will be shipping and thus no stores are taking pre-orders yet. It’s most likely that the PS3 won’t hit the US until November. Perhaps it will show up in Japan as early as this summer, but don’t count on it.
New PS3 Controller - Everybody seemed to hate the original boomerang design even more than the Spiderman PS3 font. If they are going to unveil a new controller now would be the time, so it could very possibly happen. However, don’t expect it to look like the dualshock. They already got into hot water with that controller design once.
PS3 Online Service - I expect this to happen at some point, but don’t expect it to be annouced until E3. If they are building anything, then it’s probably going to be more media-centric than game centric. It’s going to disappoint a lot of people. It won’t be an Xbox Live killer by any means.
iTunes PS3? - As unlikely as this probably is, it also makes a whole lot of sense. If Sony would ditch their whole Sony Connect and latch on to the iTunes user base of millions of people, they might have the next generation’s “killer app”. However, the one thing Sony wants more than money right now is control, and without the ability to control the iTunes format, they won’t ever go for it.
So there you have it. Any other PS3 predictions?
TechCrunch got ahold a bunch of screenshots of Google’s upcoming calendar application. It looks like it’s still not ready for the masses, but it’s always good to see Google continuing to develop cool new products.
The Mole’s Take
A calendar is something that everybody can use and so it’s obvious that Google needs to create such a calendar. However, It’s something that Goggle needs to be very careful about introducing. Unless it’s as incredible as GMail was when it was first introduced, it will flop. Unfortounately right now Google can’t afford to just introduce any old software. We all expect it to be on par with Google Search, GMail, etc… I think a calendar could be a great addition to GMail, but I just hope they take the time to make it something better than “just another calendar”.
Dude, you’re getting an Alienware. News article at The Inquirer outlining why it makes sense.
The Mole’s Take
I think this is a move that Dell needs to make. Dell has driven down prices to the point that they have razor-thin margins on their consumer PC’s. Most of Dell’s money is made in Corporate lease and server deals. That’s where the money is. The consumer PC business is not a place where Dell makes a lot of money. Their companion products aren’t exactly selling like iPods either. Buying Alienware would make a lot of sense because they have a high profit margin and are really good at selling gaming PC’s. If Dell does this they will most certainly need to retain most of Alienware’s operations as they currently are. If Dell tries to make Alienware into something that resembles Dell, then they would kill it and gamers would go elsewhere for their gaming rigs.
One thing is for sure, Dell is a cheap computer company and not a “cool” computer company. No matter how shiny you make a Dell, it still isn’t “cool”. The best evidence of that is the Dell DJ’s and other music devices. They are a joke and haven’t even put a dent in the iPod that it was intended to kill. Now that Apple is going Intel, Dell needs something to help their consumer image, otherwise cheap is not going to cut it.
It’s the morning of the next great Apple announcement. What should we expect to see today? Video iPod? MacBook(iBook)? MacMini? iTablet? Well, all of those are great possibilities, but are they fun enough? A couple of them are, but as the mole I try to look deeper into the conspiracy theory to find the hard(ly) published rumors that slip through the cracks of most journalistic efforts.
So what could it be? Don’t be surprised if we see iTunes show up on the PS3 or the Xbox 360. Both systems are extremely media-centric and want to be the center of your digital life in the same way that the iPod and iTunes already are. Now, since Apple has partnerships with both Sony and Microsoft for various things, either company could have made a deal with Apple to get iTunes on their system. However, it’s more likely that we would see iTunes on the Xbox 360 for two reasons. One, it’s already on the market. Two, Apple owes Microsoft big. It wasn’t too many years ago that Microsoft gave Apple the cash infusion that it needed to stay alive, not to mention that Microsoft signed a 5 year deal to support OSX with Office. Apple wants iTunes and iPod to be everywhere. The iPod already works great with the Xbox 360. If iTunes shows up on the Xbox 360, it will sell 100 million consoles for that reason alone. That’s 100 million people buying movies from iTunes. That’s just too much business for Apple to turn down.
Any other great conspiracy theories out there? Think I’m crazy? MAKE A COMMENT!
Hello, I am the mole. This is my blog. Are you bored yet? You should be since nothing has been posted yet. Don’t worry, that won’t last long. Once I start writing, you are going to wish you never heard of the mole. Really, I promise.
What should you expect from my fantastic little piece of the internet wasteland? Being the mole, I focus on rumors, lies, and deceit. That’s right, the fun stuff. However, unlike some other sites on the internet that focus on people, the mole focuses on the joys of consumerism. iPod, Playstation, Xbox, Hybrids, HDTV, and all the other joyous products that make our lives more interesting and our credit card bills higher. Sure, you might be broke, but your toys kick ass right? If you responded yes, then you and I probably have a lot in common. If you responded no, then buy some kick ass toys and read more of the mole!
