The thing about new technology is that there is always the risk of failure. No matter how good an idea may seem to inventors and investors, the public may have a completely different idea when something is exposed to the cold light of day. Hence, over the years, we have seen a myriad of new products fail the final test of market acceptance. So it is interesting that Fortune is having a look at some of the current failures as we go into the gift buying season.
In this blog I have mentioned the universal pocket device. Game machine, phone, MP3 player, camera and more wrapped up in a sexy small package that goes everywhere with you. A market area that will be immense and one where the Apple iPhone has a massive lead. Competition comes from Microsoft Zune, Nokia nGage and the new Google Android. All of which have gaming as a cornerstone.
The Fortune article has two of these as failures, despite being excellent devices. The new Zune fails because it still isn’t a phone. And the Android T Mobile G1 fails because it has a couple of small niggles and just isn’t sexy enough. A pity as some reviews I have read say it is one of the best phones ever.
Even bigger news for gaming is that Fortune have Blu-ray as a failure. Basically Sony won the battle and lost the war. The world is very rapidly moving on from using cardboard and plastic for content delivery. So there goes the biggest USP for the Playstation 3. Sony really do seem to have been afflicted with the opposite of the Midas touch recently. A pity when you look at all the fantastic technology they have bought us over the years.
Fortune also have the game Spore as one of their failures. I think this is a bit harsh. It has sold well over a million but suffers from the broken model that is PC gaming so has become one of the most stolen games in history. The game is a success in the way that it moves the art of gaming on, but it has had mixed reviews because of the way some of the difficulty levels have been tuned. So overall I think that Fortune have got this one wrong.
Other failures in the article include Visa, which has been a disaster for Microsoft. And the MacBook Air, which proves that Apple still have the capacity to get it very wrong. Nobody is immune when it come to bringing new technology to market.
Overall an interesting and incisive article. Most striking is how important gaming has been revealed to be to modern technology. Our industry is becoming all pervasive in ways that continue to surprise.
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Bruce,
I just read your ‘Bible vs. Games’ blog post.
Most cool.
Stay on groovin’ safari,
Tor Hershman
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How can you give this ANY creedance?
Android (G1) wasn’t even out when they were preparing this for press I’m sure. Apple iPhone does NOT have the lead in cell phone/email/games/camera all in one pocket…can I point you to the Symbian or Windows Mobile platforms…they all have a much bigger piece of the pie than iPhone does.
Re Blu-ray…we haven’t even had one holiday season where Blu-ray was the choice to make…last year’s holidays were confused by HD DVD and Blu-ray…calling for its death now seems premature.
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Im not sure If i totally agree witht he doom and gloom analyst who argue that Blu-ray will never take off because didgital will eventually take off and over-take it etc. ( I know loads of people who will always prefer to have physical media in their homes – we are material beings after all, we like having our collections dispalyed proudly on shelves etc.). What bothers me about Blu-ray in geenral is that there isnt quite the discernible jump in quality like there was from VHS to DVD, especially on an upscaled DVD on a HD TV. Maybe im not enough of a “geek” but Its hard for me to justify the purchase of a new player and the more expensive Titles on Bluray at the moment. I think it will eventually take over, but not at the speed that DVD did.