Tag archive: industry

You play video games. We play video games. But with developers struggling to stay afload in turbulent financial seas, will the industry as we know it survive another decade, or disappear beneath the waves the way arcade machines did after their heyday? Having made the case for the doom of video games in part one of the Players Only season opener “Are Video Games Dead?,” Scott Steinberg revisits the subject for part two to find… Read More

In a move to avoid having their industry subject to more regulation and legislation, a coalition of online advertisers have pledged to support a set of “self-regulatory principles” that will offer greater transparency to consumers about what information in collected about their online activities and how that information is used; the participants also pledged greater transparency and protections for information about children and… Read More

The usage model for a netbook is to wed it with a desktop computer to get the best of both worlds: a mobile computer that is light, capable and very portable, and a desktop that is powerful, but in which both together are affordable. Traditional notebook computers are typically designed to be a blend of desktop performance and portability. But to get there, you end up with either a notebook that is too big and heavy to carry easily, or… Read More

Gary Shapiro, head of the Consumer Electronics Association, the organization behind CES, gave his 2009 forecast for the industry as the show opened, and was hopeful even in economically bleak times. “The CE industry is resilient but not immune from the business cycle. In a tough economy our products offer high value for entertainment and an entry point for entrepreneurs creating new businesses,” he said.… Read More

There are 81 video games degree courses now offered at British universities, according to games industry campaign group Games Up?, but only four of them are accredit by the government body Skillset. And that, they say, is one reason why universities are failing to equip graduates with the skills really needed by the games industry. David Braben, chairman of Frontier Developments and a spokesman for "Games Up?", told the BBC:… Read More

There’s no question that gaming has its blockbusters. The recent release of high-profile, high-budget titles like Halo 3 and Grand Theft Auto IV set sales records and captured as much publicity as their big-screen brethren, but is it really these megagames that are driving the industry forward, or smaller indie studios? Scott Steinberg makes the argument for the little guy in this week’s episode of Player’s Only. As many… Read More

Once upon a time, the closest most game companies could come to claiming that they targeted women gamers was with a handful of token female heroines in otherwise blood-soaked, male-oriented titles.  But those days are quickly fading. As this week’s episode of Players Only shows, women are getting behind the controls more than ever these days, and the industry is rushing to accommodate the new audience. Scott Steinberg explores… Read More

Gamers looking to dive beneath the latest cheat codes and game reviews to find more in-depth reporting on their hobby have a new place to turn with the recent launch of Players Only with Scott Steinberg, a weekly video program hosted by Digital Trends. The very first episode of the series, available for free online, went live on Thursday. The show is hosted by Digital Trends’ own Scott Steinberg, author of Get Rich Playing Games and… Read More

Despite a market for digital music that is finally picking up steam, global music sales suffered a significant overall decline in 2007. According to John Kennedy, chief executive of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), sales took a 10 percent dive in 2007 as compared to 2006, a decline the industry still mainly blames on piracy. In a section of the IFPI’s Digital Music Report 2008, bluntly titled… Read More

In a move sure to raise legal hackles in Europe, Swedish police have executed raids in 10 locations with the intent of shutting down ThePirateBay.org, which claimed to be the largest search index site for the BitTorrent file sharing technology. The raids were carried out at data centers of Rix|Port80, a large Swedish Internet and colocation provider. Reportedly, servers belonging to The Pirate Bay as well as other hosted sites were taken… Read More

The American Consumer Satisfaction Index, a large-scale telephone survey conducted by the University of Michigan Business School, found for the second year in a row that Apple Computer's customer support received the best rating from respondents, while Dell Computer's once highly-regarded support offerings have declined and now merely match the industry average. According to the study, consumer's overall satisfaction with… Read More

The Semiconductor Industry Association announced today that sales of semiconductors worldwide were up by 6.5 percent in the first half of 2005 five compared to the first half of 2004, accounting for a total of $109 billion in total sales. Although sales declined slightly in June 2005 compared to May 2005, June sales were still nearly 1 percent higher than sales in June 2004, accounting for over $18 billion around the world. Although… Read More

“The comments by Kunio Nakamura are the latest sign that negotiations between officials from Toshiba, which backs a new DVD technology called HD-DVD, and Sony and Matsushita, supporters of a rival format known as Blu-ray, have hit a snag. The two sides began meeting earlier this year, aiming to avoid a prolonged battle over the format that could discourage consumers from shifting to advanced discs and stifle the industry's… Read More

“”NOAA's actions threaten the continued success of the commercial weather industry,” Santorum said in a Senate session last week. “It's not an easy prospect for a business to attract advertisers, subscribers, or investors when the government is providing similar products and services for free.” Initial reactions to the legislation have been mixed. Supporters say that the bill will let the National… Read More

“Sony and Toshiba, heading rival groups, have waged a three-year battle to have their new technology standards adopted by the industry and gain pole position in the multi-billion dollar markets forDVD players, PC drives and optical disks. While a final deal is still far from certain, both camps are well aware that a drawn-out fight would likely confuse consumers and hinder the industry's development, just like the famous spat… Read More