The Apple television has been rumored for years now. And every chance a media person gets, they ask Apple CEO Tim Cook what his plans are for that device. Will Apple launch a television? When will the television launch? What sort of features will the television boast? These are all questions he has been posed – and dodged in one form or another.
I know I might hear some complaints from Nintendo fans for this, but I have to ask: is the Super Mario and Legend of Zelda love about the quality of the games or the nostalgia?
As I’ve said here before, I’ve been playing games as long as I can remember. And as an owner of the Nintendo Entertainment System, SNES, Nintendo 64, GameCube, Wii, and Wii U, I’ve played just about every first-party game Nintendo has ever launched. For years, Nintendo games have been entertaining me.
As many of you who read my work here on SlashGear know, I’m an avid technology lover. My entire life has been dedicated to learning about technology, leveraging the tools that work best, and educating others on the value of it. From a young age, I was building my own PCs and taking apart products to see how they worked. It wasn’t long that I realized that having some sort of career in this fascinating world was a good idea.
Apple is a rather fascinating company when one examines not the products that it has developed but the way in which it’s viewed in the public. For years now, Apple has been considered the dominant, unbeatable force in the technology industry, and there have been few people – if any – that have actually believed that the company could do anything but succeed beyond all expectation.
Lately, though, some things have changed. Apple, once the most Teflon of companies in the technology world, is starting to create some doubt in the minds of supporters. While the company might still be generating billions of dollars and its sales are still strong, there’s some concern that the future might not be as bright as the past.
Microsoft’s Xbox 360 is a sales juggernaut in the U.S. In fact, according to the latest data from NPD, the Xbox 360 led all consoles in sales for 24 months in a row. The console even was able to beat out the Nintendo Wii U in December – a surprising feat considering that console just went on sale in November and the Xbox 360 has been available for seven years.
The Consumer Electronics Show is boring; it’s too big; and for the most part, few companies are able to get their products into the spotlight for long enough to actually impress many customers.
And yet, CES is a necessary evil. Like it or not, the show is what the industry needs to ensure that the average non-Apple company can actually get some attention in a world dominated by the iPhone maker.
At the end of February, Sony will be holding a special PlayStation event that, industry experts believe, will be used to show off its next console. Likely dubbed the PlayStation 4, the console is expected to come with an improved online experience, better graphics, and Blu-ray. And since the PlayStation 3 comes with the Move motion-gaming accessory, it’s believed that the console will also integrate a similar function in some way.
But I’m here to tell Sony something. I can appreciate that the company wants to jump on the motion bandwagon made popular by the Wii and arguably better by the Kinect, but bundling such a feature into the PlayStation 4 makes absolutely no sense.
With the recent unveiling of a Sony patent application indicating the company was thinking of killing off used games in the PlayStation 4, speculation has run rampant over how such a tool would affect the games industry. There seems to be a general sense that the implementation of such a product would potentially ruin GameStop, and would benefit game makers. Used games, some say, are bad news.
The reality is, used games aren’t really all that bad. In fact, there’s a good chance that the continued growth of used games is helping the industry in an immense way.
I’m fed up with the technology industry. As great as some products are from companies like Apple, Samsung, Sony, and Microsoft, there are countless devices and services in the wild that come from no-name firms that have been ignored.
There was a time in the technology industry that it didn’t matter how much a company had in its marketing budget. If a company’s products were really great, they would be discovered by the tech addicts out there, and then eventually shared with the rest of the world. It was our job as tech lovers to find the good stuff and tell the “average consumer” why they needed something special.
The Nintendo Wii U has kicked off a new generation of consoles. The device, which comes with HD graphics that can about match those we have from the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, will likely be joined by vastly more powerful PlayStation 4 and Xbox 720 consoles at some point in the next year or so.
Once those devices launch, it will be time to handicap the marketplace. Which console will succeed? Which console will fail? And perhaps most importantly, which console will win the next-generation battle?
I have a Wii U. And although I find its motion implementation quite fun at times, and the addition of a second screen a good idea, I haven’t played it at all in the last couple of weeks.
I decided to conduct an informal poll with other people I know who also own a Wii U. I asked them if they’ve been playing with the console much since its launch. Nearly every person said that they played it somewhat heavily in the first week after launch, but little after that.
With the launch of Nintendo’s TVii service for the Wii U, the idea of dual-screen entertainment in the living room is coming center stage. Wii U owners will need to decide if the concept of viewing not one, but two, screens to enjoy entertainment in the living room is really for them.
