Has Apple Changed the Rules?

MARCH 12, 2013 • Sometimes life just isn’t fair. You can work and study hard, make the best grades and be praised for all your efforts.  But then some glib, fast-talking upstart with no experience or credentials sweeps in to take your place. That is how it must seem to many of the competitors in the consumer technology space that have seen once struggling PC manufacturer Apple Inc. become a powerhouse in every category in which they compete. .....

Battling for Entertainment Dollars: 7 Major Companies in the Video Game Market

MARCH 5, 2013 • As we discussed recently in Can Sony & Nintendo Recover? one of the great ironies of 2012 was that Sony and Nintendo were not able to take advantage of strong consumer excitement over digital devices.  Hardware is clearly not a commodity and this should be good news for game hardware manufacturers that specialize in providing unique, proprietary systems.  Unfortunately, w.....

LG Acquires WebOS

FEB. 25, 2013 • Major South Korean consumer electronics manufacturer LG Electronics Inc. is buying the WebOS operating system source code from the Hewlett-Packard Co. The latter acquired the mobile phone system when it purchased Palm, Inc. in 2010 for $1.2 billion. Financial terms of the LG deal were n.....

Can Sony And Nintendo Recover?

FEB. 21, 2013 • The year 2012 clearly showed that even in the age of easy digital distribution consumers love their physical products.  Among other things, this has included expensive hardware designed mainly to play digital content.  Having the coolest hardware device to access the Internet has suddenly become an important status symbol in society.  Unfortunately for the game industry, traditional game hardware manufacturers were not able to ride that trend.....

3DS XL Bundles Mario Kart

NOV. 28, 2012 • Less than a month before Dec. 25th Nintendo of America announced its holiday plans for 3DS XL. The system, which sports 90% more screen area than the 3DS, was originally released on Aug. 19.  With no change to the standalone $199 price the special edition 3DS XL bundle includes a copy of Mario Kart 7 pre-installed. The game was released at retail on Dec. 4 of last year yet became available through Nintendo’s eShop more recently on Oct. 18......

OpenFeint Servers to Close

NOV. 19, 2012 • On Nov. 16, smartphone developers started receiving notices from GREE that the latter was terminating servers of the cross-platform mobile social network OpenFeint on Dec. 14. GREE acquired OpenFeint in 2011 for $104 million. Previous to this announcement GREE had told.....

Aeria Interview: Embracing Mobile Games

NOV. 8, 2012 • Aeria Interview: There is a flood of free-to-play publishers making bold moves to carve out territory on mobile platforms. While it cannot be contested that many consumers are now completely enamored with their smartphones and tablets, there are mounting questions about how many games these consumers will actually pay for on their mobile devices, and whether there is too much content vying for far too little prospective purchasers. .....

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