The Design Innovate Create Entertain (D.I.C.E.) Summit in Las Vegas this week will be the first major game industry event of 2010 after a challenging 2009. “The good news” so far this year is that “some of the new IP that was launched … has performed well,” said Joseph Olin, president of the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences. AIAS produces the annual event.
Rovi hopes to have the first CE manufacturers signed on for its TotalGuide electronic program guide by late March and deliver the source code for it in Q2, company officials said in a conference call.
With the gap between the launch of new technologies and their arrival in mass retail stores having sharply narrowed, CE manufacturers need to “redefine” differences between distribution channels, the PRO Group board said in a letter to vendors.
Clear-Vu’s new “Amigo” optical disc packaging offers green benefits and can be used with benefit-denial technology to combat retail theft, Daniel Lax, vice president of business development, told the Supply Chain Academy’s GameSupply for Interactive Entertainment conference Wednesday in San Jose, Calif. The packaging became available last month and “a couple” of companies have expressed interest in trying it, Lax told us, declining to name them. Volume orders would take 10-12 weeks to fill, he said.
CEA President Gary Shapiro on Thursday generally hailed Google’s plans to build and test ultra-high-speed broadband networks. Google announced the plans on its policy blog Wednesday.
Spending by cable giant Comcast on DOCSIS 3.0 equipment such as cable-modem termination systems probably will drop this year as the company completes its initial rollout of the technology, but other North American cable operators will raise their spending, Arris executives said on a teleconference Wednesday. “We are still in the early stages of a worldwide deployment of this generation of technology and I don’t expect these trends to let up,” CEO Bob Stanzione said. “Neither do I expect cable operators to stop improving their networks as they aggressively compete with telcos and satellite service providers."
Natural Resources Canada released revised Energy Star TV specifications for imported products sold in the country. The specifications mirror the U.S. EPA’s revised specs for TVs in Energy Star versions 4.0 and 5.0 completed in September. Meanwhile, the EPA put out for stakeholder comment a test procedure developed by Rovi Corp. to measure the power consumption of TVs in download acquisition mode (DAM). NRCan said its version 4.0 of the spec will take effect May 1 and version 5.0 in May 2012.
Activision Blizzard is the latest major game publisher to talk up digital opportunities. On a Wednesday earnings call CEO Robert Kotick cautioned that although subscription games, digital downloads and value-added services offer “immediate and tangible business models, along with rapid growth in consumer adoption,” social and mobile games “remain characterized by unproven business models” and “a lot of clutter."
It’s questionable whether existing passive-polarization 3D TVs will be able to cope with Blu-ray 3D. Comments from industry experts indicate they won’t, at least without modification.
Mad Catz Interactive was able to report improved results for Q3 ended Dec. 31 despite “a very challenging period for the videogame industry,” CEO Darren Richardson said on an earnings call. Revenue increased 19 percent from the year-ago quarter to $48.8 million due mainly to strong demand for the company’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 accessories, “continued growth of our European distribution network” and “new placements” of Mad Catz remotes for the Wii console, he said. The company had a $5.6 million profit, or 9 cents per share, vs. the $26.9 million loss, or 49 cents, in the year-ago period.