Nintendo found enough fans for its 3DS console in Japan that its limited 400,000 first day supply ran out immediately. This is more of a marathon than a sprint however and that many could have easily gone on pre-orders alone, and we see Android becoming the natural platform for handheld games, and Sony has taken the boldest steps there recently, by porting its PlayStation software to Android. The 3DS hits Europe on March 25 and will no doubt also sell out then.
French satellite specialist Globecast said that Spain’s Starmax HD satellite direct to home platform will use its content aggregation, encryption, and delivery of the full bouquet of channels right across the country. Starmax HD is being touted as an affordable pay as you go service. The set-tops were made by Ferguson and DRM comes from Conax.
Broadband TV News says that Romanian multimedia company RCS&RDS, strong in both DTH and cable markets in Central and Eastern Europe, using the Digi brand, will use a new set top from Hyundai and Humax, which will be delivered in April, a hybrid box receiving both paid DTH and free to air terrestrial channels. The confirmation came from the Serbian subsidiary who said it will support the
DVB-S2 protocol with MPEG 4 compression.
UK research company Juniper Research says that mobile entertainment service revenues will reach $54 billion by 2015, propelled by, guess what, the surge in smart phone uptake and the rise of App Stores. Juniper reckons it was $33 billion last year already.
Qualcomm has thrown its hat into the portable gaming market in a deal cut with publisher Gameloft. The aim is to develop an enhanced mobile gaming experience by optimizing the Gameloft games for Snapdragon and its Adreno GPUs, including its new quad core Snapdragon chips planned for 2012, running almost exclusively with Android.
French cable operator Numericable says it has filed a legal suit against France Telecom in the Paris Commercial Court asking for €3.1 billion in damages, after France Telecom got Arcep, the regulator to agree that it could cancel a ten year old deal to give Numericable access to its cable ducts. It said that other operators should have the same terms, which have been worked out afresh by the regulator. This looks like it will be a legal challenge to Arcep’s power, and is likely, in our view, to fail.
Rovi has launched a music and video web library at www.AllRovi.com, using proprietary Rovi technology, including advanced search and recommendation features, which is in open beta. It will eventually offer access to three million TV programs, two million album releases, 27 million music tracks and 500,000 movies. Sounds a lot to us. Rovi also announced it has acquired SideReel.com, a TV website with content on 24,000 shows and 530,000 episodes.
The New York Post says that Google’s YouTube plans to launch a subscription movie streaming service in the UK, aimed at heading off both Netflix and Amazon in their plans to conquer Europe with streaming video. A flat fee will get you unlimited streaming a bit like the Netflix deal. The UK will be the proving ground to prepare a challenge across the rest of Europe. Apparently Google has set aside
$100 million to pay for content deals on it this year. The purchase of Widevine, a DRM specialist, may convince Hollywood that this experiment is worth supporting, but so far Hollywood has not been kind to Google, because it thinks YouTube lives off its back.
At the CeBIT show this week Deutsche Telekom has launched PagePlace, its own online ebook library said to be a place to buy newspapers, magazines and books for PCs, tablets and smart phones, which will be an open service, independent of publishers. PagePlace plans to be complementary to traditional media it says, so presumably a business model that favors existing paper readers will emerge. Operators were always going to muscle in on the eBook craze sooner or later. So far Windows, the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad are all targeted and it will be updated to include an option for In-App-Purchases within 90 days.
Deutsche Telekom also said that it will be bringing the Motorola Xoom tablet to Germany, with a 90 day exclusive on the 3G version , by the end of April. It will be connected to the 3G cellular network with HSPA running up to speeds of 14.4 Mbps. Price will be €700.
The DVB Project said at this week’s meeting of its Steering Board, that the latest version of Globally Executable MHP (GEM) is now approved (version number 1.3) and it now supports OTT TV and Hybrid Broadcast and Broadband. It defines an OTT device category which addresses media distribution over broadband networks without guaranteed bandwidth, such as the Internet and offers new APIs to address various OTT scenarios for content streaming and download and can be used for adaptive streaming deployments.
US IPTV middleware supplier Minerva Networks, has a deal with the City of Salisbury, in North Carolina, to deliver broadcast TV, VoD and over the top Internet TV to 10,000 target subscribers working with the city owned Fibrant fiber-to-the-home service provider.
US researcher In-Stat says the residential gateway market will pass 50 million units a year in 2015 driven by a rise in shipments to Asia/Pacific up from 31% in 2010 to 36% of all shipments. Residential gateway shipments will overtake broadband modem shipments in 2014 as more and more devices incorporate Wi-Fi and routing capabilities.
With Warner Music Group effectively up for sale, and EMI in the hands of its bankers, about half the world’s record label music is sitting with its future tied up, leaving someone with a big money chest an opportunity to change the shape of the music industry. Warner has been reported in Business Week as having had 10 offers either for its music publishing or its label assets, but the only public names are the Sony and BMG rights management groups bidding for the Warner music publishing unit. That’s the obvious thing that’s gives quantifiable income to a suitor, whereas the labels are more speculative. What’s wrong with selling off both publishing arms and merging the two businesses, which has been obvious for about ten years, but has somehow never quite happened. The other option is to break up both labels geographically, but neither Universal Music nor Sony are likely to be allowed to buy either in their entirety for market dominance reasons.
The New York Post says that second tier studio Lionsgate is planning to sell off some strategic digital assets ‘ either its video ad network Break Media, or its share in pay TV venture EPIX or TVGuide.com or FearNet, aiming to raise as much as $800 million, the bulk of which will come from selling Break Media. The company said last month that it would divest non-core assets, so it makes sense.
US researcher IHS iSuppli says that number of new subscribers to Telco based VDSL broadband will quadruple by 2014 with more vendors offering VDSL chipsets and modem technology. iSuppli says that new VDSL subs will reach 60 million in 2014 compared to 15.6 million in 2009 and 23.3 million in 2010. It describes the change as a ‘seismic shift,’ and says Ikanos with a 55% share will be eroded by Broadcom and Lantiq, while Ralink Technology will also come to the market, through its acquisition of chip maker TrendChip Technologies.