China has had a ban on video game consoles for 15 years. The government claimed that it could cause "potential harm to the physical and mental development of the young" and have enforced this ban since 2000. This week, the console drought ended as China lifted the ban of video game console sales in the country.
China will effectively relax its guidelines and will allow video game makers to now manufacture and sell their gaming devices anywhere in the country. Before this lift, you were still able to buy video game consoles in China, but only in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan; the ban only applied to mainland China. In 2014, the Chinese government made a slight amendment to the ban, and allowed a "free trade zone" to exist in Shanghai so that the big three could form relationships with Chinese manufacturing plants. That move led to Microsoft and Sony working with Chinese partners to make their consoles available for sale in the country.
The decision this week to lift all restrictions certainly opens up a lot more opportunity for not only Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo, but for other console manufacturers to make an impact in a space that's now open for anyone to jump in. Any company, domestic or foreign, will be able to both sell and build their devices in the country of over 1 billion people.
One thing that will not change, though, is the approval process for video games. Drug use, violence, obscenity and "anything that can harm public ethics or China's culture" are still banned in the country. That means games like Halo and GTAV are still not allowed to be sold. Publishers do have the option to sell a censored or altered game, but almost all have chosen to simply not sell the title.
Ever since Microsoft's acquisition of Mojang, the creators of MineCraft, the once indie game studio has seen more success than it ever had before. Earlier this month the company revealed details behind Minecraft: Story Mode. But that's not the only news involving Minecraft things this month as it would seem. The highly-anticipated Minecraft movie is also in the works, and the team producing it has found their director this week.
There isn't much to the news, but we now know that Mojang has brought on It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia's creator and lead actor, Rob McElhenney, to take on the role of director for the upcoming movie. He will now be tasked with taking the ridiculously popular game and crafting it into a film. This is indeed no small task.
Mojang made the announcement by releasing a photo of the Always Sunny star brandishing a sword while in attendance at MineCon earlier this month. Now, while I haven't seen the series, critics have been high on McElhenney and his ability. For me, I'm just happy that the movie is finally getting going and am looking forward to seeing how this game adapts to the big screen and what direction it'll take.
Last November, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki spoke candidly on the potential of paid subscriptions coming to the platform. Then just a few months ago, we saw that idea come to pass in a cryptic letter from YouTube. Now, YouTube's cofounder Chad Hurley has come out in full support of an ad-free, subscription-based model.
In an interview with Bloomberg, Hurley said that YouTube will continue to amass a powerful set of tools, resources and creators for the platform, even if that might involve charging its customers. He added that there are "different forms" of video-on-demand, hinting that some content could be charged for while others could remain free. He did say that he thought it was an option when asked if viewers could necessarily be charged for specific content.
This should come as no surprise, as YouTube has been locking up content creators with lucrative and exclusive contracts over the past year in order to keep them on the platform. However with a rumored price of $10 per month for the ad-free service, it would be more fitting if the company simply charged the monthly fee for the ability to not see ads before, during and after the videos.
Google's recent quarterly statement showed just how much the company relies on YouTube for revenue. YouTube's advertiser spending saw a jump of over 60 percent from last year, and with that much money riding on the success of the video service, it's time for YouTube to reinvent itself and generate more revenue or it may end up being usurped by an up-and-comer.
Either way, the success of a potential ad-free option relies solely on how many users would pay for that service. With Google's own browser having such an easy way to block ads, creators are already struggling to get their ads seen with their videos. What would entice a viewer to toss out the ad-block and pay $10 per month instead? I know that the web is free because of advertisers, but not everyone does, nor do they care. How do we make them care? Is it by charging for premium content?
After a series of layoffs and quarterly losses, BlackBerry hopes its darkest days are behind it. Key executives have left the company and Jabil Circuit stopped making BlackBerry devices. So what happens now? BlackBerry has started to get the wheels moving behind its turnaround plan in an effort to bring the company back from its dismal past two years.
So what's the plan? Security. BlackBerry laid out the roadmap of the next few years and the majority of it has to do with security software and other products that protect dozens of different devices. Blackberry's CEO John Chen said that the company can protect medical records, movie scripts and other sensitive data through its offerings.
I'm pretty satisfied with the progress on the turnaround so far. I laid out the $500 million software revenue target and I'm still comfortable with that commitment for this fiscal year, it looks good.
The fact that Chen has put out a goal of $500 million in software revenue is a bold move coming from a company who has been stuck in releasing unpopular handset devices over the past five years. This surely ties in with the turnaround plan, however that's now going to take longer than initially anticipated. At first, Chen said BlackBerry would be levelled out in 6 months, however last week he said that may look more like 12 to 18 months.
Still, Chen is confident in the ability of BlackBerry to make a full recovery, despite analysts' concerns.
We're patiently building the product pipeline and the sales channel. There is still a lot of work to do, I'd love for everything to move faster, but I caution people to be a bit patient because we can't rebound in a very short period of time, no company can. We are doing all the right things for the long term and the company is definitely out of financial trouble.
While the BlackBerry CEO has solved the rapid decline of the company's profits and revenue, the stock price is still gloating around where it was over a year ago, only solidifying investors' worry over the brand. The bright side is that the last year also showed BlackBerry acquiring a handful of software companies, which brought us full circle to the security software offerings we saw this week. Is it enough to save the company? Again, BlackBerry's biggest trouble will be adoption rate and competing against tough adversaries. The switch to software might work, but the challenges remain the same.
See ya, Comcast - there's a new paid television king in town and its name is AT&T. This week, AT&T and DirecTV's $48.5 billion merger was approved by the Federal Communications Commission and Department of Justice. This massive combination will result in the largest television service in the country, as well as an absolute powerhouse in content distribution in general.
As part of the purchase, AT&T will gain access to DirecTV's content contracts, most notably DirecTV's expensive exclusive NFL Sunday Ticket, the driving force behind the service's sales numbers. AT&T will also gain access to the company's satellite network and a major expansion of the AT&T television brand, which is currently only available in a few states. AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson said of the merger,
We're now a fundamentally different company with a diversified set of capabilities and businesses that set us apart from the competition.
This comes at a time when the wireless industry has become more interested in content, and content companies have become more interested in wireless. Verizon recently purchased AOL, giving them ownership of brands like Engadget and Huffington Post, while DISH Network has been in talks to purchase T-Mobile USA, which would result in the same concept.
As part of this deal's approval, AT&T agreed to Net Neutrality rules stricter than current regulations layout. As far as the FCC is concerned, this is a big win for their expanding power-grab, as AT&T has been one of the loudest opponents to even the existing regulations. This does not mean they won't continue to fight against the legality of the FCC issuing these regulations, or requiring this agreement for the merger, but for now it does give the FCC a little more ground to stand on.
In addition, AT&T agreed to expand its fiber service, something Verizon has ended not once but twice. The company had proposed the fiber agreement themselves, with the 12.5 million customer count being just slightly larger than their existing build-out plans currently called for. They will also work with low income families to provide more affordable services.
Next week will see the end of a lot of content on Google's mostly abandoned social network Google+. Since mostly only Google employees seem to use the site, Friday will see the last day for of Google+ Photos, being replaced by Google Photos, a disconnected service more similar to Picasa than Google+. This is good news for people who actually want to use Google to store photos without having to deal with all of the annoyances of Google+.
This isn't the only content that will evaporate within the week, however. Google announced to many regular content creators that they intend to remove a large collection of Google+ Local business pages. In a desperate attempt to make people care about Google+, the company began creating Google+ Local business pages for every company in their database. Most of these pages were never used, as most of the pages were never actually claimed by the business owners.
Dear photographers and agencies,
In the past few months, you may have seen some changes in the look of Google+ pages that have been associated with Google My Business (GMB) accounts. These changes, including how we treat business pages without owners, are part of Google's ongoing effort to simplify people's experience with our tools. We are constantly working to provide only valuable and rich content to our users.
On July 28th, Google will begin shutting down those GMB-associated Google+ pages that have not been associated with user accounts and are also not verified. You may find that some of your Business View tours also sit on such pages, but note that after their removal of unverified Google+ pages, the Business View tours will still remain available on Google Maps and Google Search.
What this means is that, if you are one of the few people who use Google+ to find local companies, the only ones you will discover are those who are active on the network. Instead, to discover local business, Google recommends its official local search capabilities, mostly Google Maps. This is the final step in Google's separation of Local and Google+, which has been in progress as long as Photos. It also likely signs the death certificate for the social network.
As of now, the only features that remain in Google+ are the feed, which would be useful if people posted things there, and the groups capability, which is better implemented through Google Groups than it ever was in Google+ anyway.
