If You Build It, They Will Video Phone

Monday December 19, 2011 – Stewart Wolpin

In the future, all TVs…

RING! RING!

Oh, could you hold on a second? My TV is ringing.

As I was saying (sorry, it was someone taking an opinion poll), in the future, all TVs will be equipped with Web cams and microphones and will become our major home telecommunications device. I'm no Nostradamus, Criswell or even Punxsutawney Phil, nor do I have to be. It's going to happen.

What, you, say? It's already happening? No, not really. Yes, LG, Panasonic, Samsung, Sony, Toshiba and Vizio all sell HDTVs to which you can attach a separate Webcam/microphone/processor array to turn the TV into a phone.

But asking consumers to buy a $2,000-plus TV PLUS another $150-$300 to buy an attachment box is an incredibly dumb way to move us to the video phone future.

What gnaws at me like the waste of unrealized potential is that these same TV makers have the answer right in front of them – build the damn Web cam and its processing guts into the bezel.

Will this make the TV more expensive? Yup. So you do what gadget makers have done for decades: you build this slightly expensive new feature into the top-of-the-line models. Then, as time goes on and people start buying them, economies of scale let you start building it into increasingly less expensive HDTVs.

This isn't rocket science nor is it news. HDTV execs I've spoken to know building a webcam into the TV is the right thing to do. They've seen what happened in the PC business – a few desktop PCs had built-in Web cams, then a few more, then a few laptops had 'em… Now ALL desktops and laptops have built in Web cams and mics, and when they built it, we came, and lots of other capabilities became possible.

HDTV makers are setting themselves up for a crash. As we're all sitting here, a certain fruit-named company is readying an HDTV that sure as shucks will have a built-in video telephony capabilities that can communicate with millions of the single most popular smartphone on the planet and the single most popular tablet on the planet. Maybe this fruity company's HDTV with a built-in Web cam (and who knows what else) will carry a premium price and therefore won't pose real competition in the HDTV space – but this kind of willful blindness has been the ruin of many of the cocky who have gone before.

I hope I see some HDTV makers with webcam-equipped sets at CES, I really do. It'll be good for them to gird them against the PC-like smart HDTV coming (and so their boob tube wares don't look so archaic when it does), and good for those of us who'd like to answer the phone with our TV remote control. I hope I will, but I doubt I will.

Viva Vita?

Viva Vita?

Monday November 12, 2011 – Stewart Wolpin

As the residents of Rock Ridge prepared to evacuate their small town ahead of the invasion by an outlaw horde organized by Hedy ("that's HED-ley") Lamarr, Sheriff Bart confronted leading citizen Howard Johnson.

"Can't you see," Sheriff Bart pleaded, "that this is the last act of a desperate man!"

Replied Mr. Johnson, "I don't care if it's the first act of Henry the Fifth! We're leaving!"

I thought of this scene from Blazing Saddles when getting a hands-on demo of the upcoming Sony Vita, the company's successor to the seven-year-old (a century in tech years) PlayStation Portable (PSP) and what could be Sony's – or anybody's – last desperate act to sell a dedicated handheld gaming device.

If Vita proves vital, it'll be because hardcore gamers still bring enough of the juice to slow a powerful trend – the explosive growth and sudden dominance of smartphone-based gaming.

The numerical advantage smartphones have in the gaming arena -- Android and iOS game downloads are measured in the billions, while dedicated disc-based game sales are measured in the millions -- is daunting. Are the casual smartphone gamers eating into the dedicated portable video game market? It seems reasonable to conclude that some folks who may have dabbled with a PSP in the past will forego the dedicated portable device, especially if they are only casual gamers. But, will the smartphone category eat into the hardcore gamer market?

So the question for Sony is, when Vita goes on sale February 22, will consumers buy a dedicated game player for $250 (Wi-Fi) only or $300 (Wi-Fi+3G) when they can buy a packed smartphone for the same price or less?

Dedicated vs. All-Purpose

This same dedicated device vs. smartphone scenario is being played out in both the portable navigation device (PND) and digital camera markets. In all three cases, dedicated device manufacturers are burning the midnight LEDs to come up with specialized functions and features not found on smartphones just to keep themselves in the consumer choice conversation.

As such, Vita promises a far richer and powerful gaming experience than smartphones and far richer than any previous portable game player.

Aside from duplicating a smartphone's magnetometer, gyroscope and accelerometer, similar wireless network connectivity capabilities for downloading content and communicating with fellow players, Vita adds quad core processing for more sophisticated game play, a rear touch control surface for extra features, dual joysticks – a portable first, handheld-to-PS3 (and back) Cross Play and Cross Save game transfer, the capability to add your avatar to a game character, geocaching of digital objects, and Near – the ability to detect fellow players within several kilometers to engage in multi-player game orgies, all on a five-inch screen.

These all add up to a unique portable gaming experience unequaled on a smartphone.

But the question is:

Who cares?

Vita is saddled with a couple of groaners. Vita's got no built-in memory. It requires a new proprietary micro SD-like memory card called, cleverly, "removable memory." Proprietary for security reasons, says Sony; proprietary my butt will say consumers. And Vita doesn't come with even a 4 GB card pre-installed to get you started. Hope someone tells each customer before they get home with a game machine they can't download games to.

To Cross Play and Cross Save, consumers will be forced to buy two versions of the same game, one for PS3, one for Vita. There is an internal Sony discussion to provide both PS3 and Vita versions in a discounted bundle, but – with apologies to Seth Meyers – really? Forced to buy two full-priced copies to play the same game? Really? Ever hear of Blu-ray's "digital copy"? Really?

Vita will play all previous PSP games, but there are only 15 Vita-specific games right now, with the promised "more to be announced at CES." Tens of great Vita games to choose from priced likely at tens of dollars from vs. a quarter million decent time-killing games on Android and iOS to choose from priced at tens of cents – or nothing?

These may be niggling hiccups to high-end gamers drooling at Vita's prospects for compelling portable play. But millions of smartphone owners are apt to shrug their shoulders and be satisfied to simply sling fuming fowl at egg-stealing swine – or just slide simple solitaire – on their smartphone.

As such, Sony will likely settle for a dedicated D-SLR-like specialty high-end gamer demographic to support Vita – since that's likely the only demographic Vita is likely to attract. Given the speed at which smartphone screen size is increasing and processing power is progressing, Vita may be anyone's last dedicated portable gaming act.