Right now the gaming industry is ruled by 3 consoles. Those are the Xbox 360 from Microsoft, the Wii from Nintendo, and the PlayStation 3 from Sony. They are the benchmarks, the 3 players in a billion dollar industry, and they are the backbones of most games out there. All 3 are the latest generation of consoles that follow a long line before them, and each brought innovations that were unique to them. But what will the next generation look like?

Processing / Graphics power: For now there’s no question the Wii is the most underpowered device. When releasing it, Nintendo decided to go for innovation with the Wii Remote instead of better graphics. The PS3 and Xbox 360 however were top of the line at the time. But now, they aren’t much to look at. With a PowerPC CPU and 512MB of RAM, the 360 is much weaker than any modern gaming PC which typically features 8GB of RAM or more. For the next generation, it’s obvious they will all be much beefed up. For example, Intel right now is working hard on low-power chips. These CPUs provide a lot of performance using 8 cores or more, while producing very little heat, which will help with the notorious heating issues Microsoft had, but not sure Microsoft goes with Intel chips instead of PowerPC CPUs.  Sony adopting more easier programmable CPUs or sticking to powerful cell processor is still unknown. Instead of multiple competing architecture a consolidation on the processor architecture may help content creators and consumers, but it is unlikely to happen in the competitive console market where Sony and Microsoft trying to grab computing share in living room.

On top of that, graphics have improved as well. Right now, the latest DirectX provides amazing advances to PC gamers, and those will no doubt be replicated on a next generation console. Sony however may have a harder road ahead. Using OpenGL, it seems like support for the latest technologies, at least on the PC, is lagging behind slightly.

Controllers: Movement based controls, started with the Wii Remote, have been replicated on all consoles with Kinect and PS Move. There’s no doubt these will be integral in the next generation of consoles. Both Sony and Microsoft are spending a lot of research hours working on improving those technologies, and soon we’ll see software that can recognize a whole room, replicate it in real time in 3D, and recreate your environment, along with yourself, on the screen. That screen will support 3D as well, so it’s going to end up being very Meta. We may even see Microsoft and Sony doing what Nintendo did, and ditching the controller altogether.

Content creation: One of the major problems for game developers is making games for multiple consoles. The programming models are different, they use different hardware and APIs, and they have different capabilities. This is an area I don’t see changing at all. Even with all the talk of trying to standardize, the simple fact is that each company wants its own standard to win, since they already invested so much in them. There’s no question that unless a very powerful standard emerges, it will be just as difficult creating games for the next generation of consoles.

One caveat to that however is if these consoles provide full HTML5 support. Small games, which are typically made in XNA, Java, Flash or Silverlight now, may be done in HTML5, and work on all consoles as well as computers seamlessly.

Content consumption: The three companies are betting a lot on online services, with Xbox Live, PlayStation Network and the Wii channels. But Microsoft also focuses on a slightly different area. Since they launched Windows Phone 7, they’ve been working hard to integrate all their platforms together. Already we’re seeing games that link the Xbox, computer, and phone, and provide a seamless play among the devices, which may give them an edge over the others, although we’ve seen the others try similar things with their portable devices at least, and with Sony’s new Android based gaming platform. Whatever the next consoles are, chances are they will be highly connected, perhaps even serving as a home based Wi-Fi hot spot, to which all your gadgets talk to, and can stream anything from the web.

Content Distribution: Gone are the days of removable media. While the current consoles use DVDs, Blu-rays and HD-DVDs, there’s a high probability the next consoles will have no removable media at all, at least not integrated to the devices. All three companies are pushing their own versions of an App Store, and it’s likely to become the main way to get games from. Microsoft is even bringing their App Store to Windows 8, so you know they’re serious about it.

Look: As for what the physical consoles will look like, it’s hard to say. In all 3 cases, the shape of the devices changed a lot, so the tech giants are likely to drastically change their shapes and sizes once again. Everything seems to be going smaller, and so I wouldn’t be surprised if the next generation consoles look tiny compared with the large boxes we currently have. But in the end, another console war will benefit the players, who have been waiting impatiently for some time now, and could use a new console, just in time for when the economy picks back up.

Created by: Online Masters Degree

Masters Degree

Created by: MBA Online

There was a saying at Apple, that nothing could be released without Steve Jobs’s personal approval. Everything from product design, to font and size of icons, had to go through the CEO. Steve knows what he likes, and while he was CEO, he made sure the world did too, through Apple products. But now, since he resigned from his position and Tim Cook took his place, it’s hard to know what the impact will be. Can anyone have as much of an impact on a whole company as Steve Jobs did?

Today we got the first glimpse of that CEO at work with the iPhone 4S announcement. To say the least, people were disappointed. Apple stocks went down during the whole announcement, since people had expected an iPhone 5, or at least a device redesign. But we knew what the new iPhone would contain as far as technology. We also know next year will likely see another device being released, with the latest processor, more RAM, a better camera, and so on. Apple’s path is already set for the short term. But that path becomes more blurry in 5 years.

Of course, the CEO is not the only factor that will influence Apple. Competitors are changing, especially in the last couple of years. The iPhone became an instant success when it launched in 2007, but now Android phones have swarmed the market, with Microsoft hoping to do the same with Windows Phone 7. On the desktop, Windows 8 will adopt a lot of the features MacOS recently added, like a simplified interface, and an App Store. As for tablets, Android tablets are starting to become appealing with the Gingerbread release, and with Amazon’s latest entry, at just $199, less than half what an iPad costs.

Because of these things, and especially after today’s iPhone 4S keynote, many have predicted the fall of Apple. Others want to think that Tim Cook, the board, and the many bright engineers working at Apple, will lead to the company to reinvent itself once again, leading the technology world to a new golden age. To get a good picture of what Apple will really be like in 5 years, history can give us a good guide. The simple fact is that no company remains on top for very long. Apple has been incredibly innovative when it came to the niche markets it thrived in, but now things are slowing down.

The Macintosh has always had a small market share. There are devout Mac users, and that won’t change inside of 5 years. On the opposite side, Microsoft won’t let a large amount of users abandon the PC either. The war of the desktop, between PC and Mac, isn’t where the battle is waged anymore. There are far more exciting battlefields like mobile, and their market share with the Mac is likely to remain largely unchanged.

On the iPod side, in 5 years their sales will shrink, as people keep moving from MP3 players to smartphones. Even now, most of the iPods sold are the iPod Touch, and those go mainly to people who want an iPhone but don’t want the actual phone part. It makes no sense to keep two very distinct lines going. Today, the company barely changed anything on the iPod line, but I think soon we’ll just have two iPhone models, except one won’t have the phone part, but will do everything else.

iPhones and iPads are where Apple is putting most of its energies. And right now, the fight is fierce. It seems almost weekly that new Android phones and tablets come out. Apple will keep its core user base for sure, but the exponential growth is gone and won’t come back. Android phones keep innovating, with LTE high-speed networks, NFC, large high resolution screens, none of which the iPhone 4S has.

So what will the overall picture look like in 5 years? Apple will be very similar to what it is today, except more mature. It will keep its successful strategies going, like yearly announcements, creative ads to promote its products, and a great attention to details and ease of use. All of the current markets that Apple has a large stake in will have shrunk, not so much because of Apple itself, but because of everything else.

But, there will be one more thing. At some point, between now and then, Tim Cook will get on the stage and announce something new, something magical and wonderful, something nobody ever thought could revolutionize the technology industry. And that’s what everyone will talk about. That’s where the innovation will go, and what every other company will try to emulate. Because that’s what Apple is.

1. Tablets: Tablets are the hot gadgets right now. Just a year ago, you would go to a Best Buy and see long lines of desktops and laptops. Now, they’ve been pushed back, and what’s front and center? Tablets. Or, more precisely, the iPad and Android tablets. Microsoft used to have a play in the tablet world, but now, because of their inaction in that field, new PC users are instead looking at an Apple or Google-based tablet.

 

2. Smartphones: It’s a very similar story with phones. When the iPhone came out, it redefined what a phone used to be. Android soon followed, gaining massive market share. Just two years ago, Microsoft decided to jump in with Windows Phone 7. So far, it’s been failing miserably. So once more, as smartphones get smarter, people may need less and less full featured PCs, and one thing is certain, these phones aren’t running Windows.

 

3. Lack of innovation: Laptops used to be a high end device, something you would get only if you were highly mobile. But a few years ago, netbooks started to appear. These were cheap, small versions of the bigger laptops. But the problem is that because people expect them to be cheap, the money these devices make is also tiny. And, because they are less powerful, they often run Windows XP, a system that’s over 10 years old now.

 

4. Lack of creativity: Macs have been around for as long as PCs have. Yet, even though they haven’t caught up in the market share area, every year they become more and more popular. Apple puts a ton of money on industrial design and clever marketing. In comparison PCs are with same boring look for decades.

 

5. Consoles are future living room PCs: PCs used to be the realm of the hardcore gamer. Those who kill virtual characters in their pass times, or control large armies in an online play ground. Whether it’s a first-person shooter or a strategy game, the PC, running Microsoft Windows, has always been a fertile ground. But lately, PC games have taken a back seat to consoles. Even though Microsoft is both behind Windows and the XBOX, two competing products, all of their energies in that domain are squarely behind their console.

 

6. Cost of software: The economy is fairly weak right now. The world is having a recession. So it’s normal that people buy less, especially expensive items like computers. Yet, PC prices have stayed pretty steady lately. Worse, Microsoft, even though they have billions in the bank, aren’t making any effort to ease that price either. When you look at the latest Apple MacOS which costs $35, it’s hard to justify a purchase of a Windows version at over $150.

 

7. Security, easy target for virus and malware: As hackers get smarter, people get more scared. There’s been malware, hacks and viruses since the very first Windows version. Yet even today, over a decade later, our systems are vulnerable to thousands of unwanted programs. With all the engineering effort that goes into making PCs more secure, we haven’t even come close to solving the problem. Which security concerned person would want a Windows PC under these conditions?

 

8. Computing moves to cloud: With everything going to the cloud, businesses are considering solutions which no longer require as much software to be installed locally. With Google Apps, Amazon EC2, and countless other cloud services, they can get rid of Office, Sharepoint, and many other typical applications. Yet where are Microsoft’s cloud offerings? They’re barely starting.

 

9. Not so human friendly interfaces: PCs used to be fairly simple. With early Windows versions, there was little to confuse people who do not wish to learn all that complexity under the hood. Yet even though Microsoft tries hard to simplify Windows, they never let go of legacy support, which in turn means any new, simpler method, is added to a mountain of complexity. For an average first time users (kids, elderly etc) newer touch interfaces become easier to use vs complex mouse clicks and keyboards.

 

10. Lawsuits, legal issues: A few years ago, Microsoft was put under the scope of the US Government for anti-trust reasons. They used their monopoly of Windows to shove Internet Explorer to all users, killing their competition. Today, they’re still having issues with the European Commission. Any small business thinking of making products which Microsoft bundles with Windows can forget about it.

As you can see, the reasons are endless, and for each of them, Microsoft played a role in their own downfall. Apple has been innovating with touch interfaces, in the mobile space, and with ease of use, while Microsoft is slow and it’s hard for them to adapt. From kids to the elderly, PCs are becoming less of a necessity, and more of a relic.

What it lacks is the differentiating wow factor for first time users and a different user experience to unnerve iPad. With Apple enjoying the first mover advantage, great amount of imagination and innovation is what Amazon would need to unseat iPad from its position.

What is good about Kindle Fire:

• It is damn cheap, half the price of iPad.
• All the content is stored in Cloud, no need to worry about storage space.
• Access to Amazon’s massive of content library.
• Dual core processor
• Faster web-browsing, with amazon Silk browser and cloud services
• Small enough, and very light weight (413 grams).

What it failed to provide:

• Smaller screen size, compare to iPad. iPad got good enough screen size and provide nice replacement for laptop/computer screens.
• No unique, significant user experience change, same touch screens, content and app stores, games.
• No camera.
• No 3G, need to rely on Wifi.

It is an another kid in the tablet bloc, but with cheaper pricing and massive content library, may slightly dent other tablet vendor’ss market share, but not apple’s.