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THQ's Bilson: Research and focus testing will 'usually destroy' creativity
During an interview at the 2010 Game Developers Conference, THQ executive VP of Core Games Danny Bilson told Joystiq that market research creates "bland" titles, citing it is not a process his group is willing to utilize for future development. "We don't do research to find out what people want to play. If you need to do that kind of research you must not be playing games yourself," Bilson said, noting that research and overusing focus tests can "misguide creative forces." According to Bilson, his core group at THQ is ruled by creating "excellent" titles. Put simply, Bilson says he will not ship a game if it's not "really good" -- noting that doing otherwise will make it impossible for him to "sleep at night." As an example of this process, Bilson noted his decision to push Darksiders from a 2009 release into the early-2010 calendar in order to ensure the game was of high quality. (Darksiders currently holds an average Metacritic rating of 83.) "Inspiration comes from one place and research and focus testing will usually destroy it. It will usually create 'bland' and create something for everyone and really nothing for anyone," he said, praising the idea that publishers should not ship a game until it's ready. "If my teams make really good games, in the long run, that's what people relate to. They're not buying advertising, they're not buying Wall Street nonsense. They're buying what's on that disc."
Apple's App Store said to have 99.4 percent of all mobile app sales, more like 97.5
The latest research from Gartner indicates that, for the year 2009, only 16 million app sales were executed on mobile devices not bearing the infamous bitten apple logo. In reporting this data, Ars Technica inadvertently conflates Apple's latest announcement of three billion apps downloaded with the notion of three billion apps sold and pegs the App Store's market share at a whopping 99.4 percent -- but more realistic calculations still show it to be somewhere in the vicinity of 97.5 percent. Going off estimates (obtained by GigaOM) that a quarter of App Store downloads are paid-for apps, and taking a rough figure of 2.5 billion downloads in 2009, leaves us with around 625 million app sales performed by Apple, which comfortably dwarfs all its competition. Considering the fact 18 months ago there wasn't even an App Store to speak of -- whereas today Cupertino is gobbling up the best part of $4.2 billion in annual mobile apps revenue -- maybe you can now understand why we're covering every tiny drip of info about that mythical tablet.
Rumor: Gaming conventions to convene in Xbox Live
According to a recent survey conducted by market research company VGMarket, Microsoft may be working on an "interactive, online version" of your favorite gaming conventions -- from E3 to ComicCon and everything in between. As noted by a Destructoid reader who took the survey, the online questionnaire presented the aforementioned hypothetical situation, and then went into detail about how such a situation might play out. "Sign onto Xbox Live and you can enter a virtual version of that convention ... this virtual version contains 20–60 virtual booths sponsored by larger publishers and developers presenting at the real world show," imagined the survey. The possibilities then reached outrageous levels as the idea of downloading "demos and/or betas" directly from the virtual convention floor and playing them that very moment was suggested. However, as VGMarket doesn't list Microsoft among its clients on the company's official website, and a representative could not be reached for comment, the veracity of this survey and its information is still very much in question.
New study says Palm Pre second only to iPhone 3GS in mindshare
Market research firm Interpret recently made some discoveries about public perception of smartphones that should shock, surprise, and amaze you. The just released report, dubbed "Signature Smartphones: Gaining Mindshare in Order to Gain Market Share," reveals that despite being massively disadvantaged in the marketplace, Palm managed to nab a huge chunk of mindshare with the Pre -- in fact, the report suggests that the Pre is number two only to the iPhone 3GS in the metric. The study looks at the driving factors behind purchaser's decisions to buy a smartphone, narrowing down the list to three major components: belief that the phone is "smart," belief that the phone is "hip / cool," and belief that the phone will make them more productive. Rating a swath of phones (BlackBerry Curve and Storm, G1, iPhone), the report found that only the iPhone and Pre balanced the three factors in a way in which consumers felt the higher price tags were warranted. More to the point, only the Pre and the iPhone 3GS managed to strike that balance at all; offerings such as the two BlackBerrys were lopsided. There's not much more meat to the study, though it does shed some interesting light on just how Palm managed to squeeze its way back into the limelight (of course, it doesn't hurt to have a product that's actually kind of cool). Check out the whole PDF for yourself over at that read link. Disclosure: Engadget columnist Michael Gartenberg is an employee of Interpret, and worked on the study cited above.
Netbook study finds that netbook buyers don't know what netbooks are
Oh noes! According to some market research dudes, the average consumer cannot tell the difference between a netbook and a notebook. We're inclined to believe that this is simply because the average consumer hasn't perused this handy chart, but what do we know? Of course, the readers of Engadget are an intelligent and sophisticated bunch, one that understands all the intricacies of this -- one of the most important questions of our time. But what about the folks that need to sell netbooks (and notebooks) to 18-24 year olds, one of the main demographics that manufacturers hope to reach with their products? Hit the read link for what's sure to be a gripping (if wicked expensive) report titled Netbooks II: A Closer Look. Or, if you're only moderately curious, feel free to check out the PR after the break.
Market research firm predicts population explosion for virtual worlds
We all sort of knew that virtual worlds usage would continue to grow over the years, but a new report put out by Strategy Anayltics has given us some numbers to think about -- and they're pretty darn big. They've predicted that by 2015, the overall population of virtual worlds will go from what it is now at 186 million people all the way up to 640 million, or more than triple today's userbase. Here's the firm's breakdown of the populations today and in the future: "Kids" in this case refers to those aged 5 to 9, and as can be seen in the above table, this group is predicted to grow the most over the years. As for how companies will cash in on all this growth, subscriptions are still listed as one of the key drivers of revenue, but 86% of revenue in 2015 will come from microtransactions -- this equates to a growth from 2008's microtransaction figure of roughly $1 billion, to $17.3 billion in six years time.[Via Virtual Worlds News]
Numbers game: 75M Mac OS X users, 1M SDK downloads, 50,000 apps
As with most keynote presentations, Apple released a lot of numbers about just how many people are adopting the Mac and iPhone platforms. First, over the last three years, the active Mac OS X installed base has grown from 25 million users to 75 million users. This is great news for the platform and for the entire Mac ecosystem. Also, over 5,200 developers from 54 countries around the world are attending WWDC. Over a million people have downloaded the free iPhone SDK, and created 50,000 applications for Apple iPhones and iPod touch devices. Speaking of which, over 40 million iPhones and iPod touches have been sold to date. In April, Apple announced that those users had downloaded a cumulative total of one billion applications.
Analyst roundup: 5m iPhones for Q4, gloomy Christmas ahead
Widely-read Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster is revising his prior estimate for the quarter ending a week from Tuesday, and his outlook is even rosier than before. Instead of 4.1 million iPhone 3Gs, Munster expects Apple will sell 5 million of the handsets. Likewise, he's revising his estimates for Mac sales up by 300,000 units, and iPod sales up by 200,000 units. If he's right, it will mean Apple will have sold 7.4 million iPhones so far this year. That puts Apple well on track to meet its own prediction of selling 10 million handsets for calendar year 2008. On the other hand, we have Morgan Stanley, who cut price targets for nine hardware companies, including Apple. Morgan cited a "fragile consumer," slower overall spending, and a stronger dollar (the last of which impacts sales abroad for U.S. companies). This comes after a weak August for Mac sales, which -- in context -- only means that Apple's numbers didn't grow quite as fast as they did in prior months. They still sold 23 percent more Mac units than August 2007, but that was sharply lower than July 2008's 43 percent increase over July 2007. [Via Fortune, Silicon Alley Insider, and 24/7 Wall St.] Thanks, Robert!
Nielsen & Charter track second-by-second viewing, know you love Hannah Montana
Not content to let Tivo and TNS have all the second-by-second viewer tracking fun, Nielsen has teamed up with Charter Communications to track every moment of viewing from 320,000 households in LA. Nielsen is the most famous rating system, but so far its lagged behind the competition in pulling data directly from set-top's, although even that doesn't tell the whole story. Without its traditional system, there's no way to tell what people really watched, or if they just walked away ten minutes into the Knight Rider remake (We watched all the way through cuz we love The Hoff that much). As far as the viewers tracked (consent is not considered necessary), we just hope they're watching HD.[Via BlogRunner]
Market research could have improved PS3's image
Few people hate Sony as a company; it is just the PS3 -- as well as the DRM and exploding batteries -- that pull the brunt of the ire. In fact, many of their other products are beloved by consumers worldwide and aren't decried by the media. The biggest reason is Sony's Electronic Division's strong consumer research practices. Sony's television and digital camera lines garner much consumer approval. This is helped in part by the creation of focus groups and people who actually listen to customer feedback. For example, when developing the Mylo device (a handheld WiFi device that allows chat-functions, Internet connectivity, music and a full QWERTY keyboard) they sent 850 of the devices out to determine the who, what, where, when, why and how the product would be used and made changes around the feedback gained; as such, the Mylo is poised to be another well-received Sony product. The PS3 is a device that appears to have been developed in a vacuum; one where only the engineers built what they thought was the ultimate console. This is shown by the general user unfriendly environment the PS3 has built; symptoms of which are seen in major media publications. While most of the problems can easily be fixed with firmware upgrades over time, there are still aspects that cannot be fixed -- such as the lack of a scaler chip to allow for a simple one-and-done resolution setting when using various features -- without angering earlier adopters or alienating customers with confusing redesigns so early in the life-cycle. How different would the PS3 be today if the PlayStation Division took the same consumer research approach the Electronics Division does?
Analysts put 360 on top by 2010
It seems like some market research firm has a new prediction for the game industry every day. One day, the PS3 is on top. The next, it's Wii, Wii, Wii (all the way home). Today's chart is all about the 360. IDG estimates that the Xbox 360 will sell 23.9 million units in North America by 2010, followed by the PS3 at 23.5 million, with the Wii in a distant third at 13.6 million units sold. Okay, so for the 360's sake, it's really more of a tie. Granted, these numbers are only for North America, so we have no idea where this puts 360 in a global perspective. Still, most predictions we've seen put the PS3 on top. That makes this chart special. Take off your Fanboy hat for a minute and answer this question: could the 360 really outsell the entrenched juggernaut that is the Playstation?[Via Joystiq]
HDTVs connected to Media Center PCs to triple by 2007
We love market studies, they give us an idea of the reasons why companies are misled and fail to offer the right products and services at prices we want make the decisions they do. Pacific Media Associates believes their research indicates that in the three year period from 2005 to 2007 the number of HDTV-connected Media Center PCs will have tripled. Not entirely surprising considering all the features added over that period, the manufacturers who have started shipping Media Center PCs en masse and that whenever Windows Vista does launch, Media Center will be a part of the Home Premium and Vista Ultimate versions. While streaming and Xbox 360 integration is great, we're not totally sold on the Media Center PC dream just yet; we'll wait until the QAM, HDCP and CableCard questions have been settled before making any long term decisions.[Via PVR Wire]
College students: iPods better than beer
Kids these days. When I was a college man, my pals and I spent many an evening tying one on getting to know the locals socializing. According to Student Monitor, which conducts market research of student life, the iPod was rated as being more of an "in" thing than beer when the company recently polled 1,200 students. Granted, it was a close call (the iPod nabbed a rating of 73% while beer brought in 71%), but still, I was quite surprised. I love my iPod and all, but I'm not going to turn down a (properly poured) Guinness.What's your take, students: Your brew or your iPod?[Via Blogging Stocks]Thanks to everyone who sent this in.
Study shows more support for in-game ads
According to oddly-capitalised research agency comScore Networks, gamers are a ripe target for marketers. With almost 50% of all Internet users apparently reading game sites, reaching out to these 76 million consumers is big business.The survey also looked at attitudes to in-game advertising amongst heavy and light gamers. Heavy gamers are more familiar with the concept of in-game ads, and are also more likely to buy products advertised in-game. The conclusion across all types of gamers leans towards the inevitable -- in-game ads will be a feature of the future.With only 800 gamers surveyed, a larger segment may produce vastly different results, but these statistics are encouraging for firms like Microsoft's Massive who are working within this market.[Via Gamasutra]
