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'Billions' is the latest TV show to create a PR problem for Peloton
Peloton is dealing with another PR headache after a 'Billions' scene created a less-than-flattering image of its spin bike.
Roku will stream the first season of 'Game of Thrones' for free
If you and your nearest and dearest have been meaning to check out Game of Thrones but haven't gotten around to it yet (or don't have an HBO subscription), you can stream the first season for free on Roku over the holiday season. The monstrously popular series' first 10 episodes will be available at no cost during Roku's second annual Stream-a-thon, which runs December 26th to January 1st.
Showtime is turning the story of Uber into a TV series
It seems Showtime reckons the turbulent behind-the-scenes story of Uber is good fodder for a TV show. It's developing a limited series about the ups and downs of the ridesharing company. Billions co-creators Brian Koppelman and David Levien will write and produce the show, based on Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber.
Sling TV debuts free streaming option on Roku
Sling TV is trying a new way to reach potential users with a free option of its streaming platform. Through a "browse as guest" option, newcomers to Sling will be able to check out episodes from some shows (including Billions, Shameless and Ray Donovan) at no cost, though it seems only one episode is available for each of those series. You can also subscribe to standalone channels, such as Showtime, without having to pony up for a Sling package. Sling is rolling the feature out on Roku starting today, and plans to bring it to more devices in the future.
Massively unboxes EVE Online's Collector's Edition
Sci-fi MMO EVE Online initially launched as a physical disc sold in stores back in 2003 and saw limited success in the fledgling MMO space. A decade of regular updates and digital distribution has seen EVE grow organically into the largest sci-fi sandbox on the planet with over half a million subscribers, but until now something has been missing: EVE has never had an actual collector's edition box. To celebrate 10 successful years of operation, last month CCP officially released the EVE Second Decade Collector's Edition box. I recently received a review copy of the Collector's Edition from CCP and have put together an unboxing video with my general impressions of the items within. The collection comes in a sturdy presentation box and contains a 192-page commemorative hardback book looking back on the first decade of EVE's history, along with an anniversary re-release edition of CCP's board game Danger Game and a physical Rifter model that doubles as a USB hub. The pack also comes with a new account key with 60 days of game time, a soundtrack CD of the EVE music played by the Icelandic Symphony Orchestra, and keys to unlock billions of ISK worth of virtual collectables in-game. It's pretty expensive at around €150 or $150 US, but the virtual items can be sold in game to claw back some of the cost in the form of PLEX. Enjoy our look at the new CE!
EVE Online $6,000 ship kill may be a hoax
EVE Online player "stewie Zanjoahir" made history yesterday when he reportedly lost a tiny ship with cargo worth over $6,000 US. Now it appears that the value of the kill may not have been accurate or that the kill could even be a hoax. Evidence that the kill may not be authentic surfaced last night as players found that three Hulk blueprints listed on the kill were marked as originals. That would make them priceless items that change hands for over 500 billion ISK each, which would raise the kill's value to a ludicrous 1.71 trillion ISK ($51,685 US). It's believed that many of the original blueprints in the kill were actually cheaper blueprint copies. One possible explanation for the aberration is that there was an error in the EVE API that supplied the original kill data to third-party killboard websites. It's also possible that the kill was marked as API Verified without actually being checked, in which case the kill may have never even happened. An alternative version of the kill valued at only 34 billion ISK ($1,024 US) has also surfaced, but this was manually uploaded and so isn't verified at all. CCP Games posted the kill on its Facebook page and Twitter feed, but didn't officially confirm the kill or its value. We reached CCP for comment, but privacy concerns prevented the company from confirming or denying the kill's authenticity. If this monumental kill turns out to be an error or a hoax, the next-highest value confirmed EVE kill would be Bjoern's Avatar class titan destroyed in March 2011. The titan was kitted out with expensive officer modules and came to a total value of over 128 billion ISK. As the price of PLEX was much lower in 2011, this would have bought 355 PLEX worth a total of $6,212.50 US.
EVE Online player loses tiny ship worth over $6,000 [UPDATED]
EVE Online is well known for its sandbox gameplay and ruthless citizens, with monumental kills and record-breaking scams popping up year after year. In 2010, one player lost over $1,000 US worth of 30-day game time codes (PLEX) when he transported them in the cargo hold of a tiny, fragile frigate. Thinking his ship too fast to be caught, that player lost his entire alliance's budget in a single mishap. That record was thoroughly eradicated today by player "stewie Zanjoahir," who reportedly lost over 213,000,000,000 ISK when he tried to transport a huge cache of valuable blueprints through nullsec in a tiny, unfitted frigate. That much ISK could currently buy around 367 30-day game time codes (PLEX) at around 580 million ISK each, for a combined total of over 30 years of game time. To put that into perspective, 367 PLEX bought with real cash would cost about $6,422.50 US. Some players doubt the authenticity of the kill report, but the killboard it was posted on claims to have verified it with EVE's automated API service, and CCP Games itself posted about the kill on Facebook. Kills of this scale may have happened before, but it was previously impossible to tell whether a destroyed blueprint was a cheap copy or an expensive original. The value of this kill may even be higher than the reported figure, as several of the blueprint copies that weren't counted are actually worth billions of ISK. Today's kill may be the largest confirmed kill of any ship in EVE's history and could even be the most expensive character death in any MMO to date. [UPDATE: Evidence has emerged that the kill might not be authentic. EVE-Kill has since updated its report with a revised value of 5.3 billion ISK]
Reuters: a failed takeover of T-Mobile would cost AT&T as much as $6 billion
AT&T's proposed acquisition of T-Mobile was a big deal as soon as it was announced, but now Reuters has unearthed some more context to lend it even more cruciality. We already knew that in the event of AT&T&T-Mobile failing to garner regulatory approval, AT&T would owe Deutsche Telekom, the current owner of T-Mo USA, $3 billion in cash, some spare AWS spectrum, and a roaming agreement "on terms favorable to both parties." Reuters' sleuths say that the spectrum in question is worth $2 billion and the roaming deal a further $1 billion, bringing the total breakup payout to a hair-raising $6 billion. Given the wording of the two companies' deal, we don't expect the roaming part of that settlement would be free for T-Mobile (so $6b looks to be a bit of an over-estimation), but the fact remains that AT&T is staking a whole lot of moolah on this takeover going through. Whether it does or not, Deutsche Telekom's René Obermann (above left) looks assured to still be laughing this time next year -- but will the same be true of AT&T's Randall Stephenson?
Microsoft still beats Apple in cash and investments, for now
Back during the earnings call a few weeks ago, it was mentioned that Apple has a jaw-dropping almost $40 billion just sitting around in cash. In the chat, we started talking about other companies that might have that much money in the hopper -- Google came up, but I don't think we were able to guess another one. But it turns out Apple isn't even the most flush company out there, and the name of the first might surprise you: According to this chart on Silicon Alley Insider, Microsoft is currently sitting on just slightly more money than even Apple, with Google and Intel coming close behind; although Apple briefly pulled ahead of MS at the end of 2008, the Redmond Revenue Racers had more cash through most of '09 than Apple did. Well how 'bout that. Of course, the current curves are not so favorable to Microsoft (after the Win7 update push slows down a bit) so it may not be long before Apple's pile grows even bigger. We can probably look for some significant acquisitions from all of these companies very soon -- with the rest of the economy down and lots of interesting ideas looking to sell, odds are we'll see some of this money spent on worthy purchases. [via Cult of Mac]
WoW generates half of Acti-Blizz earnings
The folks over at CVG picked up an interesting note on our Activision-Blizzard overlords' 2008 fiscals. According to Arvind Bhatia, World of Warcraft probably generated 30 cents out of each 60 cents per share of earnings. Put another way, that's about $400 million for shares at the end of the fiscal year ending this past December. Now, this is kind of the best guess of Mr. Bhatia, who works under the firm Sterne Agee. (And they certainly have a reputation that says we could probably believe them.) But even without Sterne Agee's reputation, a little back-of-the-envelope math shows that his analysis probably bears fruit. We already know that WoW has 11.5 million subscribers. At $15 dollars a pop per month, you're already looking at $172 million each month. But we know that a lot of folks have discount plans, and the charge isn't the same across the globe. I can easily believe a $400 million yearly earning from subscriptions, and am actually surprised it's not higher. Of course, Bhatia has recently lowered some of his other estimates for ATVI, and warns that the consensus estimates predicting $5.2 billion in revenue are probably too high. Nonetheless, at the end of the day, this does say that World of Warcraft is doing just fine. We can feel free to threaten to quit over the latest nerf, the lights're going to stay on while we're out the door.
The Sony Hardware Reciprocal: PS3 losses surpass PS2 profits
According to DFC intelligence figures cited by Dave Perry, Sony has lost more money on the PlayStation 3 hardware than it made on the PlayStation 2 during its five most popular years. In pure numbers speak it's lost $3 billion on the PS3, which is about equivalent to everything it made selling PS2s during its peak years. This story would actually have a lot more impact if Carl Sagan was around to say "beelyuns."Perry, best known for his stint at Shiny Entertainment, was speaking at the really long-named Games Convention Developers Conference, which appears to be both a Convention and a Conference, and was just using the figures to underscore how much Sony was spending on hardware development. However, the 1UP article doesn't mention until near the end that the original PS2 lost money in its first year, and that Sony (and the other console makers) does this so it can make bank on the software/games that people need to fuel their systems. In all fairness, the article goes on to explain that Microsoft lost $4 billion on the original Xbox, and has had to spend over $1 billion replacing faulty hardware in the 360 and extending the warranty for original purchasers. So, we tend to think $5 billion trumps $3 billion. The real winner in this struggle? Nintendo. It has been churning a profit on that little Wii since it hopped out of the gate. Rassin' frassin' wand-wagglin' profiteers.
Billyuns and billllyuns of songs
With apologies to Carl Sagan, it looks as if the Grand Unilateral Conspiracy to Commit Piracy(tm) (GUTCCP) has been dealt a harsh blow. As Scott posted yesterday, iTunes sales have topped 5 billion songs to date. This, despite the fact that all iPods are officially nothing more than repositories of pirated material. iTunes keeps chugging along, selling tracks at a phenomenal rate. Expect abandoned parrots and eyepatches to be offered at firesale prices if this trend continues. The big story here isn't the exact number milestone. Rather, it's like the late Senator Everett Dirksen probably never said, "A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking real money." The story is that the consuming public can and will buy music legitimately when the opportunity presents itself as a sane, easy-to-use alternative. Getting rid of DRM seems to have increased that demand rather than opening the doors to a floodgate of proliferate pirating piranas. Apple comes under constant pressure to raise media prices and increase per-sale revenue. It looks to me that their current pricing model has been a huge success as-is. Could the current (reportedly $0.70/track) wholesale pricing really be putting the recording industry at a financial disadvantage after 5 billion sales with rock bottom overhead for digital distribution? Let us know in the comments.
Vivendi makes $1.5 billion in 2007, BC pushes Blizz up 58% from 2006
A few days ago we tried to estimate how much Blizzard was making from those 10 million accounts, but now we know for sure: it's actually around $1.2 billion (which is up 58% from 2006). Now, you can probably see that that's only $500 million short of the estimate that we were trying to prove was wrong, but don't forget that the $1.2 billion isn't just subscription fees-- it includes all those sales of Burning Crusade last year at full release price. What Blizzard earns from subscription fees is just part of that total.Still, a $1.5 billion year for Vivendi (especially when their other games divisions actually dropped by almost 30%) is good news for them. Of course, the question they (and more specifically, Activision Blizzard) have to be wondering about is if the success can continue. If Blizzard can release a new expansion this year and hold off the coming threats in the MMO industry, they'll be looking at even bigger numbers in 2008. But that's a lot to ask-- there's no question Vivendi (and Activision) will come up with huge amounts of profit this year, but growth of this magnitude will be a tough hill to climb.
Scientist: Minesweeper probably cost economy billions
A Canadian study found that American procrastination is on the rise. The research was supposed to take five years to complete, but after 10 years the scientists are releasing the results -- who's procrastinating now? The study found that in 1978 about 5 percent of Americans thought of themselves as chronic procrastinators and now it's 26 percent.The tools for procrastination surround us -- "TVs in every room, online video, Web-surfing, cell phones, video games, iPods and BlackBerries." Is it procrastination or just cultural attention deficit disorder? Of course, even in this study, video games are pointed out as the culprits for the fall of western civilization. The scientist who is publishing the study, University of Calgary Professor Piers Steel, says, "That stupid game Minesweeper -- that probably has cost billions of dollars for the whole society."
