Sony's PlayStation 5 launch set for late 2020

SAN FRANCISCO - Sony said Tuesday its next-generation PlayStation 5 console, with new immersive features giving players the tactile experience of virtual worlds, would launch for the 2020 holiday season.

The Japanese electronics firm, which had teased its new console earlier this year, said a major new feature of the updated console would be its immersive controller.

"One of our goals with the next generation is to deepen the feeling of immersion when you play games, and we had the opportunity with our new controller to reimagine how the sense of touch can add to that immersion," said Jim Ryan, president and chief executive of Sony Interactive Entertainment.

The new controller will offer "haptic feedback" that brings players closer to the action of games.

"With haptics, you truly feel a broader range of feedback, so crashing into a wall in a race car feels much different than making a tackle on the football field," Ryan said.

"You can even get a sense for a variety of textures when running through fields of grass or plodding through mud."

Another feature will be "adaptive triggers" incorporated into controls "so that you feel the tactile sensation of drawing a bow and arrow or accelerating an off-road vehicle through rocky terrain," he added.

Sony, which leads the console segment, announced the move as more gamers move away from these boxes to streaming games powered by the internet cloud on a variety of devices.

Google, Apple and others have launched game subscriptions which compete with Sony's PlayStation Now cloud video game service.

According to NPD Group, a market research firm, 73 percent of Americans ages two and older play video games, an increase of six percentage points since June 2018.

Mobile remains the most popular gaming platform, with mobile gaming appealing to gamers across all consumer segments, the NPD survey showed. 

source: news.abs-cbn.com

With streaming move, Google eyes future of gaming

SAN FRANCISCO -- Google is looking to transform internet-age game play, with an expected launch of a streaming service which uses the tech giant's power in the internet cloud.

Expected Tuesday is the debut of a ramped-up version of a cloud gaming platform Google tested recently in partnership with Ubisoft.

A video clip teasing a keynote presentation at an annual Game Developers Conference in San Francisco invites people to "Gather around as we unveil Google's vision for the future of gaming."

The clip cycles through an accelerating collage of scenes one might find in video games, but says nothing about what Google will announce at the event, which will be live-streamed at YouTube.

Google collaborated with French video game colossus Ubisoft to use the hit "Assassin's Creed" franchise to test "Project Stream" technology for hosting the kind of quick, seamless play powered by in-home consoles as an online service.

A select number of people in the US were able to play "Assassin's Creed Odyssey" streamed to Chrome browsers on desktop or laptop computers.

A recently uncovered patent that Google filed for a video game controller hinted that the tech firm might be planning to release its own console and controller to go along with a streaming service.

'XCLOUD' ON THE HORIZON 

Video games are following television and music into the cloud, with console-quality play on its way to being a streaming service as easy to access as Netflix or Spotify.

Computing power in data centers and devices from televisions to smartphones has surged and streaming technology has advanced, providing tools to break blockbuster titles from confines of consoles or personal computers.

Google, whose YouTube video service operates an eSports platform for viewing game competitions, will be entering a sector with other powerful competitors including Sony and Microsoft.

Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella said late last year that a keenly anticipated "xCloud" streaming service was in "early days."

Microsoft's Xbox consoles and games unit are big business for the Redmond, Washington-based technology titan, which has been adapting to modern lifestyles in which software is hosted as a service online and tapped into using whichever gadgets people prefer.

Video game titan Electronic Arts also has laid out a vision of streaming video games enhanced with artificial intelligence to create "living, breathing worlds that constantly evolve."

BIGGER WORLD OF PLAY 

Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter sees Amazon, Apple and Google as potential big players in the space given huge investments they have made in data centers that provide cloud services to millions of people.

Amazon, a major cloud operator through its Amazon Web Services, also owns popular game play-streaming service Twitch.

Console quality video game play streamed online as a service, hosted on servers in the internet cloud, faces challenges including moving data quickly enough to avoid lags in action or imagery.

Improvements in internet bandwidth, computing power and data storage capabilities are enabling "disruptive technologies" such as streaming that can change the way games are created as well as played, according to Ubisoft.

While streaming game services might nibble at consoles sales, they are more likely to broaden the audience of players to anyone with an internet connection, according to analysts.

The US video game industry generated a record $43.4 billion in revenue in 2018, up 18 percent from the prior year, according to data released by the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) and NPD Group.

"Console, PC, and mobile platforms all saw significant growth, while developing portions of the market like subscription and streaming services gave us a peek into a future full of possibilities for the industry and gamers," NPD analyst Mat Piscatella said in a release.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

China video game craze drives booming e-sports market

WUHU/SHANGHAI - In an industrial park on the edge of Shanghai, a dozen Chinese teenagers are taking a break from battling digital armies to focus on their yoga.

They are members of EDG, one of China's top electronic sports teams, who spend 6 days a week in a military-style training compound to become world beaters in video games.

EDG's players - when not doing yoga to stay limber - spend most of their time at the camp wielding virtual weaponry playing multi-player battle games like "League of Legends" or Tencent Holdings Ltd's popular "Honour of Kings".

The team's top players can rake in up to 30 million yuan ($4.54 million) a year each from tournament prize money, commercial endorsements and payments from avid fans who spend hours watching them play online.

China's craze for e-sports is being propelled by the country's booming video game market, the world's largest and one that is expected to register $27.5 billion in sales this year, according to the gaming consultancy Newzoo.

Game developers like Tencent and NetEase Inc, and others like Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, are competing to market video games, fill stadiums with fans and sell broadcast rights to the matches.

"We have found the fastest-growing and biggest demand is in e-sports, and we are following that trend," said Wang Guan, general manager of e-sports at Alisports, an Alibaba subsidiary.

Cities around the country are looking to cash in on the market's fast growth with video game theme-parks and e-sports venues. Some universities are even rolling out gaming degrees.

Alisports, which organizes the World Electronic Sports Games, successfully lobbied the Olympic Council of Asia to include e-sports at the 2022 Asian Games in Hangzhou.

The extent of the e-gaming boom was on display in Beijing in November at the world final of League of Legends, with a prize of over $4 million at stake.

A crowd of more than 40,000 people packed into the city's Olympic Bird's Nest stadium to watch the South Korean gaming stars Faker and CuVee go head to head.

The raucous crowd, a bigger turnout than most local soccer games, underlined how popular gaming as a hobby and spectator sport has become in China.

Jiang Ping, 17, a university student in Beijing, paid 4,000 yuan to watch the final with his aunt. They were lucky: tickets sold on the grey market reportedly rose to more than 20 times the original price due to high demand.

"When I started playing this game five years ago, there weren't that many people," Jiang said. "Now the numbers are huge, and even the game itself is now owned by a Chinese firm, Tencent."

Tencent owns the League of Legends developer Riot Games.

TENCENT OR DIE

The city of Wuhu, a backwater 3 hours away from Shanghai, is a symbol of China's gaming potential - as well as its risks.

Many local governments have been seeking to develop more specialised industries, and Wuhu has targeted e-sports. In May, the city signed a deal with Tencent to build an e-sports university and a stadium for events. Other cities, like Zhongxian in the municipality of Chongqing, are also building facilities to profit from the e-sports boom.

Some industry participants, however, are already worried about a bubble forming, and rising debt levels as local governments jump into e-sports investment.

"Maybe some of the developers don't have pure intentions, they are just using e-sports as an excuse to get land at a cheap price from local government," said Tao Junyin, marketing director of VSPN, a leading e-sports content company.

Han Li, manager of Wuhu's e-sports association, said the city had discussed ideas including an e-sports-themed hotpot restaurant, bar and cinema, in addition to the gaming school and arena.

Ultimately, though, China's gaming giants are the ones calling the shots, he said.

"Tencent has a controlling power in the whole industry, so we have to find a way to work with Tencent. You either die or you go Tencent," he said.

Tencent declined to comment.

SOCIALIST VALUES

Local gamers also face tougher regulation than peers in the United States, South Korea or Japan, with a recent government push to emphasize "core socialist values" in entertainment products including songs, online streaming and video games.

This year, Tencent limited the time children could play its popular Honour of Kings game after coming under fire over gaming addiction. In November it said it would bring the top-selling game "Playerunknown's Battleground" to China, but would tweak the game to fit with "socialist core values".

Tencent's main local rival, NetEase, has already embedded banners with patriotic slogans into one of its popular battlefield games to head off official criticism.

"In China, you have to follow the government's decree," said Tao of VSPN. "But you can always make moderations to the games so that it will pass the censor."

Nonetheless, China's youth seem enthralled, prompting some universities to start offfering e-sports degrees, from professional gaming to e-sports commentating and graphic design.

Liu Xuefeng, a freshman from Anhui province, applied for a gaming degree program in the western city of Chengdu - despite facing push-back from his concerned parents.

"I am very interested in this program, and they couldn't stop me, so they had to cave in the end," he said, adding that he wanted to be an e-sports commentator. "There is great potential in the development of the gaming business."

The allure of becoming the next big gaming star is already sparking fierce competition to get into the market, said David Ng, head of Super Generation Investment, which owns the EDG e-sports team.

"Sometimes we will have a thousand application letters in our mail box to join our team on a single day."

source: news.abs-cbn.com

New consoles, online games to keep market soaring

PARIS -- The global video gaming market is set to grow 11.1 percent a year until 2017, boosted by a new generation of consoles and the increasing popularity of online games, according to IDATE digital research and consultancy firm.

The market, estimated at 53.9 billion euros ($73.8 billion) this year, is expected to soar to 82.1 billion euros in 2017, the France-based firm said in a report.

Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft, which are jostling for control of the gaming market, have each released the latest versions of their consoles ahead of the Christmas shopping season.

The wave of new devices is expected to keep the market buoyant until 2017, IDATE said.

Home consoles like Sony's PlayStation or Microsoft's Xbox, which make up 31 percent of the market today, are expected to have a 40 percent share of the total market in 2017.

Handheld consoles such as Nintendo's 3DS or Sony's PSVita, which have a share of about 22 percent in 2013, are projected to record declining share to 13 percent in 2017, in the face of increasing strong competition from tablets and mobile phones.

"Smartphones and tablets offer a radically different experience, and... in terms of the budget, the tablet is a significant competitor for the consoles," Laurent Michaud, who is in charge of gaming research at IDATE.

"The choice of purchase between the tablet and the console will determine the success of this generation of machines," he said.

The offline computer game is expected to record an irreversible decline, while this year online games are emerging as the leader.

The increasing popularity of online games stems from the fact that they dominate the gaming industry in China and South Korea, Michaud noted.

"They are games oriented towards 'Free2Play' and it is no surprise that they are gaining colossal success because the games are good," he said, referring to the downloadable games.

One example is the online game Candy Crush which records 700 million sessions a day and racks up daily sales of $850,000.

Online games are expected to record average growth of 11.4 percent while mobile gaming is seen progressing by 12.2 percent annually between 2013 and 2017.

Traditional game developers which are used to selling physical copies of their games on discs, have not been keeping pace with virtual ones.

Many were slow to exploit the phenomenal success of games played on social networks.

In December 2012, only Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, Namco Bandai Games, Konami, Take Two Interactive et Disney Interactive Studio were present on Facebook.

They have also been slow to join on the smartphone and tablette bandwagon.

In December 2012, only Electronic Arts and Square Enix were among the top revenue generators on Apple's App Store. And only Electronic Arts and Take Two Interactive had games that ranked in the top 20 by revenues.

On Android Market, none of the traditional gave developers had games on the bestsellers' list.

IDATE sees these key players producing fewer and fewer blockbusters, which are also becoming more and more expensive to make.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com