hose attending the giant E3 video game conference this week in Los Angeles will witness what has become a rare event: the unveiling of a new home game system.
Game enthusiasts should enjoy the moment, because it may be a while before it happens again -- if it ever does.Nintendo on Tuesday is slated to show off the successor to its popular Wii game console. It hasn't yet announced a name for the device or described its features, but the company has promised to present a "playable model" at the confab.
Nintendo's new device, which the company plans to begin selling next year, is likely to be the big story from E3. The company has frequently shaken up the business with unique games and devices. And there's a good chance it will do that again with the Wii's successor.
The new console is almost certain to support high-definition gaming, which is the one big thing the Wii lacks. When Nintendo released the Wii, HD televisions were still a rarity in American homes, so it wasn't a major shortcoming that the Wii didn't play HD games. Now that HDTVs are standard fare, the Wii's disadvantage has become increasingly apparent, especially when its games are compared side by side with those that play on Sony's PlayStation 3 or Microsoft's Xbox 360.
Some industry experts also expect the new console to offer a more complete online offering than that on the Wii. With the Wii, users can download older games, play online multiplayer games, stream movies from Netflix (NFLX) and even surf the Web. But both Microsoft and Sony have offered much more complete services that include links to online services such as Facebook and Hulu and downloadable movies and music, among other things.
I'm betting Nintendo will also offer something special in the new console. Nintendo executives have long realized that the company can't simply match the competition; it's got to offer something completely different.
Regardless, the unveiling should be exciting, if only for its novelty. None of the three big console makers has released a new home system since 2006. There has been speculation that it might be years before Sony or Microsoft -- Nintendo's rivals in the game console business -- release new home game machines, if they ever do.
Developing and manufacturing a new game system is phenomenally expensive, at least the way Sony and Microsoft have traditionally done it, in part because they initially lose money on every box they sell. They usually don't make money for several years, until their component costs decrease and game sales ramp up. So console makers have an incentive to stretch out the so-called console cycle as long as possible.
But that strategy may not work this time around because new alternatives could soon make traditional consoles obsolete.
Perhaps the most notable of these new alternatives is the game service offered by OnLive. The Palo Alto-based startup, which is backed by AT&T, streams games to PCs and TVs.
Consumers can use the service to play on their HD televisions many of the same games they could find on a traditional game console, but they access it through a $100 set-top box, which is $40 cheaper than the lowest-priced Wii. Soon they'll be able to access the service from an Internet-connected television or Blu-ray player without needing an extra box. Better yet, because all the computing power needed to run the games is on OnLive's computers servers, end users never need to buy a new console to play the latest games.
OnLive is not the only threat to traditional consoles. Zodiac Interactive, a company that provides software to pay TV operators, has developed a game service that cable TV customers will be able to access through their existing set-top boxes. And Saratoga-based Roku, which makes a digital set-top box used to stream Netflix and other online video services, announced last week that users will soon be able to play the popular smartphone game "Angry Birds" through its device. The company plans to add more streaming games in the future.
Then there's Apple (AAPL), which has come out of nowhere to become a major player in gaming thanks to its App Store and the popularity of devices such as the iPhone and iPad. The same iOS software that underlies those gadgets also runs on its $100 Apple TV set-top box. There's a decent chance Apple will eventually allow developers to create games and other apps for that box, too, which would bring another low-cost console competitor to the living room.
Not all of these new-style game machines will catch on. But they probably will do well enough to make Sony and Microsoft rethink their console strategies, especially because the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, as Internet-connected devices, could also support streaming games.
So we should try to enjoy the first glimpses of new Wii or whatever it will be called. It may well be the last of its kind.
Source http://www.mercurynews.com/
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