1. Technology

My chosen technology is gaming and the video game industry. I will be researching both consoles and PCs.

The technologies are marketed to the gaming crowd, ranging from casual gamers to hardcore gamers. The average age of a gamer is 30 years. Gamer marketing is aimed at both males and females as roughly 50% of each spend time gaming.

There are lots of companies that provide the gaming audience with games, as well as the companies that supply the games consoles. Some of the major businesses that publish games are EA, Activation, Nintendo, Ubisoft and Microsoft Game Studios, all which rank in the top 10 for publishing games. The three main companies that make games consoles (of this gen), are Microsoft who made the Xbox 360, Nintendo who made the Wii and Sony who have made the PS3. This differs with the PC as not one or more companies provide PCs, because they can be built by the user with parts from different companies.

Prices can range anywhere from £140 - £1500 depending on whether a console or PC is bought and which model/specification you decide to buy. The higher the price tag, the more extras you get. More hard drive space, wifi built in, better graphics card etc.



Gaming is a pull technology and is a cold media. This is because in many games there is a storyline to follow the player is allowed to go about it at their own pace and complete the objectives how they wish. Multiplayer games are a lot more interactive as the goals are less defined and every player is a user able to interact with the virtual world and players in the game. Games like Second Life take the cold media to the limits. The user in Second Life is literally able to do anything. Anything they can imagine they create, build and play with. Creations can be shared and even bought online. A booming community and network is being born from this game, and it is ever expanding.

Gaming is an old media and has been around since 1972 with the invention of the first games console, The Magnavox Odyssey. Few people know about the Odyssey (I didn’t till I started this research project) but it was the world’s first games console predating the more popular known Pong by 4 years. The games industry has however undergone rapid changes and transformation from 1972 to the present day. Games consoles and the games themselves are becoming more advanced, better looking but necessarily more fun to play. Some classic games are still fun too! There are now loads of different genres of gaming, a few example of these are FPS, RPG, MMORPG and RTS. With different styles of play to suit to different players.

Case Study Research - Hypothesis

Hypothesis

My issue was firstly, which is the best console on the market out of the PS3, Xbox 360, Wii or PC? All sides have many advantages and disadvantages over each other and this issue has been questioned by members of the gaming community many times. I expect to find that the Xbox 360 will be considered the best console overall as it's affordable, has a good games selection and has decent graphics. In my opinion though i think the PC is the best gaming console.

Googlezon

EPIC 2014 is a flash movie made which depicts what could possibly happen in the future. Googlezon is featured in the movie and this is a fictional company made from combining Google with Amazon. The story goes, Google invents Google Grid, “a universal platform that provides a functionally limitless amount of storage space and bandwidth to store and share media of all kinds.” and combines with Amazons “social recommendation engine” and “huge commercial infrastructure” to form Googlezon which in turn takes down Microsoft and the major news corporations like The Times, as they can’t compete. Googlezon then releases EPIC (Evolving Personalized Information Construct), a universal, personalized news submission and distribution system that is so popular it effectively puts the fourth estate out of business.


A possible insight to our future or a sensationalistic view on the future of the media?

Googlezon on Wikipedia

EPIC 2014 Animation and EPIC 2015 (an updated version)

Key Concepts for the Internet

Convergence : The Internet really is the biggest convergence technology available. It has every media available to view and download including, books, music, films, text, games etc. It can also be used in conjunction with other media technologies, for example, Internet on phones, games consoles etc.

Personalisation: The Internet offers a very personal experience as it is completely up to the user as to what they consume. They choose when and what they consume and how much they wish to consume at a certain time. They can even make their own, videos for example, and upload for other users to consume.

Interactivity: The Internet is extremely interactive as the user can pick and choose what they consume and spend time doing. Games can also be played on or over the Internet offering a fun and interactive experience.

Linear/Non-linear: The Internet is non-linear as the user chooses which links to click and where to go next. The user is never told what they should consume and in what order. Play lists of videos and songs can be made by the user so it is up to them what they do and in what order.

Democratisation: The Internet is very democratic as anyone can upload their opinion and express it with the world. Whether it be political, a review of a video game or the recipe for the worlds best sandwich, the users of the Internet can express themselves how ever they see fit on a number of websites including their own.

Digitisation: The Internet is digitised as it is made of 1s and 0s and binary level. All digital data is stored in this way which includes everything on the Internet and the Internet itself.

NMT draft questions page 12

1. Endism is the perspective that sees new technologies as replacing older ones.

2. A media ecosystem is media technologies interacting with each other and the audience.

3. Narrowcast is digital TV on demand, the audience gets to choose how and when they consume the shows, for example Sky Plus.

4. The Internet and the Web are different. The Internet is the link between computers, phones and other devices across the world. The Web is just one traffic type across the Internet. Another traffic type is peer-to-peer networking, for example.

5. Push medium is when the people who create the media decide what the audience will watch and then give that to them at the time they choose. Pull medium is when the audience only get the media if they decide to view it or “pull it out” to view. Push medium example could be Broadcast TV and pull medium The Web.

6. The positive aspect of blogging is that it requires audiences to be creative instead of passive and it is easier for them to express their views and opinions.

7. The internet has added another dimension to digital photography. A good example of this is flickr.com. People can post their own images for free and share with their friends or the whole world. Photos that are tagged can then be easily searched for by other people helping to share and spread the photos taken by users.

8. People are watching less TV because new technologies are requiring audiences to be less passive. People still watch TV shows but less and less are watching them via broadcast TV. On demand services like Sky Plus and BT Vision provide a lot of popular programs, for a small price, to watch any time. As well as TV being able to be legally and illegally downloadable via the internet. The increase in DVD sales and now Blu-Ray discs will mean TV and movies are able to be watched or bought at a small price, and ready to watch anytime.

9. Big companies like Microsoft and Apple are taking advantage of these changes and developing IPTV and on demand TV shows and movies to be downloadable via the internet. Though Apple’s iTunes, TV shows and movies are now available in the UK as well as most countries across the globe. Via Microsoft’s Xbox 360, films and games are downloadable directly to the console.

New Media Tech

I have chosen gaming as my topic for new media technologies.

I will concentrate on violence in video games today and the moral concerns with violence in video games.

I will also focus on the "console war" going on between the 3 next-gen consoles xbox 360, ps3 and wii. Which is better and why?

And finally i will be looking at the future of video games, hugely graphical games like Crysis, games becoming more "real" eg. Second Life and other future tech such as virtual reality and Neurosky.

New Media Tech

1. Directors used to film movies on celluloid film, but with the invention of digital camcorders this may become a thing of the past. Although it does cost to store the footage, shooting digitally is a lot cheaper than shooting on celluloid. “A celluloid print runs costs of about £100,000, while for a digital distribution costs could be cut to one hundredth of that, around £1000.” BBC News. With the move to digital recorders, it will be much easier to shoot films, thus saving the companies even more money. Editing with celluloid film was a literal cut and paste job. Editors would cut out the frames not wanted and stick the film back together afterwards. This was a laborious task and took many hours. However with digital film it is much easier to get the film onto a computer and digitally edited in any way you wish. Computer aided special effects can be added in postproduction, for example CGI and green screening, which could never have been done before on celluloid.

2. Nowadays films aren't only watched in cinemas. Films can be rented from the nearest video rental store, they can be watched on TV, they can be watched or on demand services such as BT vision or Sky and they can be legally or illegally downloaded off the Internet. At the moment the majority of the cinemas in the UK are still using celluloid film projectors. It is due to the cost that the cinemas would have to pay to get digital film projectors, and also the threat of piracy. “At the start of 2005, there will around 300 cinemas in the world with digital projectors. By January 2006, it'll be 2000, and this is anticipated to grow dramatically into the future.” BBC News.

3. Cinema ticket prices are on the increase and this is making less people want to go to see movies in the cinema. At the same time as this increase of cinema ticket prices, the prices for home cinema systems are on the decrease. More and more people now are buying home cinema systems and watching films on them instead of going to see the films in the cinema. Now more than ever, it is easier to illegally download films off the Internet. This is crippling the movie industry and making film companies lose millions of pounds in profit.

BBC News source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4681859.stm