I consider 2007 a very interesting year for technology. Let’s look in detail at the main highlights of it, which I find most important.
First, in the area of entertainment, game consoles have apparently won over PC. Xbox360, PS3 and the Wii are extremely popular today. Everyone wants to buy one. Or two 
Even the Queen of the UK likes the Wii, that means modern consoles have managed to greatly expand their user base and interest much more people in games as a form of entertainment. Even I, having been a hard-core PC gamer a few years ago, now want to buy me Sony Playstation 3! Don’t ask me why I chose it instead of Xbox or Wii (it’s a question of taste), most important is the fact I chose a console instead of PC for games! Hey, there’s even Oblivion and Half-Life 2 (with Orange Box) for PS3! As well as many other popular exclusive and multiplatform titles. So who needs Windows PC to play games anymore?! Game consoles have truly won over PC this year!
Second highlight of 2007 is proliferation of HDTV-standard and clear signs of the end of HD format-war, with Blu-ray as a clear winner! (Poor Microsoft and Toshiba… but HD-DVD was inferior standard anyway) No more confusion, go for Blu-Ray! Oh, and don’t forget that PS3 doubles as a quite affordable Blu-Ray player! Now, that’s quite a tasty deal for me! Actually, I don’t even have a HDTV-set yet, but I’m gonna buy it this year for sure. Some big LCD flat panel. And a PS3. Yeah, guess it would be cool! 
Third, the Apple iPhone. Like it or not, but it has revolutionized the wireless industry, and spurred competition. The only thing I don’t like about iPhone is that it’s locked to only one wireless provider in each country where it’s sold. Maybe for America that’s OK, but here in Europe we have freedom to use any phone we like with any wireless provider’s SIM-card (that’s free market, you know)…
Oh, wait, there’s another highlight of 2007: Duke Nukem Forever trailer! Finally, there’s hope that Duke Nukem Forever will be released in 2008! And I hope it won’t disappoint the army of Duke fans out there, including myself
Well, one more thing: 2007 was the year I started blogging! Cheers!
Nice hearing from you. Your choice of PS3 is reasonable, but pretty surprising, too. You know there was a lot of hype about game consoles and may be I was affected by it a bit. My choice would be Xbox. It seemed to be very PCish – duh – it’s made by MS. And it’s quite up to date now so you can run most of the current games on it – Assassin’s Creed comes to mind. I would definitely buy it a year ago, but now it’s quite old already. I don’t remember when it was launched, in 2005 may be? So, I would keep waiting for the next gen Xbox now. I hope it would be backward compatible, but who knows
PS3. PS is simply different. It costs more and it’s way more powerful. But it was overpriced for so long that it didn’t appear a reasonable to go for me. Although I have to admit, that now – at the beginning of year 2k8 – it’s the best time to buy it. As I’ve said Xbox is old and there’s no more Wii hype to distract consumer attention. The year 2k7 trend for game manufacturers was to either go Wii or both Xbox and PS, I expect this to change soon: Xbox is going to get dropped or will get game builds with lower graphics quality. So if you need console now go with PS or wait for a year or two for the next X.
The question is why I got stuck with X in my decision making. The reason is primary because of MS. Yep. The surprising thing about MS is that they are quite good at game development. I remember the Fable – it was a very high quality product, well packaged, well documented, well delivered. No hitches, no glitches. Very-very professional. And all other games made/published by MS are good, too. Besides, I love many of them. Unfortunately, they are not ported to other platforms (don’t count Windows here). In turn, PS has its own unique game series. But mostly those are anime-like stuff from Japan which I’m not interested in.
Format war.
I love HD DVD. I love the fact that it’s cheaper to roll it out. I heard a lot about equipment reuse to manufacture disks and readers – that’s great idea. The second thing MS and Toshiba made right was the name. Remember you recorded simple DVDs with simple cameras and viewed them on a simple TV? Now you should record HD DVDs with HD cameras and view them on a HD TV. Simple replace ‘simple’ to ‘HD’ – wise and consistent choice. Definitely I would support it. Blue Ray is cool, too. But the name isn’t consistent.
Personally I don’t care about technology – as long as both are far superior compared to ‘simple’ DVD I don’t really care.
The thing is that each party uses format war to attempt to make a fortune. And this makes me sad because it’s the customers who pay this fortune to both winners and losers. Everybody wants you to buy a new-format-media player and media for it. Here’s my guess why Sony wins:
- Sony manufactures game console, laptops, as well as media players, so they put BR on everything they could, including PS3 to gain revenues.
- MS haven’t put HD on Xbox because they had to support its partners (Toshiba) who produced media players. This could kill the HD media player market, although that would be a wise step from customer point of view. The thing is that no one cares about customers – see above.
- It’s clear now that fewer people would use next-format media to store backups – cloud storage is much more convenient. People will use this technology only to watch movies. So the major technology consumers are few movie recording companies, who can dictate the media prices for end-users (which is BAD) and technology providers – Sony, MS, and Toshiba – have to compete to gain their support. For me the winner was clear from the beginning – everybody knows that Sony controls Hollywood to a certain degree – quite enough to win.
- The only chance for MS to win a war was to nuke down the market. I mean to get HD on Xbox and to force its partners reduce the players and media prices. Consumers would certainly buy those devices and that would force movie producers to support the technology as well. We – the end-users – would eventually win, but the revenues gained in format war would be sliced by a power of ten. So they haven’t done it, because no one wants to earn less one is able to – the war not worth it – and that’s the reasonable decision, don’t blame MS.
What’s left afterwards?
- Some folks bought HD, and I’m sorry for them.
- We won’t get a BR player on the next gen Xbox, so one will have to buy a separate player box – may be that would be a PS3 (Lol!).
Hey, ain’t you gonna buy one for you right now?
Oh, I wish MS came up to Sony to rename Blue Ray into HD DVD and everybody would be happy. Well, not Toshiba I think, but who cares about them, anyway? Blue Ray sounds cool too, but not that consistent. Hey, why not us invent Blue Ray cameras and Blue Ray TV? Lol!
And don’t forget to bet on Duke, man, always! When it’s done