Near the dawn of November, Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello made a statement about the development potential that would be unleashed if Internet-enabled TV (IPTV) joined forces with game developers.
“If I had to pick between IPTV and 3D and which one would be more important for gaming – not necessarily for installed base for homes, because I’m sure that people are definitely going to want to watch Shrek in 3D at home – but for us, I actually think it’s probably more potential in terms of new revenue and business model for us,” he said.
Emergency tech crash course: IPTV is television with certain Internet capabilities built in. IPTV is, for instance, ideal for watching streaming video. Though IPTV has yet to achieve the range of home computers or game consoles, Riccitiello believes that day is coming up fast.
“There’s absolutely no question that Internet TV is here to stay. It’s a big story, And with CPU prices as reasonable as they are for powerful CPUs and hard drives priced as cheap as they are, you’re going to see the equivalent of the mini computer under the TV in the form of a device from Apple or Google or Samsung built in.”
Riccitiello’s vision of the future is interesting for two reasons. First, he believes IPTV will be the next common upgrade for the family television versus 3D, which Sony is banking on. Second, he believes IPTV has a lot of gaming potential for casual audiences and beyond.
Unless the cost of 3D television drops a bit, Sony’s going to have a spot of trouble pitching it to the average American family. 3D fads come and go, and the current glut of 3D movies in theaters is no exception; the exuberant “Now in 3D!” tagline that accompanies so many new releases and remakes these days prompts groans from moviegoers in lieu of any kind of celebration.
IPTV, by comparison, is a practical thing to have in the house, especially for kids and folks who aren’t very computer-savvy. Riccitiello is right in assuming that games, casual games in particular, will eventually feed regularly through IPTV. The real question is what kinds of games those will be. More Flash-based FarmVille clones? That’s a given, but even Facebook-based games are becoming more detailed and complex. If an IPTV can support games like Billions, Save Them All, then casual gamers will have reason to simply flick the television on and play instead of having to deal with any hardware updates necessary to play the game on a regular computer.
But Riccitiello also believes that IPTV’s gaming potential goes far beyond casual titles. “”I think the long-term opportunity there is significant,” he said. “I think we’ll ultimately move to be more-than-just-casual games. And I think it bodes well as we go from a world where, if you think about it, a minority of consumers around the world have got a game-ready device connected to their plasma or high-definition television to that being sort of a universal standard.”
An interesting future to consider. Would a universal standard replace all the gadgets and game consoles that are hawked by Apple, Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, etc? Not likely. Would one of those companies, or all of them, develop the “mini computer” Riccitiello describes in his vision for the future? Maybe; nobody can tell what the future has in store for us mortals.
At this point, though, mainstream IPTV gaming looks to be a long way off. For starters, Riccitiello is correct about hard drives and CPUs dropping in price, but bandwidth is still jealously hoarded by Internet providers. Different countries have very different policies when it comes to broadband pricing, and data caps vary wildly. We’d need to see some kind of worldwide standard before we can start mucking around with regular game- and- video streaming for all families, and that’s probably not going to happen soon.
For all the complaints flying around about this generation of game consoles, the systems are more unified between countries than they’ve ever been in the past. It makes for relatively hassle-free gaming, and the thought of starting over again with broadband caps and IPTV isn’t tantalizing.
Still, it’s more fun to think about IPTV’s potential than trying to fit a pair of glasses over another pair of glasses.
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Scott Steinberg is the CEO of video game consulting firm TechSavvy Global, and founder of GameExec magazine and Game Industry TV. Hailed as a top technology and video game expert by dozens of publications from USA Today to Forbes and NPR, he’s covered the field for 400+ outlets from Playboy to Rolling Stone. A frequent on-air analyst for networks like ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN, he’s also the author of Video Game Marketing and PR.
“Riccitiello is right in assuming that games, casual games in particular, will eventually feed regularly through IPTV. ”
Why?
This is what bothers me about acronyms, which is that people can and do use them for everything. IPTV is just what it sounds like– TV over IP. The possibility of some interactivity between a TV watcher and the network, without a PC or other device, is as old as addressable converter boxes, but somehow has not resulted in the kind of online gaming you’re talking about with “IPTV”. For all intents and purposes, what IPTV does is bring the flexibility that earlier belonged only to cable operators, who could provide first analog TV on 75 ohm cables and then digital tv as well as Internet, to DSL and fiber providers– they have a standard way of delivering video and of controlling QoS for different services.
All that’s going on right now is that the IPTV STB and the TV are merging, but that does nothing to alter the central value proposition of some level of interactivity on your television, whether it’s a simple kind, like VOD, or a more complex kind, like gaming. Compared to PCs, consoles, smartphones and handheld devices, the TV makes a pretty poor game device, and IPTV does nothing to change that. From the advent of addressable converters to IPTV, EA has had no role in the delivery of TV content, interactive or otherwise, and IPTV does nothing to change that, either.
The key for mainstream consumers upgrading their television sets will not be iptv or 3D, but rather interface. Kinect is truly the future. We should invest in Microsoft stock.