Malstrom has 2 new blog entries up, one on the iphone vs DS, and one with some info on his next three articles. The latter addresses Nintendo's E3 showcase and the hardcore's fallout from it. He also discusses the ridiculous notion that successful children's games like Carnival Games, Dogz, etc are part of a new casual market when children's games have always had a market. He writes...

"Third party companies are under enormous pressure from investors to tap into the New Market. This is why they have been so loud in trumpeting their ‘casual’ success. But scratch beneath the surface. All the ‘casual’ games they say are so successful are children’s games. Children are actually part of the Core Market, not the Expanded Market including young girls. Children are, literally, retarded adults (as anyone who deals with children know). This is why the ‘Birdmen’ strategy works with children. But this is nothing new. Children’s games have been working, with often horrible licensing, for every console cycle. Yet, all of a sudden, success in children’s games (male and female) are now declared to be success in the New Market? This is fraud. No third party has yet followed up with a hit similiar to Wii Sports and Wii Fit. The ’semi-hits’ like Carnival Games sell primarily to children.

If the audience existed on the Gamecube or on another console in a prior cycle, by definition, it cannot be part of the Expanded Audience. So how the Hell did children’s games become ‘New Market’ games? And why the Hell are people willing to let companies re-arrange the goal posts so they can declare success?"

I totally agree.... read both entries here:

http://seanmalstrom.wordpress.com/

As usual Malstorm has an excellent point. No one has replicated what Nintendo is doing and that's because very few are the corporate boardrooms willing to do something truly new. Rather they stick to what they know or copy a proven formula.

However, on the flip side Ubisoft is getting rich off the girls market on the DS. Is the girl market new? No. But it certainly IS expanded to new levels on DS (and more and more on Wii) so that does count as catering to an expanded market in my book. Also Weight Loss Coach, French Coach, etc... So I don't agree with him 100% on this.

LOL   True... too true.

I wonder what name will the new company have

Nintendo will create one to disrupt themselves :)... cool

Boom Blox and Imagine fits the children games description as well.

Is Malstrom's new site is in wordpress right now? WHY? Seem Malstrom abandoned his site already, theres even no new news comes out on his site anymore...

Yeah, the iPhone (iTouch) is an interesting beast.

My wife picked up one (iTouch) a couple of days ago, and is addicted to it. I got so furious at the damned thing, I almost took it straight back... but its not mine (so I didn't):

- it DOESN'T work out of the box (you need to connect it to a compatible computer, running a compat OS & iTunes, with a working OS - to get it to even START)

- it DOESN'T come with the "LATEST" firmware. The first thing the machine wanted to do, is upgrade to the new OS/firmware - which would have COST US $15US. I was really outraged (and it has not been updated since). Intentionally NOT putting the latest firmware on a device, only so you can charge for it post-purchase is just outrageous IMO.

It also doesn't work at ALL on our home PC (which isn't *that* old - and is running 2000). If it wasn't for the USB ports on the back of the Wii, I couldn't even charge the damned thing :P

...

Apart from all that, its pretty cool. To me, its a PSP with a smaller form factor, a touch screen, "PC style apps" & lots of built-in memory (we scored the 32Gig version).

Its a bit too "small" for me to seriously consider gaming on it, and the lack of "buttons" doesn't help either. I'm sure it will host some awesome casual titles in the long term though.

But I do see it competing more with the PSP than the DS - as its primarily a browser/media player. Movies (YouTube) look great on it, and its an excellent music player.

If I had intended to get a PSP (at some point) as a media player, I definitely wouldn't now - I would pick up a iTouch instead. But if/when I get a PSP, it will be for gaming (not media) - so the iTouch holds minimal interest in comparison.

Wordpress is his blog site.

He still has the other site but for his articles only.

Is this the guy who explained the Nintendo blue ocean theory thing of moving up from casual to hardcore?

It didn't even start without a computer? I don't remember that, but it might be that when I plugged it in to load it, it did whatever was necessary to get it running then. Though it might be possible to get it to run with a stand-alone charger, but then you wouldn't have any content in it to play.

The thing about the iTouch and the firmware is that, and many people disagree with Apple's policy on this, major upgrades in firmware cost. It cost existing iTouch users to upgrade to a firmware with Mail and other apps, though they are now standard in new iTouches. But the upgrade to 2.0 is a big issue, and I don't know if it will be standard at some point or not, currently it's not and it costs to upgrade and to be able to have the App Store and all 3rd party apps there. You're not the only one who's unhappy about that, I gave my iTouch to my wife when I got my iPhone and I haven't upgraded the firmware in it yet. Maybe I will at some point, but it seems my wife is happy with it as it is, so why shell out the cash for something she doesn't need?

Ironically, I think the iTouch would be a better alternative to gaming than the iPhone, because you don't have to worry about the phone part: no worries about running out of battery and not being able to call somebody, and no calls to interrupt your gaming just in the wrong time. But the pricing of iTouch is quite prohibitive, though it may come down now that the iPhone is so much cheaper to buy (not counting the phone contract). Anyway, neither iPhone nor iTouch is a gaming platform first, so they are not directly competing with the DS, but maybe to a certain extent with PSP. Now, if only Apple would extend the iTunes movie rentals to where I live, I'd be a happy camper. And getting TV shows wouldn't hurt, either ;)