So everyone’s buzzing about Microsoft buying Yahoo and I’ve been trying to work out what my opinion is. My first thoughts were that (in Search at least) it’s just one ‘also ran’ buying another ‘also ran’, nothing too inspiring. I still think that’s true but it’s worth underscoring the fact that Microsoft are betting their business on Search and in turn on advertising. Over the last few years Microsoft have started transitioning to a ‘Software as a Service’ model and services in general (think Xbox Live), this is clearly an important extension of that. A lot of people see this as a bid to rival Google in Search but if you start applying the advertising model to IM, Flickr and perhaps even gaming.
As an industry gaming has grown to be larger than both the movie and music industries and the power to be able to sell-through ads into the Xbox dashboard and even into billboards and scenery inside games could be a huge market. I’m not sure that we (the public) will find out but look for signs of an API allowing developers to integrate Yahcrosoft ads into games, the buzz about in-game ads has been building for a while but it’s been crying out for a standard for developers to work to, well – here it is. On top of all that remember that there’s plenty of other cool stuff in the deal including Flickr (note that things like this are exactly the reason I stayed away from Flickr). It’ll be a while before this actually make a difference but keep your eyes open…
This blog post has also been cross-posted on my specialist gaming blog, hosted on the Gamercast Network.
written by thirtyfootscrew
\\ tags: gaming, Merger, Microsoft, Search, xbox, xbox live, Yahcrosoft, yahoo
How new are webcams? Not very – I remember them knocking around at least 8-10 years ago but as soon as this product was announced I knew I was going to buy it, now it’s finally arrived and quite frankly I love it.
For those (unlike me) who don’t obsessively follow gaming news I am talking about the Xbox Live Vision Camera, essentially a webcam built specifically for Microsoft’s Xbox 360 games console. As far as I can tell, this is no better or worse than an averagely priced PC webcam, at £34.99 it’s not a steal but I think it’s worth the price given that you get a free game bundled in as well. One criticism is that the bundled game has been around for ages so lots of people have already shelled out for it only to find they could have had it for free, I would have liked to see either a new game or just extra content bundled with the camera.
The camera enables you to do a few things, firstly having a video-chat with your friends over Xbox Live – this is pretty good and the picture quality is good but I was a little disappointed that you can’t be doing other things at the same time (browsing Marketplace, etc). Another neat feature is that you can now take your picture and use it as your personal ‘gamertile’ – this is only visible to your friends (to avoid people using their own backside as their avatar) but is pretty cool nonetheless. My picture at the moment is the logo from Ghostbusters which I took by pointing the camera at a DVD case.
The game that comes with the camera is UNO and is distributed via Xbox Live Arcade, to get this you must, redeem the code that comes in the pack and download the game as no disk comes in the box. The game itself is a simple but higly addictive card game and will need no introduction to most people, I didn’t know it but had played a very similar game before so picked it up really quickly. The graphics are simple but always sharp and clear, the controls are intuitive and the game is really a joy to play – it even got my non-gaming cousin interested in playing.
The video in-game replaces the the part of the screen where your avatar would normally be seen and is quite a fun addition to the gameplay, my friend Private Custard (also see website) and I spent ages just messing around with the camera whilst playing UNO – hilarious but very silly fun!
written by thirtyfootscrew
\\ tags: console, gaming, Microsoft, vision camera, webcam, xbox, xbox live