if connected

Way back when, every mobile gadget aimed to fill in little gaps in people’s day: dead times like waiting for a bus, walking to a train, or perhaps when out at lunch.

I’m struck by how the dead time opportunity no longer exists. Every morning I take the tube to work. Ten years ago people read newspapers, or books, or just stood and avoided eye contact. The latter may be just a London thing. Now, everyone is fiddling with their phone, tapping emails on a Blackberry, listening to music on mp3 players, or playing games on Nintendos. I even saw someone with a Sony Ebook reader on the way home last night. Result: There is no dead time left to fill. People already have multiple fun or work options that help them to avoid boredom.

So, 2009′s new mobile phones, other devices or mobile software have to displace an existing digital activity. In fact, they have to compete with multiple digital options as well as books, newspapers and the ubiquitous freesheets. This is hard. For Londoners, it’s never been easier to avoid eye contact underground.

We’re in the run up to MWC, when the great of the mobile industry will make their major 2009 product launches. To succeed, these products have to be: attractive to persuade people to buy them; be easy to take along all the time (so are light, small and have a long battery life); and deliver a compelling enough experience that people reach for that device or launch that application/game/music/movie/website/social network on a regular basis.

The death of dead time means that to succeed, companies have to father the birth of excellence.

Doesn’t matter how fast a gadget or a PC’s components are on paper. All that matters is how fast something feels in use. Examples:

• Writing a letter on a PC is only faster if the user types faster than handwriting. Give someone an unfamiliar azerty keyboard and the same PC will feel slow.
• Crashes don’t just lose data, they slow users down even if no data is lost, as users have to re-launch apps or reboot.
• Same kit can behave at different speed. This laptop shuts down in between 30 seconds and two minutes in Vista. But in Mac OS it takes just 8-10 seconds.
• iPhone feels fast as it shows a stock image of each application while the app loads. There’s also no hourglass to remind the user that something is happening slowly.
• Having to slide out the qwerty keyboard on my Windows Mobile TyTn then typing an SMS, takes longer than tapping on the iPhone keypad to send a short SMS.
• Nintendo DS games automatically remember what stage a player is at; PSP games often don’t. Or on resuming, many PSP games force players to go back to a checkpoint. The gameplay repetition that results makes the PSP feel slow.
• Downloading a game in the latest PS3 OS software feels faster than it did. Why? It’s now possible to download in the background and for the console to auto-power off when the download finishes. Result: user doesn’t have to sit and wait before being able to turn off power. Download still takes the same length of time.

All users care about is how fast something feels. Not what the hardware specs say.

This is a follow-up to yesterday’s post on understanding the game console makers’ strategies.
The console owners approach to video on demand (VOD) and TV also highlights their divergent marketing:
PS3 and Sony – See the PS3 as a TV and video hub, with content available for remote access using a PSP. They will launch a digital TV tuner later this year that will enable consumers to record TV onto the console’s hard drive (but the availability date has slipped), and will help expose the PS3′s video abilities to consumers. On demand is also a key focus, as is securing pay TV operator partnerships. But, Sony are uninterested, so they say, in securing BBC iPlayer content.
Microsoft Xbox 360 – Have an on demand platform live in the US and UK with pay per view movies and TV. Separately, they’ve also struck a VOD deal with BT so Xbox can act as a player for BT’s video on demand content. Microsoft have little free, or no, on demand TV content with which to grow the consoles video audience. They are trying to monetise a nascent activity — video consumption on consoles — before developing a video-watching console audience. Like Sony, Microsoft appear ambivalent to building Xbox360 iPlayer support.
Nintendo Wii – Say video and TV is not a core focus, and the Wii is all about games and expanding the games market. However, together with the BBC, Nintendo have enabled BBC iPlayer support, which Nintendo plan to draw consumers to use their Wii’s more. In particular, like the Wii news or weather channel, iPlayer will encourage members of Wii-owning households who do not use the Wii for games, to try it, thus securing more games revenues…
With >1 million weekly users of the PC version of iPlayer, just months after launch, I know which of the above strategies makes more sense.
Unfortunately for ISPs, all of the above will increase their broadband cost base… as consumers watch more high quality Internet-delivered video… which hits ISP networks and for which ISPs currently have no revenue-driving value chain position. More on this point later.

Want to understand the positioning of the leading consoles? Ignore the talk. Look at actions. There’s nothing that highlights the faultline better than console makers’ current marketing campaigns:
GTA IV (MS and Sony) vs Wii Fit (Nintendo).
Microsoft and Sony are pushing GTA4 hard. The former with exclusive downloadable content, the latter with a special edition PS3. The GTA series clearly appeals to core gamers: they’re applying its teachings to the real world by stealing the game. Piracy is near impossible to stop through force and legal action alone, tactics to counter piracy need to win over hearts and mind, not encourage theft! Read this Jupiter report to understand the aspects of piracy that most impact ISPs in 2008 and their response.
Nintendo continues to invent new markets for games consoles and to differentiate. With Wii Fit they hope to replicate Brain Training’s success on the DS and open up the Wii to new audiences. In Europe, early indications are that Nintendo is succeeding and matching its earlier Japanese success (>1.6 million Wii Fits sold).

Skype is continuing to become a more ubiquitous communications service. Now, it arrives on the PSP. Skype is being offered for free to new PSP owners and to older ones that choose to upgrade their firmware. This distribution method will push Skype in front of a large number of users that have bought PSP’s for other reasons (and despite the positive press noise around Nintendo’s DS, the PSP continues to sell steadily and has a large installed base in Europe).
Free availability of Skype makes the PSP version ideal for occasional usage where a consumer would be put off by any up-front charge for the Skype software.
Ubiquitous Skype delivers location free — “in the cloud” — communications. What do I mean? When a user logs on to Skype, they always have instant access to their up to date contact list without having to re-enter any details or set up some awkward sync process; they use their normal outgoing and incoming Skype telephone numbers; or listen to their voicemails; etc.
However, the PSP version’s drawbacks will limit its usage to certain scenarios, mainly when other versions of Skype are not immediately available to the user in that location:

• No speakerphone. The user has to remember to carry a headset with them.
• The PSP headset is bulky. A user has to own/buy both the remote control cable and the special Skype headset. The combined cable length is several times longer than needed.
• Incoming calls issue. Skype on PSP cannot run in the background while the user is playing games, so its utility for incoming calls is pretty limited as the user has to leave Skype running and be connected to a WiFi hotspot and not be playing a game. I’m unsure whether this version supports Skype voicemail (some non-PC versions of Skype do but some don’t).
• No keyboard. A tremendous amount of Skype usage is text instant messaging before, after, or instead of making a voice call. The PSP has no physical keyboard and no touch screen to enable handwritten text messages.

Regardless of the above. Skype on PSP will prove useful to PSP owners that don’t own a mobile phone that can run Skype (either directly or via Fring), or that don’t routinely carry a laptop, or that don’t routinely leave a PC switched on all the time at home, or that don’t own a Nokia N810 Internet tablet (more Skype features supported, speakerphone, keyboard).
Related reports for more insights:
Instant Messaging Growth, Quantifying the Link Between Skype, IM, and Social Networks.
Competing with Free Communications,
Delivering Revenues from Rising Consumer Adoption of Digital Communications

The BBC reports there were 185,000 UK sales of the PSP in the first four days. This is extremely good for a console that has had little advance advertising and that’s launching six months after the US (suffering grey import sales in the interim).
However, this is very early days. Sony’s success must be judged on PSP sales over the entire Christmas run up, as well as how the vital games sold per console ratios develop.

I’m in love with the PSP. The design is beautiful and the games are amazing. WipEout Pure on its own justifies buying a PSP, even if you never take the PSP out of the house. Several other launch titles are excellent as well (for example Lumines and Ridge Racer).
Yet I’m not sure if the PSP is really a portable device:

• The UMD disk format leads to annoying loading times and non-instant switch on. This is not good on the bus or tube.
• The games are so intense and involving it’s easy to forget where you are. They are extremely close to PS2 games in style. Again, this is hardly a good thing with an expensive, shiny and new device in your hands in a public place.
• The PSP itself is a little on the large side. On the positive, battery life is considerably better than I was expecting and the 3rd party usb charge cable I’m using makes topping up the battery very convenient.
• The widely reported region-free games are not as internationally-portable as the publicity suggests. Yes, if you have a European PSP and are travelling in Japan or the US you can buy a game there and play it on a European console. But when you return home you will not be able to play multiplayer with your friends (I tried US and European WipEout and Lumines and neither worked). Equally, if you want to challenge overseas colleagues to a game, you need to make sure both copies of the game originated in the same region.

Sony has the ability to fix multiplayer with software updates: they’ve already added improved WiFi security with WPA, AVC video playback, and added a web browser as part of the PSP’s version 2 software update.
For Sony, this is part of the bigger dilemma: how to encourage word of mouth sales without damaging the core PSP business model. Technical reasons aside, I see no business value to Sony of allowing other region games to be played and at the same time preventing cross-region multiplayer. Sony should either open up game region features entirely or move to conventional region coding. This in-between approach benefits no one.