At the start of the week, Sony promised a big announcement that had people speculating if the long-awaited Playstation 3 price cut had finally arrived. Instead, they announced they were cutting the price of the Playstation 2 to $99, and the wagging tongues gave way to scratching heads. Was it an early April Fool's joke before the announcement of the real thing? (No announcement of a PS3 price cut has come yet, so the answer to that was, nope).
Sony also became the first of the major gaming companies to take a shot at OnLive – which led to the revelation that they've trademarked "PS Cloud," which had some speculating they were going into cloud computing.
Speaking of the cloud, there was some progression in one of the favorite ways to cloud-surf, the Netbook. EeePC became the first of the little computers to get a DVD drive, which will doubtlessly bring more people into the community of Netbook users – lack of removable media has been one of the system's few drawbacks. Hewlitt-Packard considered using Android to power Netbooks, which would be a big victory for Google and a big worry for Microsoft.
The latter two companies clashed in another very big arena this week – E-books. It was revealed the Microsoft is apparently involved in the legal action against Google over its book scanning project. This signaled a new escalation of hostilities in the E-book wars, which may become a very hot legal battlefield very quickly.
Streaming media, meanwhile, had its ups and downs. Funimation cut a deal with Studio Gonzo for stateside distribution of its product which put a big emphasis on online transmission and barely mentioned DVDs. Veoh, meanwhile, underwent restructuring, including layoffs (although it may have been given a shot in the arm by Funimation), Hulu attempted to use encryption to thwart access by non-browser apps, and YouTube yanked music videos in Germany after contract lapses, pointing the way toward increasing disputes over rights and lockouts in the video wars. Analysts also predicted the latter company would lose almost $500 million this year – they're dominant in everything but advertising.
Several companies dove into the multimedia synergy pool. Anime producer Kadokawa Shoten set up its own video game subsidy. Disney purchased the kids' media site Kaboose, while Electronic Arts announced its much-anticipated Dante's Inferno game will have a companion animated DVD. Multimedia is a smart marketing strategy when it comes to just about anything – plus, in the case of Kadokawa Shoten, it lets them keep complete control over the transition from one media to another.
Meanwhile, despite the recession, there was big-money news from a couple of online giants. Google (yes, them again) set up a $100 million venture fund for startup operations – good news for tech entrepreneurs across the spectrum. And Facebook raised speculation about an IPO after its CFO left the company. (There was also speculation, however, that the move may be symptomatic of greater unrest within the company).
In publishing, there was light at the end of the tunnel depite continued bad news like the Chicago Sun-Times bankruptcy and the threat by the New York Times to shut down the Boston Globe if their contract demands aren't met. Journalists who lost their jobs in print can now look forward to a new lease on life in professional blogging. The Huffington Post bankrolled a venture under which journalists will be paid to investigate economic ma tters, while AOL hired unemployed sports journalists to staff its FanHouse site. The newspaper, it seems, is not disappearing after all – it's just mutating into a new, electronic form.
– Bonnie