Where My Mind has Wandered

Pokemon Go Is/Is Not Dead

In July of this year Pokemon Go swept across most of the planet like a digital tsunami. The countries it did not reach was actually a story for a while, and Olympians lamented their inability to catch Pokemon in Brazil. Pokemon Go was as intense a consumer tech news phenomenon as we have seen in quite a while.  

And now? Picture tumbleweeds.  

As measured by Google Trends search volume for the term "Pokemon Go" leapt from 1 on a scale of 1 to 100 on July 4, to 100 eight days later on July 12. It took eight days to go from the least searched about thing on the internet to the most searched about thing. As of today search volume for the term is down to 12 on the scale.  

Another telling measure is my 14 year-old. In late July the boy who only spoke to his friends on Skype while playing games such as Overwatch, League of Legends, and CSGO was suddenly taking walks with his friends in order to recapture Pokemon Gyms. In August he and his friends were watching old episodes of the TV show out of nostalgia. By labor day he declared the game dead and he is starting to look pale again.  

My 11 year-old tends to concur with his older brother. He believes the game to be 'mostly dead'. He is unlikely to open the app, unless I say there is a Squirtle nearby. He does not play it without some sort of prompt, but knows others in school who continue to actively play.  

And adults? I still play out of a combination of professional curiosity (I want to see how it evolves) and a somewhat addictive personality. I am just about to hit level 20 and I am only 5 km from my 100 km medal. That I know those two things should be enough to explain my level of engagement. 

The landscape I just painted, interestingly enough, is the exactly what the Pokemon audience has been for years. I learned this from the folks at Nintendo in London through work. The Pokemon sweet-spot is pretty young, the majority of their consumers are in elementary school. Most kids age out of the brand entirely, although some will continue to collect merchandise even though they stop playing the card game, video game and no longer watch the TV show. There is even a hard core which stays involved as adults. Nintendo has never found a way – or perhaps been willing to invest enough – to retain active brand enthusiasts as they age out of the sweet spot. They do what they can in the field, but HQ has never seen a real compelling reason to invest. Part of that reluctance on the part of leadership is due to living in the bubble of Tokyo, where Nintendo's brand is a behemoth in so many ways. But to be fair, how much would they really gain by investing more?  

Pokemon Go, for 60 days anyway, looked like it might represent a motivating reason to try and extend brand engagement to a wider, and older audience. And certainly Pokemon Go is not dead, but it has crested and will continue to fall in popularity. If Nintendo can figure out how to capitalize on the huge spike in brand awareness and brand nostalgia the game created -- for what is a very mature brand -- the company should have a very profitable holiday season.  

More importantly, back to the tumbleweed analogy. The tumbleweed is a plant that breaks off from its base when it dies and is carried along the ground by wind. Why does it do this? That is how it resows, dispersing seeds as the wind rolls it along. And that is exactly what I expect Pokemon Go to do. When all the clients got back from August vacation they called their agencies and demanded the next Pokemon go. Same is true for many mobile software studies and consumer brands. Make me the next Pokemon Go. 

How long will it be before we see the MARVEL version of Pokemon Go? Within the next year, certainly. MARVEL (I've worked with them, they really want the brand in ALL CAPS) -- has more than 700 characters. And those characters group easily into teams. Perhaps not the 347 teams listed in the MARVEL database, but they have many major categories including the Asgardians, Avengers, Brotherhood of Mutants, Deadpool Corps, Fantastic Four, Guardians of the Galaxy, Hydra, S.H.I.E.L.D., X-Men and more. Those groupings lend themselves to a much more interesting take on teams and battles than the limited offering from Pokemon Go. Of course, there is no reason D.C. Comics could not beat them to the punch.  

There are so many interesting ways to build upon what Niantic created with Pokemon Go, expanding and improving to make gameplay less repetitive and more sticky. Finding ways to incorporate short-term (think movie releases in the MARVEL analogy), partnerships and eCommerce. In brainstorms across the world teams of people are thinking about this. Many of them will get nowhere. No, the world does not need a motor oil branded version of Pokemon Go where you collect NASCAR drivers and cars. Or heaven forbid, a P&G version where we collect consumer products in the aisles at Target. But some, more appropriate ideas will succeed and I am looking for to seeing how the concept evolves. 

My point is that, like the dying tumbleweed, Pokemon Go is propagating even as its popularity wanes.  

 

It is no fun without Chelsea in form, so here is how I'd fix it

At the beginning of the BPL campaign I reveled in Chelsea's fall from the top. Not only was the club losing game after game, they were falling apart at the seams. Jose Mourinho proved himself a fair weather manager, contributing more than anyone to the club's disarray. He took a squad replete with talent but out of sorts and shredded their confidence. Sacking him was a good start to repairing the team, but I don't think Guus Hiddink is bold or creative enough to get them back in form. As impatient as their wealthy owner is, I suspect that issue will be dealt with soon enough.

First, let's look back at what went wrong.

Strikers. Loic Remy should have been a good signing. His pace and creativity would have provided a good contrast to Diego Costa's style of play. Costa plays with his back to the goal, acting as a pivot for the offense. He can create goals from time to time, and he is excellent at positioning himself to pounce on rebounds and deflections.  He is also a pain in the ass, too much for my taste. I wished he played a cleaner game. Remy can be a bolt lightening, slashing into the box or ripping a shot with incredible speed. Sadly for Chelsea fans Remy has been a near-permanent presence on the injured list, and Mourinho's misguided and damaging experiment with Hazard at striker did not help the team find a groove in front of net. Loanee Pato hasn't been given much chance to impact the team and Remy may not be healthy and in form until 2017.

Wingers. It looks like Willian has worked hard all season and remained above the fray judging by his performance. The same cannot be said for Hazard and Pedro. They were all over the field -- you never knew where they might be at any given time. That freedom of movement seemed to add to the chaos. Pedro's injuries and Mourinho's head games cemented the damage. The disarray created opportunities for Loftus-Cheek and Traore to display their talents, a silver lining in a cloudy season.

Midfielders. Of all the reasons to suffer weak midfield performance, too much talent is a frustrating one. Chelsea has a nice pool of midfield talent but could never pull it together. Midfield play suffered for two reasons: a poor defense and a bad scheme that did not take advantage of the talent in play. The Chelsea formation calls for one attacking center midfielder, yet the team has two solid ones in Oscar and Fabregas. And it calls for two defensive midfielders, yet the squad consistently underperformed defensively. 

Defense. What a mess. I was not a big fan of David Luis. I felt he risked too much with his rambles forward and left the defense exposed. But his departure for PSG must have had an impact on the chemistry of the back four. Had Chelsea kept him and used him as a center defensive mid they could have balanced his defensive skills with his offensive tendencies. Too much risk is also a problem at right and left back, where Azpilicueta was often out of position and Ivanovic's lack of pace saw him unable to recover against swift counter-attacks. Terry is a stalwart, but his two yellow cards at Sunderland today are plenty of evidence that he has lost a step.  In 2015/2016 what might have been a series of timely interceptions turned into yellow cards for late challenges. This campaign he acquired seven cards, the most cards since 2011/2012 when he amassed 10. Cahill is perhaps solid but does not inspire. Zouma has tremendous upside but is now out with injury until 2017. Ivanovic has fallen apart in front of my eyes. His lack of effort and heart as it all fell apart was the most depressing and damning part of his game. Young Baba Abdul Rahman has made some terrible mistakes at left back, but he has tremendous potential.

So what should the next manager do to bring the club back into contention and relevance? One thing going for Chelsea is the relative age of their squad. Despite a few notable dinosaurs, the average age is only 26 and the team has stockpiled a lot of very young, talented players. Hazard, Zouma, Baba, Oscar, and Courtois, Loftus-Cheek and Atsu are all 24 or younger andare first team quality. A dozen players on the bench -- including Kenedy, Blackman, Salah, Ake, van Ginkel, Chalobah, Omeru, Pasalic, McEachran, Bamford, Kalas, and Piazon -- are all 22 or younger. If even a third of those players can step-up Chelsea has a bright future.

But what to do in 2016/2017 while those young players mature?

I'd be inclined to completely rehab the back four and change the formation in midfield with a goal of fortifying the defense while bringing more offensive pressure and stability to the attack. 

To begin with, anchor Pedro, Willian and Hazard to the left and right wing and have them largely stay in position. They are all incredibly talented, and having them range across the field less will bring some stability upon which the Chelsea offense can gel. Yes it means that you are always sitting one of the three, but imagine the impact of any one of them off the bench.

Then use Fabregas and Oscar as left and right center attacking midfielders. That gives you five players on attack, all of whom bring firepower and creativity. You end up sacrifice a defensive mid for an attacking mid -- switching from a 1-3-2-4 to a 1-4-1-4 -- but two defensive mids didn't really help Chelsea this year. Chelsea only managed nine clean sheets in the BPL this campaign, two of which were against hapless Aston Villa, and three of which were nil-nil draws.

Chelsea has a few candidates for a classic center defensive mid, starting with Nemanja Matic and John Obi Mikel. Heading into the campaign Matic was considered one o the top 10 defensive midfielders in the game, while at times this season Mikel seemed even stronger. Together they would make a great center defensive mid shift. 

How do you strengthen the defense and drop a defensive mid at the same time? Keep the two full backs on defense. Azpilicueta is under contract until 2019, so he either needs to change his game so he has a more defensive posture, or they need to find someone else who can do it on via transfer. And Baba Abdul Rahman has looked terrible at times this season, he is 21, under contract until 2020, and chock full of potential. I would keep him at left back and train him up. Ivanovic's contract is up and he should not be part of the club's mix going forward. Keeping both speedy full backs defensively oriented will  protection against counter attacks and stabilize the defense. They are both fast and skilled enough to provide high-pressure and help control possession, they just need to improve defensively and focus should help.

Then upgrade at center back. Zouma will be back in 2017, so you can count on him for the future starting in January. Chelsea has two young center backs that could be Zouma's partner for years to come. Michael Hector, the Reading defender Chelsea signed in the last hours of the September window, and Matt Miazga who was signed in the January window from the Red Bulls. Both apparently have potential, and ideally one of them would be ready by January to play every day. Until Zouma gets back Cahill can soldier on. With his contract expiring in the Summer of 2017 it may make sense to transfer him in the January if either Hector or Miazga is ready to step up. But that still leaves Chelsea short a center back for the first half of the season while Zouma recovers, giving Chelsea some work to do in the offseason. Finding a solid, seasoned defenseman should be doable. I have been impressed by the solid play this season from a number of 30+ year -old center backs, including Younes Kaboul, Robert Huth, and Wes Morgan. Even Kolo Toure has been an impact player in the second half. While they can elect to re-sign Cahill, Chelsea would do well to find an affordable, experienced center back who could log a season or two and help mentor the team' young defenders.

The most important component in these recommendations is the stability involved in focusing players on their positions and roles. The team is coming off a bad, chaotic year and has a lot of young players. Stability and focus would first bring consistency to their play, and create a solid base upon which they can again develop creative chemistry. 

As long as they stay at least one place in the standings behind Arsenal when they return to form I will be happy.

How to Improve Arsenal for the 2016/2017 Campaign

Arsenal fans are a spoiled lot in many ways. Every year the team is in the top four in the league and in European play. But it is also true that being agonizingly close to winning the league and falling short can pluck your nerves and make you forget how good things are.

Barring a rash of injuries when Arsenal seemed to be in a sweet groove, I think Arsenal would have been competing with Leicester City for the title, and might have won it outright by now. This year Ramsey, Cech, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Rosicky, Sanchez, Arteta, Carzola, Flamini, Coquelin, Walcott, Wilshire, Rosicky, Koscielny and Welbeck missed more than 30 days each. That is hard to overcome.

Late October through November was the first bucket of cold water in the face, when the team lost Oxlade-Chamberlain, Walcott, Bellerin, Koscielny, Debuchy, Coquelin, Arteta, Sanchez, Carzola and Flamini to injuries. The team endured a short month of EPL games without a win. The loss of Carzola and Coquelin was particularly tough, as the two had developed a rhythm in the 1-3-2-4 formation. The two anchored the midfield as defensive midfielders, but Coquelin's more defensive posture let Carzola slash forward to support the offense, while his speed allowed him to hustle back as needed. It took a while for Ramsey and Elneny to settle in as replacements.

In the new year the changing mix of midfielders and forwards didn't quite gel the way they had in the first half of the season, when tight, one-touch passes at the edge of the box created goal after goal. The post-injury performance of Alexis Sanchez is emblematic of the problem. Once he returned to the squad from injury he seemed to dribble too much as he fought to recover his form. The quick one touch passes and dynamic cuts he made in the fall were largely gone. With all the injuries the team's chemistry in front of the goal was hard to sustain, and it should be no surprise that Mesut Ozil had 17 EPL assists by mid-February and is still stuck on 18 in early May.

Olivier Giroud's lack of second half production has more to do with the ever changing cast around him that it really does with his own form. Giroud is an under appreciated post-player, to sneak in a basketball analogy. Many of Arsenal's jaw-dropping goals from the first half of the season involved Giroud, usually with his back to the goal and a defender pinned against him, playing a one-touch pass back to a slashing teammate in a classic give-and-go. Giroud is still holding the ball up at the edge of the box pretty well, but sees far fewer players cutting to lay the ball off to. Too much of the offense at this point involves Ozil lofting a soft cross into the box. Those passes are more effective when they are part of a mix. With fewer slashing runs defenses can sit back and wait to pick off those crosses.

Yet Arsenal still manages to eke out goals. In February and March it was really injuries to Koscielny that I think hurt the team the most. He is remarkably reliable on defense and will effectively dribble into a seam to advance the ball when the opposing team sits back and takes away forward passing lanes. Gabriel Paulista was too inconsistent as a replacement and the defense suffered. Losing Pers Mertesacker for a spell did not help, as Paulista lacked Mertesacker's ability to head away inbound crosses. 

So how to improve the team for the next campaign? It may not be a popular course of action with fans who always want more strikers, but I would focus on improving and adding depth to the back four.

Add a rock solid center back -- While I have gained a grudging respect for Mertesacker, his lack of pace is a liability against fast counter-attacking teams. At 31 he is not getting any faster, so he really should sit out when the match-ups do not favor him. At 25 years of age one would expect that Paulista will only improve and can be the other half of the rotation at right center back. He did improve as he got more playing time. But is Arsenal the kind of team that knows how to train and mentor a center back? I have my doubts. I'd be more comfortable for the next two to three years having another really solid center back the team could rely on, especially with all the injuries Arsenal seems to endure.

Add a left back -- Yes Nacho Monreal is very much an Arsene Wenger kind of player. He lacks the pace of Bellerin, but he works incredibly hard and is constantly touching the ball. Ozil seems to have no problem laying the ball off to him or finding him on an overlap, which is an important vote of confidence. But he has trouble defending crosses from the weak side, in part because he is only 5' 10". His back-up Kieran Gibbs -- who is the same height and only weighs 142 pounds -- is hardly a defensive presence. At 6'0" Calum Chambers has more size, but he has primarily been a right back and he seems to have lost Wenger's favor. He has only started twice in the Premier League and has only 21 appearances in all competitions this campaign after appearing in 36 matches the prior season. He is only 21, so he has plenty of time to develop. A loan might be a good idea to get him some consistent playing time. Adding a well-balanced left back would give the team some needed depth and allow them to field a stronger defensive line when needed.

If the team can keep the midfielders and forwards relatively healthy they can win the league with the offense that is already in place. And the team has much more depth at midfield anyway. It is the defense that needs some improvement and depth. The expiring contracts of Flamini, Rosicky, and Arteta create room on the roster and free up £230,000 a week in salary. I'd be inclined to move along Gibbs and Debuchy and free up another £125,000 a week. That leaves plenty of money to shore up the defense and still add a winger or midfielder. Over the past three seasons Arsenal have been net sellers as well, bringing in 37 players and selling 56, suggesting that there may be some transfer money laying around.

What does the future hold for Manchester City's Aging Roster and the Team's New Manager?

The English Premier League is big stakes, big money, and big personalities, so I should not be surprised that Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al Nahyan is bringing in Pep Guardiola to replace Manuel Pellegrini as manager at Manchester City. After all, they pursued him in 2012 before he joined Bayern Munich and by all accounts told him they wanted him when he was ready.

But it is still pretty fascinating that Man City is dropping a pretty successful manager in Manuel Pellegrini. Yes, Pep is the hot ticket these days. And clearly he is on a mission to get into the EPL, as heading Barcelona and Bayern Munich -- two of the finest clubs on the planet -- apparently did not satisfy him. Consider that not only did the team win the league title and the FA cup once each within Pellegrini's three year window the team, they will also finish in the top four in the league every year. And they made it to the semi finals in the Champions League this year. 

Perhaps the owner expected more, especially after the club won the league title and the cup in Pellegrini's first year. He has managed the team when many of his players were in their prime ages of 26 to 29 years-old. The one line of reasoning that makes sense for me is that the Man City roster is now getting old. Most of the everyday players are between 30 and 34 years old. Maybe bringing in a new manager now at the front end of a roster transition is a good idea.

But Guardiola left Barcelona when most of his everyday players were still in their mid to late 20s, so he has not had to manage an age-based transition like this before. When he joined Barca in 2008 a lot of the core players were already on the roster (Messi, Xavi, Busquets, Iniesta, Alves, Puyol, Pedro, Pique, Valdes, Dos Santos). Granted they added some great players at both Barca and Bayern when he was at the helm, but Barca was a young squad and Bayern's current squad, while starting to age in spots, has more young players and is younger on average that Man City's.

Perhaps Pep's tenure at FC Barcelona B, where he managed many of Barca's young stars before they were promoted, holds some attraction as Man City looks to transition?

But I suspect it was a 'win now' decision more than an investment in the future. It will be interesting to watch Guardiola manage an aging roster while under what will be intense pressure and high expectations from the club's owner and fans.

Nerfed Starwars Battlefront ... From Sublime to Tedious

As someone who played the original Battlefront games, and played the new Beta, I know the franchise well. When the game launched I maxed out within a relatively short time, as I was one of the few jet black storm troopers running around each map. I enjoyed it immensely. You could play a variety of styles and succeed. There was no bias towards a short or long game.

Then came the nerfing. The development team decided the game needed some fixing post launch, so the came in an significantly changed a host of weapons. Some are simply useless at this point. The Homing Torpedo went from a fun weapon that could easily generate 20 kills a round to a useless hunk of metal that might generate one kill every 20 rounds. While other changes are less dramatic, the overall impact is severe. The game went from a favorite of mine to one I find pretty unplayable.

And that is disappointing, because as a fan of the franchise I was hoping to be able to enjoy the game for a long time. Instead, I find the nerfed game to be tedious. All the joy is gone. I think I may just hang my blaster up for good.

 

 

 

 

Game of War has a Mariah Carey Problem

Game of War has a Mariah Carey problem. How can I tell? The mobile ads in the current campaign for the mobile app are changing at a furious pace, and many ads are running that do not feature Ms. Carey. This is likely a sign that the ads that initially broke with the campaign are not performing to the levels that Game of War owner Machine Zone desires, and may be underperforming the previous campaign.

The trades covered the launch of the new campaign featuring Ms. Carey, and gave the creators credit for juxtaposing Ms. Carey's 1993 hit song Hero with a background of medieval warfare in the main campaign video. Many writers credited the main video with being funny and a little campy … which can work very well in video. But Machine Zone uses static ads for Game of War on most mobile platforms, including in-game ads. The ads, which feature the highly retouched chanteuse in medieval armor, a sword held casually over her shoulder, are unable to communicate any of the elements that supposedly make the original video engaging.

This is not an uncommon problem when the genesis of the campaign is a one-liner that requires audio and/or video to sinks its hook. You can also tell that the creatives are limited to a few similar images of Ms. Carey. The core image -- heavily, heavily retouched and likely the product of several dozen rounds of approval -- has probably become a set of handcuffs to the creative team. If the team did not shoot enough alternative poses and angles at the photo shoot they are stuck, because they can't afford to get her in the studio again. And even if they have few alternates to work with, getting approval to use them is a hill they may not want to die on. I can imagine that there is a cottage industry of people around Ms. Carey that would make securing approval on additional imagery a living hell. So they have changed the layout, cropped the image in a myriad of ways, and picked it clean on different backgrounds, but it doesn't look like anything is working because ads without Ms. Carey keep making it into the rotation.

Tweaking a campaign to maximize performance is smart, and savvy teams can be relentless in their pursuit of better performance. But sometimes it feels a bit desperate, and this is one of those times. For me the situation raises a host of questions and some probable lessons in what to do, and what not to do when working with celebrity talent on a mutli-platform campaign.

The first question is why did Machine Zone switch from their Kate Upton campaign to Ms. Carey in the first place? The rights to use a celebrity in a campaign are negotiated up front and expire after a set time period. Buying the rights out permanently is typically prohibitively expensive. Odds are the rights on Kate Upton were up. Machine Zone may have made the decision not to renew, or perhaps they had always planned to move onto a new campaign. In my experience ad agencies will aways push for new creative because a new campaign is a pathway to higher revenues.

In the 60 days following the launch of the Kate Upton TV ad, Game of War: Fire Age in-game purchases reportedly doubled, suggesting the ad campaign was having a significant impact. An article in Fortune suggested an attempt to raise $500 million in additional funding was tied to the expense of the Upton campaign. Now Kate Upton was still an "it girl" when the campaign featuring her was a talking point of the 2015 Superbowl. She had been in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit edition five times, on the cover three times, made eating a burger x-rated in Carl's Jr. commercials, and was still (and is still) an internet phenomenon.

Her demographics certainly skewed young, and much younger than Mariah Carey's. And like her demographics, she herself is very young, turning just 23 years old this June. Mariah Carey is 45 years old. She is attractive and accomplished and has high name recognition, and she could not be more different than Kate Upton. While Kate Upton's fans find her anywhere they look on the Internet, Mariah Carey's fans find her plugging away at Caeser's Palace five nights a week, or on the Ellen Degeneres show. 

I am a tad older than Ms. Carey and have pretty broad musical tastes, but I cannot name a single one of her songs. Apparently 18 of those songs have hit number one. Who knew? I think you have to be at least in your mid-fifties to be a fan of hers, if not older. The song that was chosen for the launch video ad was a hit 22 years ago! That means you have to be in your ate 30s nor early 40s to have any nostalgia for the song, or to have a good chance of even recognizing it. I don't have anything against Ms. Carey, she has just never really been on my radar. It was not until her cameo in Adam Sandler's ridiculous movie You Don't Mess With The Zohan that she appeared as a blip and I thought, "hey maybe she has a sense of humor?"

So was the switch to Ms. Carey a deliberate, strategic move to appeal to older consumers? There are plenty of research studies that show the consumers who spend money on free-to-play and freemium mobile games tend to skew much older and much more female than console and PC game players. There is no secret there. Was Ms. Carey proposed by the creative team to reach an older, female audience? Or had they had already thought of the basic video concept and sold her in on the creative alone? Or did some senior executive decide he or she wanted to work with a celebrity that meant something to them? I have no insight into the decision, I simply don't know. But beyond sticking with a celebrity campaign it was a remarkable change in direction.

Another questions is why is the creative toolkit for the campaign so limited? To this question I suspect the answer is simple: money. The more simple the ask of the celebrity, the more limited the nature of the creative, the less expensive the production costs are and the less expensive the usage rights. I have run into this in plenty of negotiations myself. I have heard CEOs say "go big, but limit the costs as much as possible." Which is like buying a Lotus and saying you can't leave the driveway. Actually, more like renting a Lotus and saying you can't leave the rental lot.

The problem with throttling a celebrity-based campaign in that manner is that you choke it of the funds you need to have an impact worthy of the investment in the celebrity. You run into a return on investment problem, and nothing draws my ire like spending money with no ROI. I always counsel right-sizing the budget to maximize ROI. I'd rather have money available to inject into a campaign that performs better than expected than locking into an aggressive ad buy that underperforms.

We can also ask why Machine Zone used an established celebrity at all? There can be great value in finding an up-and-coming or just discovered performer. Find the next Kate Upton but sign her the year of her first Sports Illustrated issue. Or just use an attractive model. They could have even licensed the Mariah Carey song if they were married to the creative, but spent millions less by substituting a model for Ms. Carey in the ad itself.

When Machine broke the Kate Upton campaign they were making a statement. They took a big step out of their peer group, which had produced limited broadcast advertising most of which was comprised of animation. Signing a celebrity and running a Superbowl ad was a statement about where the brand wanted to go and it was a way to differentiate the brand for consumers. The decision to stay the course and sign another celebrity suggests the first campaign succeeded and Machine Zone wanted to double down. The ROI on that decision is an unknown at this point, but we will continue to see clues in how the campaign plays out over the coming months.

The holy father of all brand problems.

No disrespect intended, but the Catholic church has a brand problem. Combine managment scandals, transparency issues, sex scandals, and positions on social issues that make conservative Republicans look soft and cuddly and you have an organization with a tarnished image. 

Can the newly elected Pope help address these issues? I'm no Vatican expert, but a bold change in leadership can be a step in the right direction, and Pope Francis already has some characteristics that can help the brand. First and foremost is his perceived humility, which is an important post-scandal quality. As a man born outside of Western Europe who never lived or worked within the Vatican he can also claim outsider status, which can be an important quality during a period of reform.

Is a humble 78-year-old outsider the right choice to reform the Curia? Maybe, maybe not. One would have to think that the Cardinals who elected him thought he could make a difference, assuming that was a priority during the conclave. Certainly the perception of corruption and mismanagement needs to be superceeded with something new and different. It will be interesting to observe over the next few years. 

Will the new breed of portable gaming consoles succeed?

As to be expected, there are many stories and trends emerging from CES. One that intrigues me is the emergence, and albeit slow, maturation of mid-sized PC gaming consoles.  By mid-sized I am referring to something larger than a handheld gaming device (i.e. the PlayStation Vita or Nintendo DS) but smaller than an Xbox 370 or PlayStation 3. They are meant to be portable, and used either as a handheld or tabletop device, but provide the kind of robust gaming experience more associated with consoles than small handhelds. By maturation think growing from a tween to a teen, but not yet entering the real world of adulthood (or significant retail presence).

All of these solutions are essentially an extension of PC-gaming into handheld territory, except for the Wii U GamePad. The success of the segment would do a lot for the PC platform, which has seen sales of games ticking constantly upwards even as sales of games for consoles have flattened out.

The dominant storylines in this space have been that consoles are morphing into home entertainment hubs, meant as much for streaming films as playing video games, while PCs have outpaced consoles in delivering performance. And even though it is harder and harder to find PC titles in retail stores, e-commerce and the migration to downloaded content and the success of Steam has more than made up for the declining retail footprint. These storylines are accurate, but I can’t help feeling that a lot of PC sales data, which includes downloads of Temple Run, online subscriptions and revenue from freemium ad sales hopelessly skews the PC vs. console comparison.

But are these mid-range-PC console hybrids being developed for Angry Birds? Probably not, and I don’t envision the new owners of a Razer Edge spending their time playing Bejewled. I don’t think you can claim console gaming is dying, as many have tried to, any more than you can claim that the upward trajectory for PC game title sales will guarantee the success of the emerging mid-size PC gaming console. Will avid FPS and RPG gamers be willing to trade screen-size and performance for the convenience of play-anywhere portability?

What I am seeing, both as an avid gamer and someone who is interested in the industry, is that gamers move from device to device based upon their situation and will tailor their game play to the device they are using. My personal experience is probably fairly common. I will play a first-person shooter like Call of Duty on a PC or console, but find them unplayable on a tablet. I will play FIFA Soccer on a console, but never on a PC. I will simulate FIFA Soccer games in manager-mode on a tablet when commuting, but rarely play actual games because I find the controls so awkward on a tablet. I play Angry Birds on my phone and tablet, but the Xbox 360 copy of Angry Birds my son received as a holiday present is sitting, still shrink-wrapped on a shelf.

The latest research suggests my nomadic gaming existence is common among gamers. There is no doubt that smartphones and tablets are used for gaming, with a number of studies suggesting that gaming is ranked in the top-three most frequent uses of mobile devices. Data from a NewZoo study indicates that 22% of all American gamers play on all four screens (console, tablet, smartphone, and PC). What none of these studies will tell you is what people are playing on each of those screens. For a new category of handheld PC game devices to succeed they must find a sweet spot that matches features and titles that people will play on the new devices.

The two devices that are generating the most coverage from CES are the Nvidia Shield and the Razer Edge.

 

Shield from Nvidia

The Shield is a handheld Android device that Wired writer Chris Kohler described as a smartphone glued to an Xbox controller. Will people choose to play more complex games like Battlefield 3 or Assassins Creed on a 5-inch 1280x720p screen, even if the new 72-core NVIDIA GeForce^® GPU Quad-core A15 CPU can deliver the performance needed to do so (and I am not saying it can? )But the Shield features an HDMI out port that allows you to connect it to a TV, which can give you the large screen you want for a complex game. It remains to be seen if gamers will want the portability that the form factor offers. Perhaps they will, but not if big titles like Skyrim, Call of Duty, Mass Effect, and any of the EA Sports titles don’t perform well on the device.

From what I have read you aren’t going to find many of the big titles in the Android storefront, which is going to be a challenge for Android platforms like the Ouya. Your option for such titles then comes from PC streaming. If you have a pretty solid gaming PC in your house that as a GeForce 600 Series video card in it you can stream games from your PC to the handheld console. But that restricts game-play to your house, and I would think taking the console on the road would be its biggest selling point.

There are also some big questions with streaming. One is latency. While Nvidia describes it as ‘low-latency,’ and goes as far as to claim the platform has ‘no lag,’ no competitive multiplayer is going to spend a lot of time on a platform with latency, it will ruin their gaming experience. Only time will tell if the Shield can really deliver a lag-free experience over dual-band WiFi. This GameSport review suggests that perhaps the streaming performance is good enough. The biggest question for me, is that if you have already spent $1,000 to $2,500 on a sweet PC gaming rig, with a big, crisp screen with a $250+ graphics card, why in the world would you want to stream games from it to a 5-inch screen? It strikes me as a bit of a leap of faith. And I am not going to stream it just so I can play using my TV, because odds are I have traditional console in the house already hooked up to the TV.

 

Edge from Razer

The Edge from Razer is really a 10.1-inch Windows 8 tablet that has an optional, detachable two-handed gamepad controller. The Edge Pro model delivers the best performance specifications, with a Core i7 CPU, 8GB of RAM and up to a 256GB SSD. The Edge Pro is going to cost $1,300 and the controller adds $250, so this is an investment for avid gamers, not a tablet you might buy on a whim for the kids. For $1,550 you are only getting 1366 x 768 resolution. But while PC gamers will covet a nice 21-inch or larger screen running 1900 x 1200, 1366 x 768 is probably serviceable for a 10-inch screen. And nothing is stopping Razer from matching the 2048 x 1536 resolution of the iPad 3 except perhaps a limit on what people are willing to pay for such a device.

The benefit of the Edge for a serious gamer is that you can actually load full-blown PC games onto the device. You don’t have to rely on streaming like you do on the Shield, which means you can play the games you like anywhere, not just in your home. The challenge is that you need to find consumers who are willing to pay $1,500 to play their favorite games on a 10-inch screen. If I am home I probably want the large screen, so the portability is of marginal benefit, and do I really want to play Borderlands 2 on the subway? And if I do want to play Borderlands 2 on the subway, am I willing to spend $1,500 to make it happen?

 

Wii U GamePad

The Wii U GamePad from Nintendo is an interesting development that needs to be considered in a discussion of mid-sized portable game consoles. It is available only as part of the larger Wii U console package, but operates as a standalone device. The GamePad touchscreen is small, only 6.2 inches, and it only delivers 854 x4 80 resolution even though the Wii U console kicks out 1920 × 1080.

I have always thought of the Wii as a social gaming console, it is something you are more likely to use with two or more people rather than on your own. The Wii U GamePad challenges this a bit. You can only use two Wii U GamePads at the same time, and most software development, for now, is focused on single GamePad use or use in combination with a traditional controller. Then there is the nature of titles available for the Wii, which tend to be arcade-style games geared towards younger gamers. Would I play Super Mario Kart or LEGO Indiana Jones on the Wii U GamePad? Sure. Will I play the version of Mass Effect 3 that was ported over to the Wii U platform? It would not be my first choice for a game like that. Sales of the Wii U haven’t been over-the-top, and I doubt Nintendo’s Q4 2012 and Q1 2013 financials are going to be awe inspiring.

 

Xi3 Piston from Valve

Valve, the company behind the Steam online game storefront, which delivers PC-games via download, has announced that they are developing a simplified PC code named Piston that will connect to your TV and be driven with a console-like controller. This isn’t a portable PC console, but it does bridge the PC and the TV and it strikes me as having a better chance of succeeding than the PC-to-console streaming approach taken by Nvidia. With just a $99 dollar box (like an Apple TV) I can play Steam titles I already have purchased for the PC on my television. That sounds promising.

By this time next year we should have a better understanding of how these mid-size portable gaming consoles will perform. By then the next-generation Xbox and PlayStation consoles should on the market, we will have Shield and Edge will have some sales numbers, and we will know if developers are successfully (and enthusiastically) porting key titles to the Wii U and Android platforms.

Who is backing up the cloud?

More and more indiviudals and organizations have given up on tape and are backing their data up in the cloud. So where is the cloud getting backed up? It might just be on tape, which strikes me as a funny concept. For more read this interesting discussion between Don Jennings of Lois Paul & Partners and Jerome Wendt, founder and principal at DCIG.

London Underground and under water

Highlighted in articles covering the flooding of the Central Line today is the growing apprehension that the London Underground is simply not ready to handle traffic during the Olympics. After enduring two years of line closures and delays one might expect things would be improving, but in my experience things have not changed much at all. There are a few lines that are pretty reliable, including the Piccadilly Line which I use most nights to get home, but even that line is often impacted by delays. The Circle Line is often closed on weekends for repairs yet the tracks are still so uneven at many spots on the line that you will get thrown across the carriage if you are not holding on with an iron grip.

Perhaps the TFL has been focusing on just a few lines it considers critical for the Olympics, as it claims online. Although as I use the Covent Garden station every work day, I can confirm their claim that "There is now less congestion at Covent Garden station, with more space to exit" is absurd. If the TFL considers the minor changes made to that station a major improvement passengers during the Olymnpics are doomed.

If the Diamond Jubilee was the first test of the supposedly upgraded susyem, that test did not go well. Reports of people "weeping on the platforms" do not insprie confidence, nor do headlines such as "Thousands of people heading home from Jubilee weekend affected by major Tube disruption." Four lines were disrupted over the weekend, including the Circle, Metropolitan, Jubilee and Bakerloo. Those disruptions were compounded by issues with commuter rail, which elected to run reduced weekend service even though large crowds were expected to travel to the city.

If it were only a long weekend, or even a single week, the London Underground might squeeze by, but there is no way they can go 16-plus days without major disruptions and line closures. I readily admit that the media loves to celebrate and exagerate failure. However, having lived in the city for two years relying largerly on public transport to get around, my advice to people attending the Olympics is to learn the bus routes. Even if you get stuck in traffic, at least you can look out the window and get a cellular signal.