We all know that games sold quite well over the holidays and continue to do so. In addition to the conventional product (weighted toward console titles), we’re seeing good volume for casual and online titles. So everything should be great for developers and publishers…but somehow it’s not.
Techcrunch is highlighting a startup called Baseshield that’s created a marketplace for software that downloads into a virtual environment, protecting the user experience and keeping them safe from malware, etc, and ensuring compatibility. It does look like a well executed initiative, and I hope that it ends up being significant, but Techcrunch seems unaware that that there have been similar technologies around for about ten years. Exent, Yummy, and Into Networks all have/had their own versions, and I’m sure there are a few others that escape me at the moment.
I don’t know a lot about Macrovision, aside from the fact that most games and movies distributed on physical media use their DRM protection, and that this technology is at the core of their value. –they’ve been doing this since VHS, and last year, they acquired the DRM technology used on Blu-ray disks. This puts them at the very center of a business that will likely plateau sometime in the next few years. Read More »