Disney Buys Marvel - what it means for online games and virtual worlds

So, Disney yesterday announced that it has agreed to acquire Marvel Entertainment. This gives Disney access to such famous brands as The Hulk, Spiderman, X-Men and Howard the Duck.

The comic books, graphic novels, TV cartoons, character merchandising and movies obviously fit in well with Disney's media portfolio, but there are some questions around videogaming. Why?

Marvel characters have appeared in numerous videogames from many different developers and publishers since the dawn of home consoles - ranging from the superb (Marvel vs. Capcom) through to so-so movie tie ins (Iron Man). The first question for some of these developers and publishers is where do they stand now? Disney has its own game studio, and while to date has generally focused on classic family fare (Hannah Montana games), it has also published slightly more adult titles like 'Pirates of the Caribbean:At World's End'. Inevitably over time much of the game development efforts around Marvel properties are likely to revert to Disney but this will take time to plan and ramp up for - and that is without considering the existing licensing agreements that Activision, and Blue Tongue have.

Even more potentially interesting though is the opportunity in virtual worlds - Disney, uniquely amongst major brands, has excelled in this space; Virtual Magic Kingdom, Toontown online, and Pirates of the Caribbean Online not to mention their successful acquisition of Club Penguin.

When it comes to online superhero worlds, City of Heroes / Villains was a big hit for NCSoft in the massively multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG) market - Marvel was even suing the firm at one point for alleged copyright infringement -- naturally gamers personalized their characters to resemble classic Marvel heroes.

And yet a Marvel MMO - with the proper characters and locations ended up being canceled by Microsoft Game Studios in early 2008. Why? The perceived difficulty of making money up against the 800lb gorilla of the space: World of Warcraft. This hasn't stopped SOE and Warner bros from developing DC Universe Online -- DC being the  age old nemesis (the Galactus to Marvel's Fantastic Four if you will...look it up!).

So the superhero genre seems ripe for a Disney MMO -- but (as Microsoft Game Studios found) this is a major multi-year investment, so don't expect news around this any time soon from Disney unless they want to announce this before DC Universe Online ships next April.

'Nuff Said

Netbooks - an upcoming Forrester Virtual Round Table

Netbooks and the emerging 'smartbook' category (great, another new term!) continue to be one of the hottest topics with Forrester clients. My recent outreach to those who have read my research in this space (Links below in case you've missed any of these) has created a lot of discussion and inquiries, and the market seems to be changing at a record pace. That is why this topic merits being one of the first covered in a new, timely product we're creating – client virtual round tables.

To allow a many to many conversation and discussion along with deeper insights into this research, I'd like to invite you and your peers to a one-hour informational call on Friday 4 September at 11:30am ET.

During the call, I’ll present 25 minutes of material describing the ever-changing netbook landscape.  The next 35 minutes will involve a facilitated Q&A/discussion period, during which you'll have the opportunity to ask me and others on the call any questions about the direction of this market plus attendee experiences, issues and success stories. We will not disclose which client companies are on the call, but we will collaboratively explore the topics like:

• Where does Google’s Chrome OS fit into the picture? Google made a big splash with its Chrome OS announcement a couple of weeks back, and its clear that netbooks (or the new ‘smartbooks’ category) are a prime target for the firm. If the ARM architecture devices (as discussed in ‘Netbooks remain Adjunct PCs…For Now) gain traction, then Google has a clear ‘in’ here while Microsoft works out whether to offer a full Windows experience or just Windows CE on these devices. Success is by no means a given though – Google’s Android has been impressive, but it is a slightly different proposition to offer a PC-style OS on multiple devices (all of which may have multiple accessories and usage models)

• How do you touch your consumers regardless of device? One interesting challenge that the proliferation of netbooks, smartbooks and other ‘portable computing’ devices raise is this: How do you track and personalize an experience when a consumer can reach you from 3-4 different devices during the day? Cookies wont work in many cases, a ‘cloud’ log-in works OK – provided the underlying scripts play well with multiple browsers and processing capabilities, ‘master’ data (contacts, photos, music, documents) could be on one, many or none of the used devices. Previously we’ve worried more about multiple users of the same device (particularly PCs or media players), but in technology optimistic households this could now be flipped on its head. There are definitely opportunities here for infrastructure and services which knit these fragments of online life back together.

• Emerging technologies head for netbooks, but what will that do for the price proposition? Obviously everyone likes success and netbooks are one of the few successful growth categories in consumer technology at the moment (the other being smart phones), so it is to be expected that a proliferation of form factors, incorporation of new technology and service abound. Touch screens are already starting to appear on netbooks, as are slimmer form factors, very long life battery packs and beefed up graphics / video capabilities. The real issue here is not what you COULD do, but what preserves that ‘value’ perception that consumers have of the category and still allows differentiation from more flexible (generally more expensive) workhorse laptops – or to put it the other way around not cannibalize laptop sales with super-netbooks!

There is a cost associated with attending this call, so if you or anyone else at your organization is interested in attending, please let me know and I can work with your dedicated Forrester account Program Manager to get you signed up.

Netbooks Remain Adjunct PCs . . . For Now

http://www.forrester.com/Research/Document/0,7211,53574,00.html

The Convenience Quotient Of Portable Computing

http://www.forrester.com/Research/Document/0,7211,47878,00.html

Netbooks Are The Third Consumer Form Factor

http://www.forrester.com/Research/Document/0,7211,46483,00.html

What Makes A Netbook?

http://www.forrester.com/Research/Document/0,7211,53544,00.html

New Convenience Quotient doc just published

[Posted by Doug Williams]

If you haven't seen it yet, I encourage you to check out Paul Jackson's latest report entitled, "The Convenience Quotient of Portable Computing."  Here's the abstract:

We're finally seeing consumers embrace computing on the go — whether it's experimentation with Net access and application downloads on the iPhone or trying out inexpensive netbooks, the past 18 months have seen an explosion in activity and functionality. As is always the case with new consumer product opportunities though, mistakes have been and will continue to be made; a Convenience Quotient analysis of portable computing platforms shows how the various feasible options stack up. Tellingly, laptops still just squeeze out the competition overall, but smartphones and the next generation of netbooks threatened to steal the crown — particularly when focusing on specific consumer scenarios like high mobility or engagement with social media.

 
It's an intriguing report, but don't just take my word for it: James Kendrick over at jkOnTheRun posted a nice piece about this report as well, and other media outlets have been banging on our door.

Clients: Paul would welcome the opportunity to discuss this report with you -- just follow the normal process for setting up an inquiry.

Also: We've got other CQ docs in the works, and we'll be sure to let you know when they publish. CQ isn't just for tech products, either.  My forthcoming CQ document applies the methodology to customer service, by examining the consumer benefits and barriers associated with various modes of resolving a customer service issue (live phone, email, online chat, etc.).

Do you have questions about Convenience Quotient, or need help understanding how it could be useful for developing your own product strategy?  If so, please reach out to me, James McQuivey or J.P. Gownder.  We'd be happy to help you figure it out.

HP's WMC netbook announcements - a step in the right direction.

In my most recent report  'What Makes A Netbook?' , a number of impending problems for the category (whatever it ends up being called) were surfaced -- two key issues were (a) how to differentiate netbooks and similarly priced notebooks and (b) whether those European telcos giving the things away were really thinking this through.

This week at MWC in Barcelona HP (amongst others) made a couple of strategic announcements which go some way to addressing both of these issues:

- The first fruits of the HP & Orange strategic relationship: Orange selling the Compaq Mini 700 in retail. Probably the first of many such hardware deals, shows Orange looking beyond just giving away the cheapest, any-brand netbook to drive mobile broadband uptake.

- T-mobile ALSO offering the Compaq Mini 700...but also in an HSDPA/UMTS embedded version -- making this netbook a different proposition to the 'get the mobile broadband dongle + netbook' crowd.

These announcements show that telcos have recognized the shortcomings of the ‘buy mobile broadband get a cute netbook free’ model – stock control, support issues, and little upside revenue wise – and want to build out more sustainable offerings.

 HP is in a good position to do this – while later to the netbook market than ASUS, Acer, MSI and several others, the worlds largest notebook provider has quickly caught up in terms of devices (the 2133, the 2140, the Vivienne Tam designer edition etc) and is bringing their expertise in logistics, support, and UI design to bare here to help telcos get over that bump of unfamiliar hardware models.

The T-mobile announcement does raise one interesting additional question though: after a slow start and some reticence on Microsoft’s part, Windows XP has become the dominant OS for netbooks – largely down to the need to run PC apps and mimic a familiar UI. With telco provided netbooks featuring embedded connectivity, do we see a device which is closer to the smartphone world rather than the PC world – and if so will HP reconsider its decision to focus on Windows netbooks in Europe, and put more emphasis on the MI Linux editions instead?

Does this mean even MORE disruption in the PC marketplace? Can netbooks become the 'killer' delivery device for mobile telcos rich media ambitions? Thoughts appreciated