The argument makes sense on the surface, but, as usual, a little digging into real data tends to prove otherwise. Our survey of 700 UK consumers found that current HDTV owners were in fact more than twice as likely to be interested in buying a 3DTV than non-HDTV owners. Specifically, 13% of HDTV owners say they are “somewhat” or “very likely” to buy a 3DTV during the next 12 months, compared to 6% of non-HDTV owners.

Given that HDTVs are still in only half of UK households, this hardly suggests that 3DTV’s prospects are being held back because people have already bought an HDTV set. The truth is that it’s likely to be the same early adopters who bought HDTV who will also go out and buy the next latest and greatest TV technology.

We’ll be presenting these and many more insights from our research at a free-to-attend analyst forum during this year’s IBC, and Sky’s Brian Lenz, who has headed up the company’s 3D initiative, will be giving the audience his thoughts on our findings as well as an update on Sky’s 3D launch plans. Attendees are invited to register in advance by visiting www.strategyanalytics.com/ibc2010.html.

Meet Our Analysts: 3DTV Analyst Forum at IBC 2010

Our recent insight Lenovo founds Eedoo: a Signal for a Potential Opening-up of the Chinese Video Game Console Market provides an in-depth analysis on the scenarios which the Chinese video game market might potentially head to. We believe that the Chinese video game market will become a new growth engine for the stagnating industry in the foreseeable future, and materially expand the size of the total market.

- Jia Wu

But compared to the excessive hype which has built up over the last couple of years as the industry geared up for launch, the mood this year may appear to be markedly more realistic, and tinged with more notes of caution than were previously evident. It’s still too early to discuss consumer reaction to fully fledged home 3DTV services (as opposed to any of the out-of-home options) – the number of people who have actually seen a 3DTV broadcast in the comfort of their own homes is still tiny. But pre-launch surveys are suggesting 3D in general may not become the sure-fire success many were hoping for.

Strategy Analytics’ own consumer surveys suggest a very mixed response across the board. Our survey of European consumers is still in the field, but the first results from the US suggest that the industry must at least overcome doubts about the health impact of watching 3DTV. More than half of respondents are unsure whether watching 3DTV can cause damage to the eyes, and 17% actually believe that 3DTV may cause damage. With the level of uncertainty the industry clearly has a lot of work to do to bring 3DTV to the mass market.

Overall we found that 11% of people are somewhat or very likely to buy a 3DTV during the coming year. This may not sound a lot but it’s not bad for a newly launched technology. What’s interesting is the impact of previous 3D experiences on buying intentions. In total 60% of Americans say they have seen a 3D movie at the cinema, and a quarter say they have been very impressed with the quality of the 3D experience. Those people are four times more likely to buy a 3DTV than people who say they were not impressed with 3D at the cinema. This may not be surprising, but it demonstrates the importance to the industry of continuing to improve the 3D experience in the cinema in order to meet its overall goal of bringing 3D to the home viewer.

We’ll be presenting many more findings from our research at our free-to-attend analyst forum during this year’s IBC, and Sky’s Brian Lenz, who has headed up the company’s 3D initiative, will be giving the audience his thoughts on our findings as well as an update on Sky’s 3D launch plans. Attendees are invited to register in advance by visiting www.strategyanalytics.com/ibc2010.html.

Meet Our Analysts: 3DTV Analyst Forum at IBC 2010

The truth of the matter remains a subject of some debate. In response to the fact that some viewers report feeling unwell after watching 3D, or can only watch comfortably for limited periods, some claim that these impacts will be reduced as the technology matures. Whatever the case, the industry clearly must get to grips with the communications issue before unsubstantiated rumours get out of hand.

We’ll be presenting more details on our new 3DTV research at this year’s IBC in Amsterdam. You can also hear BSkyB’s Brian Lenz discuss his own company’s plans for 3DTV. Attendance is complimentary but we encourage pre-registration as space is limited:

Meet Our Analysts: 3DTV Analyst Forum at IBC 2010

It seems, however, that in the early days at least demand for the iPad will be met almost entirely by existing Apple owners. Our survey of 2000 US consumers also suggests that a third or more of existing iPhone and Macbook owners have already gained access to an iPad (at least they say they have used one at home). And nearly a half of the early iPad adopters say they are somewhat or very likely to buy another iPad during the coming year – an indication of strong customer satisfaction if ever there was one.

So how should Apple respond to this news? On the one hand the company should relax in the knowledge that so many of its core and loyal customers are saving up to buy the company’s latest device. On the other hand, there may be just the slightest concern that the iPad has so far failed to win new hearts and minds amongst the half of US homes which do not already own at least one Apple product.

That may change as the tablet category becomes more widely recognised. New entrants will shortly be flooding the market with iPad alternatives which will help raise general awareness of this new category. As Apple struggles to meet demand from its existing customers, the opportunity is there for competitors to target the remaining market segments with iPad alternatives.

Client Reading: Apple’s iPad: Identifying Early Adopters and Intentions to Buy

Meet Our Analysts: 3DTV Analyst Forum at IBC 2010

It should be a great session to kick off the first full day of the show. The event is free of charge but as we have limited space we’re expecting a full house so please register your interest as soon as possible.

3DTV Analyst Forum at IBC 2010: Strategy Analytics and D. I. S Consulting
Saturday 11th September 2010
Holiday Inn, “Manhattan” Room, De Boelelaan 2, 1083 HJ Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Schedule
8.00-8.30 Networking Breakfast
8.30-9.10 New 3D Research: Analyst Presentations
9.10-9.30 Guest Speaker: Brian Lenz, Director of Product Development, BSkyB
9.30-10.00 Panel and Audience Q&A

Client Reading: Video Capture Devices: Global Market Forecast

The two companies have a combined customer base that includes the leading media, e-commerce, and enterprise companies, as well as small businesses around the globe.  The integrated solution is designed to give customers a fast, seamless path to leverage the proven advantages of Akamai’s HD Network and Brightcove’s feature-rich online video platform to deliver high quality, adaptive bit rate video across Flash and iOS devices. Going forward, Brightcove will provide the Akamai HD Network as a bundled component of the Brightcove online video platform service.

The deal is sure to be a blow to Limelight but hardly a surprising one after its acquisition of Delve Networks last week. Meanwhile, the deal represents a great win for Akamai as Brightcove brings with it a bunch of media customers as well as small and medium sized enterprise customers from around the world. As this deal brings together a leading OVP with a leading CDN it represents the highest profile deal to date in our opinion and give further impetus to the convergence trend between the CDN industry and the OVP industry that we have been predicting for some time.

Martin Olausson

Client reading: Online Video Platforms: Battling for Supremacy in a Fiercely Competitive Market

Yet it is still an exciting growth in the context of falling video game market in general, and we expect the MMORPG growth story to continue. While a lot of the traction in the gaming sector recently has been drawn to social games, where Zynga, Playdom and Playfish all had stunning valuations, we believe MMORPGs are still a steadily growing segment. For serious gamers, it is not something replaceable.

Despite that there are now tens of companies playing in this field, the future growth of MMORPG, to a greater extent, still hinges on the handful of major companies. In the West, Blizzard Entertainment with the unmatched World of Warcraft (WoW) determines the general trend of the market. WoW’s new expansion pack Catalysm is in beta test and it is going to be one of the driving forces for MMORPG growth in the next few years. Besides, the revenue model transition from subscription to virtual item sales will help some stagnating MMORPGs to revitalize. In Asia, Shanda and Netease will lead the Chinese market, whereas Nexon and NCsoft will remain the prevailing MMORPG companies in South Korea. Certainly, new players, such as Tencent and Perfect World, should not be neglected either. These players make up the bulk of total MMORPG market.

2009 Global MMORPG Market Share by Company

Source: Strategy Analytics

It is also noteworthy that some of the Asian companies are expanding significantly in the Western market. Recent news reveal that EA is considering to take stake in the Chinese firm Perfect World, which is now generating about $100 a year from online games in overseas market. And Korean game developers are expected to continue their expansion in Europe and the US.

-Jia Wu

Client Reading: The World of MMORPG: a Tale of Two Regions

As we wrote in our recent report on the Online Video Platform (OVP) industry, there’s a growing number of smaller OVPs which generate an increasing amount of revenues by serving Content Distribution Networks (CDN) directly. As many video content owners are reluctant to deal with multiple vendors and suppliers in the video delivery process, CDNs have started to offer their clients bundled video management and delivery solutions by using OVPs’ software and paying license fee.

It is noteworthy that OVPs and CDNs are both symbiotic and competitive in the value chain as they both provide some parts of the services needed for online video delivery. On one hand, a partnership between OVP and CDN is necessary to serve clients’ video delivery needs; on the other hand, both sides are adding new features to their existing services and are trying to commoditize the other so that one can be more differentiated and maintain a premium price when negotiating deals with clients.

We expect to see many more deals like the Limelight/Delve one in the coming year as both OVPs and CDNs try to enhance their ability to offer flexible and increasingly sophisticated solutions to a progressively divergent set of customer needs.

Martin Olausson

The average download speed for all DSL connections has increased by only 10% over the past 12 months, from 3.7Mbps to 4.0Mbps, in spite of the fact that many more customers are being offered “up to” 20Mbps packages (ie DSL 2+). Note that the primary factor behind the higher increase in UK speeds overall is because of Virgin Media’s upgrading of its cable service: average cable broadband speeds have more than doubled, from 4.9Mbps to 9.9Mbps. That’s a testament to the growing strength of the UK’s cable operator, and an indictment of the recent supposed improvements in the DSL network.

Ofcom’s excuse regarding regulating the “up to” nonsense is that this is not its job, but that of the advertising regulator. We regard this as a cop-out. Ofcom does have a Voluntary Code of Practice which “ensures that consumers are given the clearest possible information on access line speeds at point of sale”, and if that doesn’t relate to advertising, I don’t know what does.

The Code of Practice talks a lot about maximum speeds, but not about minimums. This now has to change. Even with the well-known limitations of DSL technology, in the second decade of the 21st century customers have a right to know what minimum level of service they should expect to receive in return for their hard-earned pounds. BT will moan that it cannot yet deliver a minimum of 2Mbps to some parts of the country, so those remoter rural areas should be considered a special case, where “true” broadband (however that is defined) is technically (and temporarily) unavailable. This all goes back to early political demands that broadband be made “universally” available, and the politically inspired nonsense that 99% of UK homes can get DSL broadband services. Yes, but only if you count 250kbps as broadband.

We need to step back so that we can move forward. The reality is that a small percentage – perhaps 5% - of UK homes are currently out of reach of 1-2Mbps+ broadband services, and remain “geographically challenging”. That needs to be accepted as a policy issue and targeted accordingly. The market as a whole should no longer be distorted because of this artificial and technical constraint. Once those homes are identified, the rest of the country should be given guarantees of minimum service, and tiered services will emerge which will give customers a great deal more clarity and confidence than they have had until now.

Client Reading: Global Broadband Scorecard: 2010 Broadband Composite Index (BCI) Rankings