Bits & Pixels — TL:DR Edition 7 / 2016 will be the year of VR
#It’s becoming a gamer’s world
In recent memory, there have been a few billion dollar gaming acquisition. Microsoft purchasing Minecraft for $2.6 billion, Facebook purchasing Oculus for $2 billion. But Activision, takes the cake, with their $5.9 billion acquisition of Candy Crush maker, King Digital . In comparison, Disney purchased the Star Wars franchise for $4 billion. Why? To shore up a current weak point in armor of this gaming giant, mobile.
1. I’m all about that content boss
- YouTube just pressed play on Virtual Reality by teaming up with Google Cardboard and releasing their own Cardboard compatible app. Google Cardboard is an inexpensive VR viewer that uses your smartphone as the display. In addition, Youtube has also made all of his current content automatically viewable in VR. 2016 is going to be the year of VR. You heard it here first.
- The New York Times will be shipping some 1.3 million branded Google Cardboard VR Viewers to its print subscribers. NYT has partnered up with VR content producers VRSE to create a series of documentaries that take advantage of the new medium.
- Apple TV launched this past week. With that the world of not only apps but games invades your TV for good.
2. Tech Roundup
- Michael Wolf, former Yahoo board member and CEO of MTV, lays out the future of tech and media in 2016. Here are some key slides/insights insights:
- — The average American spends more time on tech and media than work or sleep
- — Messaging will blow past social networks as the dominant media activity
- — the long-awaited cord cutting moment is still far off
- — There is a “cable killer” coming, but it won’t look like you expect. It might look like what the smartphone did to mobile.
- — e-sports and wagering will change the game in gaming
- — one simple way to predict what tech and media players will do next to compete is to understand the following:
3. Game Roundup
- Blizzard’s newest game Overwatch is coming to XBOX One and Playstation. The game will launch in Spring 2016.
