Netflix vs. YouTube – How Their Statistics Stack Up

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While Netflix is currently suffering from the loss of over 800,000 subscribers, plenty of people are still streaming their service. The 2011 Sandvine Global Internet Phenomena Report noted that Netflix accounts for near 33 percent of peak Internet bandwidth.

Additionally, Netflix is North America’s largest consumer of Internet bandwidth, creating 32 percent of peak downstream traffic. Its video-streaming component is responsible for almost 28 percent of all bandwidth usage.

Real-time entertainment services like Netflix and YouTube drive the most traffic; video and music content create the heaviest bandwidth consumption. In 2011, 60 percent of peak period traffic came from entertainment, notably up from 50 percent in 2010 and 30 percent in 2009, while 96 percent of broadband subscribers used real-time entertainment each month.

YouTube has an audience of 83 percent of broadband subscribers, compared to 20 percent for Netflix. YouTube accounts for 34.5 percent of all videos streamed; Netflix represents just 5 percent.

There are some other notable differences between Netflix and YouTube; while viewers of the former are 77 percent more likely to watch through a connected TV, viewers of the latter spend 83 percent of their time watching on a PC. The median viewing time is also much higher for Netflix than for YouTube videos; 42 minutes versus 3 minutes.

Also noteworthy is the revelation the traffic is switching away from PC devices to things like consoles, smartphones tablets and connected TVs. Only 45 percent of Internet traffic on fixed networks goes to laptops and desktop computers.

Source: AdWeek

Gameloft Working On Mobile Platform

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Gameloft is one of the top mobile publishers in the world, but they currently rely upon ngmoco and OpenFeint to bring their games to various parts of Asia. However, they may be looking to offer their own platform, while maintaining close contacts with more established partners.

“Yes, that’s also something that we are working on, and investigating to see if it makes sense to,” said Senior Vice President Gonzague de Vallois. “We always value the consumer experience, so if it makes sense to add this component to our games, then we will do it — and that’s something we are studying now.”

“As Gameloft, we want to keep a direct relationship with the consumers, so we feel it can be dangerous that we have somebody in the middle, that will dictate whether the consumer will take,” added de Vallois. “Those guys have been pretty successful in Asia — DeNA and GREE — and we have a strong presence in Japan, so we’ve been working with them in Japan. On the feature phone business, not yet on the smartphone business. DeNA, mainly.”

Source: Gamasutra

DJ Hero 3 Plans Put On The Shelf

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Activision announced earlier in 2011 that it was mothballing its music franchises Guitar Hero and DJ Hero. While this was disappointing to FreeStyleGames, the makers of the DJ Hero games, since they were planning on inducing an expert mode in DJ Hero 3, where players could use two turn-table simultaneously for an enhanced challenge.

“We’re going to have to take a real shift in thinking how music gets licensed, because that’s the real blocker at the moment,” said creative director Jamie Jackson, who is working on another project now.

Source: Edge {link no longer active}

PlayStation Vita Gets ‘First Edition Bundle’

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Sony has announced that those that order the PS Vita First Edition bundle will be available on February 15, 2011. It will launch a week before the system becomes available to the wider population and include a copy of Little Deviants.

“The U.S. bundle includes a PS Vita 3G + Wi-Fi model, a limited edition case, 4GB PS Vita Memory Card, and Little Deviants game for $349.99,” says John Koller, SCEA Director of Hardware Marketing. “The Canadian bundle includes a Wi-Fi model, a limited edition case, 4GB PS Vita Memory Card, and Little Deviants game for $299.99. Best of all, you can pick up the PS Vita First Edition Bundle on February 15, 2012, so this is your chance to play before everyone else.”

Source: PlayStation Blog

Sony Buys Ericsson Out Of Mobile Venture

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Sony has confirmed earlier rumors and stated that it is seeking to buy out its mobile phone joint venture with Ericsson for 1.05 billion Euros ($1.5 billion). This will allow Sony to better integrate mobile devices with its music stars like Beyonce, movie hits like Spider-Man and PlayStation video games.

“Its the beginning of something which I think is quite magical,” Sony Chairman Sir Howard Stringer told a news conference in London. “We can more rapidly and more widely offer consumers smartphones, laptops, tablets and televisions that seamlessly connect with one another and open up new worlds of online entertainment.”

“Sony is looking to do the same as Apple and meet users’ demands through linking various devices with similar interfaces and operating systems,” said analyst Nobuo Kurahashi of Mizuho Investors’ Securities in Tokyo. “Smartphones look to become more important products for Sony … and they will probably become the main device people use to connect to the Internet.”

“Sony had to make this deal as it had run out of options, but integration challenges could prove to be a major hurdle,” said Ben Wood, head of research at consultancy CCS Insight. “As a major consumer electronics player, lack of mobile assets had become a liability for Sony, particularly when compared with Samsung, whose telecommunication business creates nearly half of its profits.”

Source: Reuters

Harmonix Talks Looking Beyond Rock Band

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Rock Band has been the face of Harmonix since the franchise launched in 2007. However, changes to the music market means that the company is thinking about something different for their next game.

“Looking into next year, we’re actually considering fairly fundamental creative reinterpretation of what the Rock Band business is, said co-founder and CEO Alex Rigopulos. “We’re committed to the franchise, but when I think that when we do things with it in the future, it’s going to be a pretty dramatic departure from what we’ve done before. ”

Despite the disputes over bonuses that Harmonix has had with its former owner Viacom, product development Greg LoPiccolo was grateful over what they did for the Rock Band franchise. “I feel like the conventional storyline was, like, ‘We got bought by Viacom and it was hard, and now we’re indie and that’s cool,’ and there is some truth to that,” he said. “It’s also true that the whole Rock Band franchise, which was this huge ambition we had, we never could have done without Viacom. There was no way we could have ever accomplished that without MTV and Viacom. It wouldn’t have happened. Rock Band wouldn’t have happened without their involvement.”

Join A Crew And Dance!

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On the official Facebook page for Dance Central, a new App {page no longer active} called “Dance Central 2” allows fans to find out which crew (Flash4wrd, Hi-Def, Lu$h Crew or Riptide) suits them best. Each crew in “Dance Central 2” has a unique personality and fans can browse videos featuring each crew’s style and join one. Not sure? Click the Discover button to analyze your details and let the app suggest a crew. Once fans have joined a crew they can post to their Facebook wall, recruit friends or download wallpapers. Get started and pump up the volume! If you’re on the move, download some exclusive DC2 iPhone skins here {link no longer active}.