Good morning, I wrote yesterday that I thought the Minecraft acquisition made a lot of sense for Microsoft both from a financial point-of-view – given it’s engagement numbers, I think Minecraft has a lot of latent revenue opportunities – but also from a strategic point-of-view. It’s a natural fit with where Satya Nadella wants toSubscribe […]
Microsoft’s Good (and Potentially Great) Minecraft Acquisition
It’s difficult to overstate what a big deal Minecraft is. It’s the third best-selling game of all time behind Tetris and Wii Sports, and unlike the latter especially, it is a remarkably sticky experience: the vast majority of customers (over 90 percent on PC, according to Microsoft) sign in every single month. Were Microsoft to […]
Daily Update: How Tim Cook Should Have Introduced Watch, Apple Pay and the Apple Watch, Microsoft to Buy Minecraft?
Good morning, I wrote about the Apple Watch introduction on Stratechery in a piece called Apple Watch: Asking Why and Saying No. In short, while I like everything hardware-related about the watch, I was very concerned with both the keynote messaging and the software. Moreover, I think those two concerns are interrelated: the need theSubscribe […]
Daily Update: China and Microsoft, Sony vs. Samsung, Why Twitter Adds Favorites to Your Timeline
Good morning, I’m working on a piece about Apple, the cloud, and culture; I think it’s pretty interesting and I hope a good contribution to what has happened this week. It will hopefully be up later this morning. I’m pushing my piece on payments and the wearable to next week. On to the update: ChinaSubscribe […]
Daily Update: Celebrity Photos and iCloud, Rovio CEO Steps Down, Louis Vuitton and Apple
Good morning, I hope my American readers all had a pleasant Labor Day, and the rest of you a blissful Monday. They do exist, right? My piece about my expectations for next week’s iPhone event will be published later this morning. Unfortunately, I’m probably not going to be able to make the trip. On toSubscribe […]
Podcast: Exponent Episode 015 – Consoles and Disruption
On the newest episode of Exponent, the podcast I co-host with James Allworth: In this week’s episode we discuss whether or not consoles will be disrupted. This episode was recorded a week ago (immediately after last week’s episode), before Ben wrote his pieces Games and Good Enough and Games and New Market Disruption. Links Ben […]
Amazon: Not an E-commerce Company
Let’s start with the premise that Twitch, the video-game watching network, is the next ESPN – you know, the jewel in Disney’s crown that, by itself, is worth $50.8 billion. Like ESPN, Twitch is about live competition, and, like ESPN, Twitch does exceptionally well in the highly desirable young male demographic.1 Obviously this is the […]
Daily Update: Amazon Buys Twitch, Amazon’s Ad Program, Facebook Taking on DoubleClick
Good morning, If you’ll forgive a bit of braggadocio, I’ve certainly been getting lucky on Stratechery when it comes to acquisitions: I wrote about hardware-based business models the day before Google bought Nest, and how messaging was mobile’s killer app the day before Facebook bought WhatsApp. I can’t claim to be quite as spot-on whenSubscribe […]
Daily Update: Gaming and New-Market Disruption, Why the PS4 is Winning, Uber Testing On-Demand Product Deliveries
Good morning, I trust you won’t mind a couple more items on gaming; I (obviously) find the current debate fascinating, and it’s not as if there is much happening in traditional tech land! On to the update: Gaming and New-Market Disruption The fastest growing demographic in gaming is adult females. From the Wall Street Journal:Subscribe […]
Daily Update: What Consoles Say About iPads, Uber Opens API, The Samsung Nook
Good morning, Yesterday I wrote about my changing view on consoles in a piece called Games and Good Enough. As most of you may recall, last June I argued that consoles would soon be disrupted. Now I’ve changed my mind; I suspect that consoles will in fact safely own the high end of the gamingSubscribe […]