Great to see one of our favourite fashion labels coming to Australia. We saw Feiyue first in Paris and picked up some original Feiyues (a staple shoe started in China in the 20's) from a Chinese importer site a few months ago. Next thing we know The Coolhunter is featuring them and Made Distribution is bringing them in!

Check them out and inparticular keep an eye out for upcoming Aussie collaborations to match the kind of collabs they've done in France and Asia. We've heard some rumours but nothing confirmed!

What makes a high value WOMBAT (Word of Mouth Brand Advocate)?

It’s a fairly logical approach to say that people who already own one of your products and are proven to have had a positive experience are good advocates for your brand. But is it smarter to find those who would deliver greater impact and make even better brand wombats?

It really comes down to how you recruit new wombats and what the parameters or selection criteria are. It’s easy to find current brand advocates but it’s likely that your brand and messaging will stay only within their immediate sphere of influence.

New wombats should be recruited based on their ability to influence multiple peer groups. Dad with his camcorder is great but you might only hit his family and a couple of mates. At the same time if he’s a satisfied customer he’s already a brand advocate. No need to preach to the converted.

Find the right Dad and it can be of far greater value. Imagine Dad who runs the parents group at his kids school (more people to reach plus the bonus of opening a dialogue for the camcorder brand with the school); he’s a sales rep for a beverage company (colleagues and all his clients to reach) and plays in a regular golf group (fairway chat with a sociable closer peer group). This is an advocate with reach and a bit of oomph.

Take care of current customers and advocates for sure but if you’re looking to power up your WOM put the effort into the recruitment process... See pretty diagram below!

What does the future hold for the gaming industry? With Nintendo laps ahead of the competition this generation resulting from their intuitive control scheme leading non-gamers and casual gamers alike to pick up the system, Microsoft and Sony are rumoured to unveil their answers to Nintendo’s success at E3 this year. There’s little chance however that even if both Microsoft and Sony release peripherals for their systems that they’ll be able to stop Nintendo juggernaught taking out first place this generation simply because neither system originally came packaged with the motion device. This means should either company push this technology they’ll effectively be forcing their install base to purchase the peripheral. This won’t be an easy task; it’s more likely that both Sony and Microsoft will have a much better chance at redeeming themselves in the next generation.

Fan boys always love to speculate in regards to ‘what’s coming next?’. It’s important to look to the future; predictions can influence the outcome of years and years of software releases, profits and expenses. For this reason, today we’ll take a look at each of the major players mentioned in yesterday’s post, Nintendo, Sony, Apple and Microsoft.

Nintendo has never been in a stronger position in terms of sales. They’re the undisputable leader of the industry in both home console and handheld sales. When it comes time for the clock to tick over and another page is turned to begin the next chapter in the history of the videogame industry, Nintendo will need a whole lot of foresight to combat its rivals. Nintendo was lucky enough to change the direction of the industry and struck oil when they masterminded their plan to appeal to casual and non-gamers through non tradition means of control. Their controllers managed to eliminate the skills that gamers had collected over years through interacting with traditional controls in favour of movement based control, putting hardcore and non-gamers on an even playfield. If you can swing a golf club, you can play glolf on Nintendo’s Wii. Rivals Sony and Mircosoft have inevitably caught on and [apparently] intend on replicating Nintendo’s theory in order to gain back the ground stolen by the Wii.

The transition period won’t be easy, historically (before the Wii) Nintendo relied on a group of loyal dedicated hardcore gamers who had, in most cases followed the Nintendo brand and its franchises since the NES in the 80s. With Nintendo’s shift in focus to the casual gamer market for the last year, many of Nintendo’s most dedicated fans have been losing hope that Nintendo is still a company dedicated to continue and improve their beloved series. Because of this, and the types of titles selling best on the system, it’s safe to assume that the vast majority of Nintendo’s install base is casual and will be easily swayed to rival’s systems should Nintendo’s future product include technology that’s inferior or less appealing or if the system’s price point doesn’t appeal to the wider audience. The Wii could potentially have a long life if Nintendo continue creating games to entice their casual audience and continue to innovate in ways similar to Wii Fit. If this proves to be the case then the Wii may just be able to survive well after the next waves of systems are produced, suss out the motion technology that they’re sure to include and release the system when they see fit (pun intended) with an innovation of their own, sure to keep much of their newly found market.

The Playstation name was synonymous with success for over a decade dominating with their original Playstaion and their Playstation 2. The Playstation 3 however has only recently started to gain momentum. The Playstation 3 hit late with the Wii, Microsoft’s Xbox 360 had already begun introducing gamers to the High Definition era of gaming. With the Playstation 3, Sony clearly sought to create the ultimate gaming device. The PS3 came packed with High Definition compatibility, HDMI cables were included in the package unlike the 360 and it also included a built in Blu-Ray player. Much like the Playstation 2 helped introduce DVD to the mainstream Sony had high hopes for their new format. Sony was ready, technology was ready, but the world of consumers wasn’t. The price of the PS3 was substantially higher than the Wii and the Xbox 360 due to Sony’s focus on packing the system to the brim with the world latest and greatest technological breakthroughs.

When the Wii began to unexpectedly dominate the market, developers and publishers alike began to choose to develop for both the 360 and PS3, maximising profits and rendering the superior technology in the Playstation 3 useless. It’s clear when looking at one of Sony’s most recent exclusive releases, Killzone 2 that the abilities of the PS3 are stronger than its competition, but releasing games of this calibre takes time and money, which would all be well and good if the PS3 was the market leader...

Everyone makes mistakes, and Sony continues to pay the price for short comings or rather, overcompensations. It’s affected the sales of the PS3, the quantity of software available on the system and even the quality of its titles. One thing it hasn’t affected (seemingly) is the brand’s image. Fans of the Playstation 2 who have been wooed to rival systems because of the lower price points still want a PS3 despite the above reasons. This puts Sony in a prime position to make a comeback come in time for the ‘Playstation 4’. Next generation will allow Sony to rectify the mistakes made and will allow it to take on future rival systems with the knowledge that fans still want their product, even after 2 years of disaster. That’s a very powerful knowledge, now they need to capitalise on it.

It could be argued that Apple doesn’t yet belong in a discussion of the future of the home console market, especially when it doesn’t have a system present on market now and hasn’t announced any plans for a system in the future, but I would disagree and I’m the one writing the article (direct all complaints to the comment box below). Apple has more tricks up its sleeve than its ‘Apps Store’ has poor quality games, and there are a lot of poor titles on the Apps Store. Nevertheless, Apple has been building its gaming personnel employing ‘big names’ in the industry and it’s clearly planning something. With Apple TV a perfect format to be transformed into a ‘Onlive type gaming device’ in the same sneaky way iPhone will continue to be a gaming device Apple are set to take on the videogame world. How? Disk-less!

The MP3 format was always the way the music industry was going, competitors like MD Players and Discman were never going to stand up against the convenience of being able to simply play music without inserting any type of data storage. Apple proved this point. They’re on the verge of doing the same thing in the take home movie industry with the Apple TV. You have to feel for Sony, developing their Blu-Ray format only to have Apple replicate the same move on them that destroyed Sony’s Walkman, disc-free playback. Although this would certainly be a revolution for gaming and watch-at-home-movies alike, the question still remains regarding the readiness of the common-man’s internet speed for a device that needs to stream HD games and movies.

Microsoft has been remarkably successful with their Xbox brand. Entering a market that was previously dominated by two Japanese companies and with Japan being the videogame capital of the world they have faced an uphill battle to capture market share. Although many were sceptical, Microsoft persevered, now they’re sitting above the PS3 in global sales and looking stronger than ever in the Japanese market, acquiring rights to big budget RPGs, traditionally Japan’s favoured genre. The Xbox 360 was released a year prior to both its competitors, although many will argue that this is why Microsoft is sitting in such a strong position it’s also testament to Microsoft’s understanding of the industry. Sales are still strong and Xbox 360 has been able to gain an edge over its HD rival with a significantly lower price.

If Apple truly have the right idea about the future of gaming, allowing gamers to simply download titles straight to their console, then you bet Microsoft won’t be far behind. Xbox LIVE is by far the most successful of the three online services and Xbox original and Xbox 360 games are already available for download. With so much emphasis being placed on online capability Microsoft is, for the time being, at the forefront of the race. Even if competitors look as if they might be gaining ground Microsoft has a weapon up its sleeve that neither Apple, Sony nor Nintendo will be able to effectively counter – the PC gamer data base. When Microsoft sees that the time is right, and by this I mean that standard joystick control still doesn’t offer the manoeuvrability of a mouse and keypad, they’ll open the Xbox LIVE network to link with PC Gamers online. This will allow Xbox players to play against or with PC players around the world.

The time when this becomes reality isn’t far off. High Voltage studios has developed a game for Nintendo’s Wii called The Conduit. Developers claim that the control scheme may even surpass the mouse and keypad. Microsoft is rumoured to unveil its answer to the WiiMote at E3 in June, the prospect of First Person Shooter handling using full body motion is exciting in and of itself, but tied with the largest online gaming community in the world, Microsoft may well be in a position to do some serious damage especially when capturing the hardcore gamer.

So my prediction? Although the above is exciting, I cant honestly say that I see Apple making a move into a full fledged ‘Apple Play’ gaming console next generation, but the at the same time I wouldn’t be surprised if they were to dabble their toes in it. All above companies are in a strong position to make some big changes in the coming years and its impossible to predict based purely on speculation which of these three (four) gaming giants will be in the lead 3-4 years from now. One thing is certain though, it’s well and truly up for grabs.

The Future of the gaming industry?

Interconnectivity hasn’t had much success in the videogame industry. Nintendo tried with the Gamecube to Gameboy Advance, linking both systems via a ‘link cable’. The Gameboy Advanced acted as a second screen in some games, in the Pokemon series you could transfer Pokemon that you’d caught in the Gameboy version to the Gamecube 3D title, Pokemon Stadium. You could even unlock parts of games not accessible without linking the systems where you would play through different segments of a new game by jumping between 2D and 3D. It was, at its core, a failure. The concept was strong, however despite its shortcomings and until now we haven’t seen anyone try it again, but technology has come along way since then.

Both the Nintendo DSi and the PSP are WiFi enabled, eliminating the need for cables to connect the devices to their corresponding home console devices. The integration of handheld systems to home consoles seems inevitable. Sharing content, storing content, supplementing the handheld as an extra controller and altering game mechanics are just some of the many roles that the Playstation 3 and Wii’s little handheld brothers could come in handy for. This might seem like an exciting prospect for Playstation 3 and Wii owners, but have they already been beaten to the punch by a more sophisticated rival who’s already familiar with using product integration?

Apple is slowly moving into the movie playback market with their reasonably successful ‘Apple TV’ hardware. Jobs referrers to Apple TV as a ‘DVD Player for the Internet’, the device lets you stream or download HD video content wirelessly from your Mac or PC directly to your TV. Currently Apple still sees Apple TV as more of a ‘hobby’ than a strong wing of the Apple alliance (meaning iPod, iPhone and Mac) but this is set to change. Sales have increased and issues with previous models preventing the product from taking off will inevitable be addressed in redesigns.

This is relevant because of how Apple seems to operate. Let’s take a look at the iPod for a second. Since October 2004 the iPod dominated sales in the US. Apple capitalised on their success by continuing to carefully modify and update the product, creating smaller, simpler, less expensive versions to make sure that the iPod brand was assessable to everyone eventually. The iPod brand reached its pinnacle with the ‘iPod Touch’ that included a large touch screen, photos, video, games and music and could connect to wirless internet connections (not 3G Phone networks). The design and features, within the restrictions of it remaining a MP3 device, were flawless.

Then came the iPhone, the natural progression from the iPod (likely a response to mobile phones incorporating similar features to the iPod), and Apple’s entrance into the mobile phone market. The iPhone (3G) was a huge hit with those that could muster the hundreds of dollars needed to pick one of these bad boys up. It’s a ‘must have item’ for both youths and adults, but it isn’t the phone that makes this device so unique, it’s its ability to connect to the internet wirelessly and download from Apple’s ‘Apps Store’ on the go via 3G networks. Everything from games to movies to TV to music is available to download in seconds at the press of a button.

Through the evolution of Apple’s iPod, they’ve successfully infiltrated the the MP3 market, the mobile phone market and as we’re discovering now the handheld video game market. If there’s anything to learn from this, it’s that Apple is a company of progression. Capitalising on the install base already created by existing products and subtly introducing new features and forms of entertainment in each succeeding device. Apple TV is here and I’d put my money on a remodel integrating browsing technology and streamed gaming.

It’s already a reality, the technology is there with a new service called ‘OnLive’ which enables full Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 quality titles to be streamed straight to your PC or Mac. What’s stopping Apple from using similar technology to stream games straight through your TV via Apple TV?

At the centre of Apple’s master plan is the iTune Store, already packed with games for the iPhone and the ability to rent or buy HD quality movies directly from iTunes straight to the hard drive on Apple TV within seconds – wirelessly. The possibility of Apple doing something similar with games is well and truly on the horizon.

It’s been predicted that by the end of 2009 Apple will have sold 6.6 million Apple TV boxes. Now that’s a long way behind Sony’s 22 million (approx) Playstation 3 consoles, its closest competitor (should Apple TV support gaming fuctionality). But Apple’s iPod didn’t kick off and become the world wide sensation we all remember until its 4^th generation. We’re currently in Apple TV’s 2^nd reiteration which gives it more than enough time to find its way into homes before the next generation of consoles are released.

If Apple TV becomes anywhere near as successful as it’s other electronic devices and offers something not dissimilar from what OnLive currently offers, the interconnectivity between house hold devices will be unheard of and the possibilities: endless.

Imagine if you will, listening to music being streamed from your Macbook or iMac through Apple TV to your surround sound set up. The latest Call of Duty has just been released and instead of going to your local EB or JBHiFi you simply stream it directly to your TV after you purchase it via iTunes, oh and one more thing, you’re using a redesign of the iPhone to control the game, one that includes a tradition control pad. The screen is displaying the map and you’re talking to your team makes using the load speaker on your iPhone.

If you can possibly fathom the prospect that this is the near future, and I’d bet my gamer thumbs that it is, we may well on the verge of a gaming Armageddon. How in the face of stylised interconnecting devices, cheap, quality games and (I’d bet) one hell of a marketing campaign can we expect our traditional game developers to stand up to a company who just doesn’t seem to miss a step?

More next tomorrow...

                                       Apple makes its way into handheld gaming

Rehashing quickly on yesterday, we talked about Apple’s entrance into the Gaming World via the iPhone and it’s intuitive ‘Applications Store’. I left off by stating that there’s no doubt in my mind that with the PSP Go! rumored to be revealed at E3 this year and it’s rumored similarity in style to the iPhone, that eventually Apple will capitalise on their sneakily created casual gamer base by introducing an iPhone that incorporates some similar traditional forms of control.

Where then does this leave Sony and Nintendo?

With Sony supposedly on the verge of an announcement for the second generation of their PSP handheld it wouldn’t surprise me if they were to incorporate some kind of Playstation 3 (Sony’s home console) interconnectivity as well as mobile phone features. They already have access to their very own phone division in Sony Ericsson and therefore the resources are most certainly at their fingertips. It makes sense, if Sony is already competing against Apple in the 3G phone market, why not merge their newest gaming device with their mobile phone brand and create the worlds newest, premium mobile? Who better to take on Apple than Sony?

Sony’s new PSP Go! is rumored to drop the UMD format after major piracy issues plagued the successes of the PSP in favour of downloadable content similar to the iPhone. If this is indeed the case, it makes even more sense for there to be compatibility between the PSP Go! and the PS3, using the Playstation 3 as a storage device not dissimilar from iTunes on PC and MACs used by the iPhone. If this is indeed the case, music, video and games could be stored on the PS3. There’s even the chance that PS3 games could be streamed over short distances to the new handheld via a WiFi connection. It would certainly eliminate those annoying toilet breaks.

And what of our market leader? Nintendo has been the supreme front runner of the handheld gaming market since the Game and Watch in 1980. To find out, lets take a trip back to E3 2005 where Nintendo declared their new handheld devise, the Nintendo DS, to be the ‘third pillar’ in their hardware entourage. What they meant then was that the Wii, the Gameboy Advanced and the Nintendo DS would all coexist together. Today however we know things didn’t really go as planned (or they did and Nintendo just lied). There hasn’t been an upgraded ‘Gameboy’ system; there have however been three reiterations of the Nintendo DS. This begs the question, is the Gameboy dead?

Personally, I doubt it; the Gameboy is still today, after years of being rendered inactive, a household name. Originally targeted at boys (who would have thunk it!), Nintendo did a good job turning a device with a brand name like ‘Gameboy’ into a relatively unisex device through titles like Pokémon and Mario Kart.

As it stands, the Nintendo DSi, the third redesign of the insanely popular Nintendo DS has additional features that reflect intent to counter the online capabilities of the iPhone. With Nintendo’s strong ties with many electronics companies such as Samsung and Panasonic, mainly due to the fact that over the years both have been in direct competition with Sony on many other fronts, it’s possible Nintendo will be able to integrate phone-like features to a handheld in the future. I don’t know if I can see Nintendo release an multi-purpose device in the form of a ‘Nintendo DSiPhone’ anytime in the near future, but their hand may be forced if the competition for the casual gaming market is continued when/if Apple release a more ‘gamer orientated’ device and if Sony includes phone functionality with their PSP Go!.

Should this be the case, it would make sense for Nintendo to still keep their hands in the ‘pure’ gaming handheld market. Clearly the Nintendo DS is likely brand of choice to make its way into the multi-purpose device sector, its already beginning. Enter, wait *Delete. Delete*. Re-enter the Gameboy, Nintendo’s pure gaming handheld device may well have a place in the gaming world yet...

Of course, this is all speculation and is completely dependent on a number a decisions by various companies, but you heard it here first should these events come to pass. All this ultimately leads us to the questions; how would win a handheld war should the above events come to pass? How would this affect the home console market, if at all? And who would win in a futurist ‘console war’ between Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo and... Apple?? Fire.

More on this tomorrow...