Could it really be that the big bad giant of the video game industry finally got some sense knocked into them? It seems that the recently appointed CEO of EA, John Riccitiello, is exactly what the company needed to finally head in the right direction.
Combine all of these recent developments, the smart acquisitions, and their attempts to build EA as a recognizable brand to consumers and you have a company capable of benefiting both investors and consumers.
Verizon Communications Inc. has announced that it plans to help its users share files faster via peer-to-peer file sharing, or P2P. P2P is the primary method for illegal pirating and has always been unpopular with Internet service providers.
According to Arbor Networks, a company that tracks online traffic, file-sharing accounts for at least one-third of all internet traffic. Verizon has collaborated with Yale University and various other companies to enable faster downloads for consumers.
Verizon's new "P4P Working Group" was created to connect users to others close by, and not randomly across the internet. Currently, only 6.3% of the data that a Verizon customer downloads comes from a local user. In the P4P trial, 58% of the data came from nearby Verizon users. This drastically reduces the company's cost of carrying the traffic.
Following the release of February's NPD sales figures, Sony published its own comments, noting a 120% year over year increase in PS3 sales as well as the continued success of the PS2. The PSP also saw a 38% year over year increase in sales.
SCEA President and CEO Jack Tretton's thoughts after the jump.
EA has been persistent since their initial offer to acquire Grand Theft Auto publisher Take Two for 2 billion dollars. Take Two rejected the offer, but EA has T2 in its sights. In the latest development, EA has put an April 11th deadline on the offer, conveniently a day after Take Two's shareholder meeting. This definitely comes across as a "take it or leave it" situation.
Find out what EA's CEO John Riccitiello has to say after the jump.
Apple held a small press event today to outline its plans for the popular iPhone, which launched last summer and has since sold millions of units. Along with announcements sure to please developers like the Cocoa Touch programming environment and a full iPhone emulator for debug purposes, Apple announced several features that will make the iPhone a much more appealing device for corporate users. Until now, the iPhone's business capabilities were rather limited when compared to a Blackberry or Windows Mobile device, but that's all about to change.
