Video Panel: Tablet Gaming Killing Consoles? Nokia to create new form factor – tablet is not the last thing to innovate

Below is a two part 24 minute panel with Nokia EVP Tero Ojanperä and Rovio’s CEO Peter Vesterbacka.

First things first – I want that Angry Birds hoodie! Like yesterday! I like these coloured hoodies that make the face of the character. I have a blue cookie monster hoodie :p. Secondly, what’s up with the horrible compression in uploading?

• Significance of Nok-MS for developers now and in future. Two platforms, Symbian and S40. What happens with Windows Phone? We’re now finalising the deal. Good news for devs (??????????) when transformation from current platform is completed we feel that there is going to be three relevant platforms for gamers, application developers. Nok-MS talking in the volumes with this partnership. Talk in detail what this means later on. (What?!?!?!)
• What’s gonna happen to Symbian? Symbian is going to continue to sell. Symbian doing well. Plenty of life. 2020m+ phones today. when we look at ovi store downloads, it’s growing constantly. If you look at 2010, went from 500k a day to close to 5m a day. 150M more phones on Symbian platform. Typically when talking about transformation, the long tail of old platform will be longer. I think there’s a lot of good things one can do including continue to play angry birds.
• What are the latest user numbers in angry birds? 100m downloads, the fastest any game has been downloaded to 100m and the good news is that it’s accelerating. Over 40m active monthly users, making us the 3rd biggest game on facebook. People play the game a lot, 200m minutes a day. Everyone’s playing angry birds.
• What platform available on? iPhone obviously, android, Symbian, webos, Bada, MeeGo – on all the relevant platforms. We’re also coming to Windows Phone. AHAHAHAHA.
• What is your perspective on the fragmentation, do you think it’s a problem? A lot of devs, particularly in US are iPhone/Android first – is it hard to convince them to look at other platforms first? If you’re an owner of a successful app you need reach, you’d want to go to any platform and take the effort. You might not like it, but that’s what happens. The variations are not so big. I believe that there’s so much innovation happening, i don’t believe fragmentation will go away.
• Prototype angry birds on what you can do with dual screens, cameras and various sensors – expect to see some very cool experiences. One of earlier games, Bounce Boing Battle, 2 phones, 2 screens. We’re very excited about this true social experience, to be together, bring phones together. That has a lot of potential. We think games should be a social experience as well. Angry birds is already a social experience as people talk about it, sharing info on how to get 3 stars.
• Angry Birds is more of a casual game, how do you see it to Microsoft’s (Xbox) more traditional gaming platforms and evolution there? haha, imagine FPS Angry Birds. We dont think consoles are a huge growth opportunities.  But they’re there and we’ll deal with that. We jsut hired a guy who used to work for Remedie (Max Payne) we’ll bring console experience. If you take Xbox, it makes sense Angry birds experience connected to other Xbox live enabled devices like Windows Phone. Throw in another Dimension – from 2D to Amazing 3D. Consoles have massive massive horse power compared to current smartphones. What’s happening in gaming industry right now is interesting. Used to be that real games, AAA on consoles that cost 50-60 bucks taking years and years to produce, the centre of gravity shifted which is clearly in mobile. Thta’s where innovation and profit is. Console a dying breed. See Apple and iPad – see the lines outside store. I don’t know if it’s real or if they’ve hired actors…last year iPad, this year iPad 2, next year iPad 3 then 4 and so on. 3 might even be this year. But it’s very competitive. I think tablets are killing the consoles. I think that’s where games will be played. Much more performant – plug to HDTV. We will see probably 4 generations of tablets before seeing a new console. If ever.
• Tero: I think Tablets and mobile will be impacting the market. One thing I don’t agree with Peter is that you would plug in your tablet to big screen because it’s kinda more personal. That’s why you buy a console and you manage the connection and plug it in. I think tablets and small gadgets in general, I don’t think it will be the last thing we will innovate. There will be a new form factor in this size, a little bit bigger than tablet (though he was looking at his phone) I think they will be a big driver in growth of mobile gaming. This is interesting. So instead of going to the tablet market and becoming a Me Too, are Nokia going to try and be different and be a, I’m something else, Like what Nintendo did with Wii? or Apple with iPad (which is essentially a “new” product. That’s why they have majority market share)]

PART 2


• Tero: First thing I said to my kids after the Windows Phone deal – I’m finally going to go and get an XBox because now I can start to design the game play that connects Xbox Kinnect with location. I have 3 kids btw. I’m really here because from Peter I get these stuffed animals (Angry Birds). Challenge is, how do you see design when seeing Xbox, Mobile Phone, location connected in some way that will make sense of Angry Birds? We’ve already seen hacks to play Angry Birds with Kinnect.  It’s an OK experience. We can make it better. Looking now at Kinnect, Move and what Nintendo is doing. No brainer. Just like Angry Birds success, it’s great for touch, but we’ll look at motion control tech. We think we can and we haven’t publicly committed, but it’s not a huge stretch of imagination that we’ll do something like that. Location I think that’s important for us. How many have played angry birds? A lot more people here have played angry birds that have ever checked in to foursquare, facebook – we can make that pervasive by bringing it into the game. Maybe at Bellmont there’s now 200 people playing Angry birds. We can do this and we might but don’t want to create experience just for the sake of technology. Location of course very important. We have designs underway which we’l bring into Angry birds and make it better.
• Zynga needs to come out with Farmville 2. I see you’re still milking Angry Birds. Are we going to see Angry Birds 2 this year? We’re not working on Angry Birds 2 because that would be LAME. That’s like the easy way out, creating 3,4,5,6. That’s the hollywood model. We’re from Finland. We’re looking at the social side. As we’ve said, we’re the most social game out there. WE’re looking at ONline social, looking for this in May. We view farmville, cityville and ville games as 10 in social gaming. We’re looking at next gen 2.0. Not just slingshotting – we’re not finished. WE can bring much more compelling experiences from social side. Lots of room for innovation in that space and hope to bring it to market.

Category: Applications, Games, Nokia, Symbian, Windows Phone