Posts tagged as:

figures

1 in 4 Gamers Pay and Download Instead of Leaving Their Gaming Chairs – What’s a High Street Again?

by Jay Garrett on October 28, 2009

3_steam_createaccountGamers love to have the latest and bestest and it shows that 25% of gamers surveyed said that paying for and downloading the digital only version is the way forward.

The International Gamers Survey, conducted by Today’s Gamers took in the opinion of 13,000 gamers across Europe and the United States and found that, on average, around a quarter of all of them have bought game extras online in-game.

That number actually increases amongst the owners of consoles such as the PS3 and Xbox 360 which make a big song-and-dance over their digital delivery systems.

Before you start to poo-poo these figures you have to understand that all this includes map packs, optional extras and various in-game upgrades, which are usually offered for little more than a few pounds or even pence at a time.

The UK figures for full-game downloads are quite a lot lower at a mere 7% of gamers currently buying full games in digital download format – although that figure doubles among PC owners, where online-only shopping services like the lovely Steam have built up a sizeable following and reputation for reliability.

By-the-way – on Steam this week you can get S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl for under £4!!!! Just saying ;)

Perhaps the UK numbers would increase if we had faster, cheaper and truly unlimited download services here ;)

Today’s Gamers believes that download-only sales numbers of proper games will grow to a point that no-one will be bothered going to the bricks-and-mortar stores in as little as three years time.

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BBC iPlayer – Just How Much Data is Sent? Answers Found Here

by Jay G on May 8, 2009

iplayer460The bane of ISP’s in the UK - BBC’s iPlayer has been a huge success.

Want to know how much data is sent out?

Well, iPlayer boss Anthony Rose has revealed some of the numbers in an interview with CNet UK’s Crave, and states:

“I think that at the moment, just for streaming, iPlayer uses about 60Gbps of bandwidth (that’s about 7.5GB downloaded every second) in an evening peak. I think about 15Gbps for downloads, and about 1.5Gbps for iPhone. So overall on a particular peak day we may hit 100Gbps (about 12.5 gigabytes per second) although typically it’ll be somewhat less than that. That turns out to be up to 7 petabytes of data transfer a month.”

To make sure that everyone is catered for iPlayer uses 60 servers to encode tapes in 14 different formats.

Rose is also asked about the choice of Adobe Air for the iPlayer client software platform. He says:

“We had to be on Mac, PC and Linux, so we spent a lot of time analysing solutions that we could use, including what I call ’speed dating’ companies that offer solutions in this area. But ultimately we chose Adobe Air for two key reasons: number one, it had a system that allowed our seven-day or 30-day playback to be enabled and controlled on PC, Mac and Linux. That’s a requirement of a DRM, not that we want to use DRM, but we’re forced to because we make content available for download. It’s part of our rights framework.”

Rose points out that iPlayer usage peaks a bit later than TV usage, “but interestingly, iPlayer on the iPhone peaks at about midnight. So people are clearly going to bed with their iPhone and watching in bed.”

So – do you use iPlayer?

If so, which shows and at what time?

I tend to use it to keep up with Ashes to Ashes……. but then some people would argue that I’m also stuck in the 80’s!

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Mobile Internet Twice As Nice Since 2008

March 16, 2009 Click to read more →

We know that Brits love mobile internet.
But comScore worked out that the number of people accessing news and information on their mobile device has more than doubled in a year.
In January 2008 around 36,870,000 US users accessed the internet on a mobile phone. This figure rose to over 63,000,000 in January 2009.
Out of that 63.2 [...]

LEGO Mini Me Business Cards

March 2, 2009 Click to read more →

Ah, in the heady world of business networking there is soooooooo much room for humour.
LEGO thinks so and now the plastic brick company provides employees with little LEGO mini-fig business “cards”.
Each figure is modeled to represent the employee and takes into consideration gender, hair colour, glasses, etc.
The details are worn by the figure on a [...]

British Choose Internet Over Cars and Washing Machines

November 17, 2008 Click to read more →

An AMD-commissioned YouGov research into British notebook usage has shown that most Brits would rather be hooked up to the interweb than own their own ride!
The study reveals that 90% of 18-24 year olds own a notebook with 73% saying that they “couldn’t live without” it.
I fear for Halfords – I really do!!
Britons apparently consider access [...]