Long-term view of Sony Playstation and Microsoft Xbox

What makes Apple and Nintendo so special? Why do they both consider each other competition? Its because they control everything on their mobile consoles. They control the hardware, the software, and the display. This control of the display allows them to innovate much faster than any other console system. The hand-held market will quickly outpace and become the de-facto standard in gaming, simply because they will be two or three steps ahead of the rest of the console market. It also takes less time to develop hardware when every device is uniform. You don't have to support multiple resolutions, different refresh rates, and so on. You have one thing to support. Developing the hardware and software becomes much simpler, which further improves the rate of innovation. Nintendo and Apple will always have the best displays with the latest technology. They will leave everybody in the dust.

or will they?

Microsoft is likely going to have a hard time keeping up, however Sony on the other hand might have an advantage. Sony also makes TVs. Sony can control the whole package, the display, hardware, software and so on. They do have the disadvantage of the PS4 having to support other displays and the displays themselves must be backwards compatible with old input streams, but the advantage of being able to ship an entire package TV + PS4 is provocative. If they can meet their goals of being the biggest TV supplier, they may also be able to take the world by storm with the PS4. I think you will see the PS4 being bundled with TVs, built-in. Not right away keep in mind, maybe a year or two after launch.

Microsoft would likely respond by making deals with other manufacturers of TVs, however they will be far behind the curve having to coordinate between two different companies. Sony's advantage is to be able to put out new technology TVs faster than their competitors and pair them with interactive software made for that technology. A similar advantage to Apple and Nintendo.

It will be interesting to see how this all plays out.

Owning an iPad makes you a minor celebrity.

Seriously. You bring it around with you and girls hit on you, random people walk up all the time and say "Is that an iPad? wow!"

Apple 1up

I bought more Apple stock.