EA predicts the death of in-store game buying

Electronic Arts believes the end is near for in-store game buying.

Speaking to Eurogamer in an interview published yesterday, EA Sports Vice President Andrew Wilson said there will be a time when gamers decide against heading to a local game retailer, and get all their titles digitally instead.

"There will come a day where I think that people will stop going into [U.K. game retailer] Game and GameStop," Wilson told Eurogamer. "And I use those purely as examples of retail. It's important for retailers and us to understand what the consumer wants in the future."

Wilson didn't say when he believes brick-and-mortar stores will fall to digital marketplaces.

Of course, EA has a vested interest in seeing that happen. Last month, the company announced the launch of Origin, a direct-to-consumer digital-download service. The offering allows users to buy digital games and download them directly to their computers. At launch, Origin offered 150 games.

Origin is one part of EA's long-term strategy to transition away from the traditional packaged-goods model. EA CEO John Riccitiello said recently that he plans to make EA an entirely digital company in the future.

"Over the coming years, we will transform EA from a packaged goods company to a fully integrated digital entertainment company," Riccitiello told investors during an earnings call in May. "We're transforming EA to a games-as-a-service model."

Most recently, EA bolstered its digital portfolio by announcing its intention to buy PopCap Games for $650 million in cash and $100 million in stock.

EA is already seeing its digital revenue jump. During its last fiscal year, ended March 31, EA's digital-games revenue grew by 46 percent year over year to more than $800 million. The company is currently forecasting that revenue to grow to over $1 billion this fiscal year.

As EA benefits from the digital push, it would seem that game retailers, such as GameStop, would not. But so far, that hasn't been the case.

According to Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter, GameStop revealed during Investor Day earlier this year that the company expects to "grow its [digital] sales at a 50 percent compound annual growth rate" over the next several years. During the fiscal year ended January 31, GameStop generated $300 million in digital games revenue, and expects that to grow to $1.5 billion in four years.

Digital content is taking the gaming industry by storm. In March, the NPD Group, which releases official monthly sales data for the industry, announced that its digital-sales reports would go monthly owing to the growth of that market segment. According to NPD's Anita Frazier, digital content now represents 40 percent of all industry sales each month.

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How Lego changed the world of toys

BILLUND, Denmark--Though it's hard to imagine a time without Lego, the world-famous plastic bricks didn't exist until 1949. And today's brick, with its three little tubes that ensure a snug fit with other bricks, didn't come on the scene until 1957. 

But the Lego company has been around much longer than that. It may be something most people have never even heard about; Ole Kirk Kristiansen's little outfit began in this small Danish town as a one-man operation turning out wooden toys. Being a world-famous brand was surely not on Kristiansen's mind at the time. 

Nearly eight decades of Lego history is on display for those lucky enough to get to visit to what is essentially the company's official museum (see photo gallery below), housed in the company's original building in Billund. And while Lego twice lost its factory to fire--the second time forcing its leaders to abandon making wooden toys--it's still possible to get a sense of what the company was about in its earliest days. 

The history of Lego is really the history of the Kristiansen family. Privately run, the company was helmed by Kristiansens for three generations. It has only recently taken on its first nonfamily CEO. All told, it has 9,900 employees, and just a single brand. But of course, as far as most people are concerned, the real history of the company goes back only as far as those first plastic bricks. 

For years after the original hollow bricks came out, Lego tried to find a way to get them to stick together better. While the bricks did OK if they were stacked directly on top of each other, they weren't all that stable, and you couldn't have them stacked in any unusual ways. In 1957, the company finally figured out that with the three little tubes on the inside, the bricks would lock together perfectly, and could be stacked in a million different ways. 

Actually, my host told me, it's a lot more. If you have six 2x4 Lego bricks of the same color, they can be stacked 915,103,765 different ways. We didn't have time to try them all. (LOL)

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Google eBooks and Iriver launch Story HD e-reader

Back at CES in January, we got an early look at Iriver's Story HD, a new e-ink-based product that the company was touting as the world's "highest-resolution 6-inch e-reader." Well now, that e-reader is set to launch July 17 with the Google eBookstore on board, making it the first Google eBooks e-reader. 

The 7.3-ounce Story HD, which retails for $139.99 and sports an electronic paper display made by LG, offers XGA (768x1,024 pixels) resolution and has 63.8 percent more pixels and faster page turns, thanks to an advanced processor from Freescale Semiconductor based on ARM Cortex technology. It also has built-in Wi-Fi and allegedly gives you up to six weeks of battery life from a single charge. As far as other specs go, the Story HD has a QWERTY keypad, and supports EPUB and PDF formats with DRM. 

Aside from the Google eBooks integration, obviously the most interesting selling point will be the crisper text that the higher-resolution display delivers. But with more e-ink readers moving to a touch-screen interface and a more compact design without a keyboard, the Story HD's design faces the problem of seeming marginally dated at launch. It's also unclear how much people care about Google eBooks at this point after it hasn't exactly set the world on fire since it launched late last year. 

The new e-reader will first appear in Target stores and on Target.com next week. As soon as we get our hands on a unit, we'll let you know what we think in an in-depth review.

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Little iPhone, big lenses

While I don't understand why you'd want to do it, other than because you can (and a desire to be able to say in your Flickr stream that you did), you can now attach Canon and Nikon lenses to your iPhone. Photojojo, a source of photo-accessory awesomeness, grants your wish with the $190 iPhone SLR Mount. 

It's an idea that's easy to mock, especially given Photojojo's suggested photo of it with a huge Canon lens attached, but it might not be quite so laughable with a pancake prime or Lensbaby. Or if it were a mount for a smaller Micro Four Thirds lens. But Photojojo's got a lot of cheaper, more size-compatible add-on lenses for your iPhone, like this iPhone Telephoto lens. Even better, if you want that kind of creative flexibility, use a came

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