Mobile Army

I've gone on record saying I'm not a believer. Where I have stepped on that is the one thing that console can now represent is a DRM device. That means because I can only get that content on that device, that's a a reason to buy it. The question is given the world of the internet and connected services is that a viable model moving forward? And I'm not convinced that having a restricted access device is as valuable a business model as having experiences that are tuned to the mode of use of every device, where the experience is different but shareable.

We'll always have the Call Of Duties, because they satisfy a user need. I want to be entertained in this situation, here are the tools I've got to be entertained on. Surely there's more money to be made on that than to have that box. Controversial though that may be, given that I'm ex-Sony.

One of my favourite subjects. On the surface, iPhone: X number of million users, and an app store that's well managed and populated, and every one's got a credit card. That must be better mustn't it? I don't think so. I don't think that the app store changes often enough, it's not well managed. How often do you go into the app store and it hasn't changed a week later? I've gone in and seen the same content on the front page that I saw a month before. And one thing I learned working at Three is I have a top ten list of best selling games, they're the only games that sell. If I have a new list everyday of games that are recommended, I sold a whole bunch more games.

In China there's 70 different app stores, and that allows 70 or so different editorial voices. The likelihood of you being able to find somebody who shares your view of content goes up.

You can't do the managed app store like I could at Three, but there's some lessons to be learned from what we got right in those operator days - we didn't get everything wrong. We may have been terrible in the revenue share that we gave, and that was partly my fault - I was the guy that did the 60 per cent revenue share - but the bottom line was we generated revenue because we managed the service. It was unscalable, but there is some real innovation that needs to happen here, and either they're going to do it or someone else is going to do. The trick on iPhone is that they've got that summed up, but that's not summed up on Android.

So I think Android is where the really big opportunities are right now. Not only are the numbers going through the roof in terms of who has a device, not only is the build quality of the devices going up, not only is the capability of the UI, the customer friendliness of the experience gone up, but the irony is it's so much easier to promote and manage your content for yourself.

I'm not a huge fan of the Google Marketplace either - I think its got its own issues - but the fact that it's not the only shop in town is I think its biggest strength. And I'm sure the Google guys will do whatever they can to make their store as good as possible, but I love the fact that they've got competition with Amazon, with all these other new companies. Like I said, in China there's 70 different app stores, because what that allows is 70 or so different editorial voices, and the likelihood of you being able to find somebody who shares your view of content goes up.

But even bigger than that I think the role is going to come down to not the app store, but the social layer. And actually I've almost stopped bothering going to app stores and I'm now looking at my Papaya newsfeed to see the games that are interesting and what other people are playing. And that's driving it, because social discovery is way more accurate than any editor. So I'm personally thinking that the real joy is that I've got so much more scope on Android to play with marketing.

But I've got a downside, and the downside is you can't guarantee the user has a credit card, therefore I can't guarantee how they're going to pay. But again that comes back to the social services side; I know that I can train users to trust the programme and the currency, and that means that they'll pass over their payment details whether it's Google Checkout, credit card, Paypal.

There's whole bunch of people out there who don't have a credit card but who do have a Paypal account or pre-paid cards, and the interesting thing is everybody is so excited what we can make in terms of revenue right now in Apple or whatever else and that to me is just the tip of the iceberg, it's the guys who have got a credit card. And that works in in the US, it doesn't work in Germany, it doesn't work in China, so of course there are people who do, but for most it's just another barrier to people spending money.

The bottom line is discovery and it's going to come through other things than the app stores.

So the bottom line is discovery. It's going to come through other things than the app stores. I think this is going to be an interesting debate over the next year or so because there's a lot of questions over what happens with HTML5, what happens with things like Amazon, and want happens with the device manufacturers?

I think the fascinating thing is that I was doing mobile five years ago, and in those five years it's completely changed. Operators were gods, now they're useful but a little unsure of where their place in the chain is. I think they'll always have a place - there's a really important part of their relationship with the customers that has yet to be re-found - but we have to define what that is. The app stores from Android and Apple are there, but the bottom line is every week now something new is changing the way the market works. Gree buying up OpenFeint, DeNA and ngmoco, the hottest space right now is the one we're sitting in with Papaya. We're sitting there with an audience who love games, and they want to spend money. But they're quite discerning, and they want to spend money on something that's entertaining, and the hard part is for people to understand how best to use that.