Counting the Cost

Tech wars

Jake Ward looks at the latest stories making waves in the world of technology.

Destiny‘, the video game which looks like a movie, is attracting Hollywood-like money. It is a science-fiction tale set 700 years in the future, in which armed protectors must defend the last civilised place on our precious earth.

Destiny attracted name-actors like Peter Dinklage and Bill Nighy as character voices. Sir Paul McCartney wrote some of the music, and on its first day, $500m worth of the game was shipped out to retailers, making it the biggest game launch in history. That is not bad for the game’s publisher Activision, and the better news is that because it is an online game, its growth potential is massive.

Meanwhile, at the other end of the spectrum, is a game called Minecraft. It is blocky, pixelated, and nothing like the fancy graphics of Destiny, yet Microsoft wants to pay $2bn for it. It has already been a success for its current Swedish owners Mojang, which had revenues of $360m last year. What Microsoft wants is to get what is a very popular game operating on its Windows 8 platform, as well as Windows phones and Surface tablets.

And then there is Apple, which finally got into the wearables game with the Apple Watch, and launched two new bigger versions of the iPhone. Apple fans all over the world were impressed, but it does need to be said that these new products are really nothing new. Samsung Galaxy, HTC, Huwei have all been making large-screen smartphones for years,and were keen to ram that point home after the Apple event.

What was perhaps more significant was Apple’s move into mobile payment. Again, not new, but Apple’s size and reach can quite possibly turn it into something much bigger than it already is. Al Jazeera’s Jake Ward explains more.