Round Up: Smedley vs. Pachter, Sega Wii VC, Twistbox

Today's round-up includes news of SOE president John Smedley's response to Michael Pachter's analysis of the PC gaming industry, possible Wii Vitrual Console offerings from Sega, and Twistbox named as the parent company of WAAT Media and Charismatix, as well as the latest Game Career Guide updates, GameSetWatch posts and Gamasutra job postings. - Sony Online Entertainment president John Smedley has responded to comments made by Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter in a recent Gamasutra feature titled 'Analyze This: The Current State of the PC Game Business'. In the feature, Pachter commented that “the digital distribution model is probably going to be extremely limited, and packaged products will likely rule for a long time. Digital downloads are not portable (you can’t take [them] over to your friend’s house), can’t be sold at garage sales, are limited to broadband households, and take up a disproportionate amount of disk space. I think that this will not approach more than 20% of the market for the next ten years or so.” To this, Smedley wrote that “Michael Pachter has not analyzed the gaming audience outside of the United States.” He added that “Xbox Live and the PS3’s upcoming network service are both focused squarely at the next generation of digital downloading,” and that “to say it’s not going to be more than 20% of the market 10 years from now just strikes me as dead wrong.” Humorously, the SOE executive capped off his blog post with a challenge to Pachter, writing “I’ll be happy to make a $1000 bet to be given to the charity of your choice that you’re wrong on digital distribution. I’ll even say it’s going to happen within the next 2 years and I’ll make that bet on both console and PC.” - Consumer website 1UP has reported on a listing of several Genesis-era titles from Sega listed on the ESRB website for the Wii. These games include stalwarts such as Sonic the Hedgehog, Golden Axe, Ecco the Dolphin, and Columns, as well as more niche titles such as Ristar and Toe Jam & Earl. While no other information concerning these titles is available, it seems fairly certain that these games will make up Sega's initial offering for the upcoming Virtual Console online service for the Wii. Currently little else is known about what titles will be offered over the service, as well as how they will be bundled and for what price, though some speculate that this information could come as early as this week following a series of global press events planned by Nintendo with select media. - Representatives from mobile content publisher Twistbox Entertainment today announced at the CTIA conference in Los Angeles that the company today became the parent of WAAT Media and Charismatix. The company said Twistbox will represent the operating unit and brand for all general entertainment activities. Over the next 90 days Charismatix will be rebranded as Twistbox Games. All late night entertainment programming will remain under the WAAT subsidiary. Boston-based Spark Capital led the $12.75 million funding round for Twistbox. Representatives from the company note that the funds will be used to accelerate the development of its general entertainment category, expand distribution in Asia and explore possible acquisition targets. - The latest updates on Gamasutra sister alt.gaming weblog GameSetWatch include playing Hangman to the extreme on mobile phones, a look back at a 16-bit 'classic' title from Squaresoft called Live A Live, and a 16-bit inspired music video from indie band Xiu Xiu. - News on Gamasutra's game education sister site Game Career Guide includes news of G.A.N.G. memberships for Pyramind students, and a new book review of 'Basic Game Design and Creation for Fun and Learning'. - Also updated today: the latest Gamasutra job postings, including openings from 2K Games, Blizzard Entertainment, Blue Fang Games, FarSight Studios, Firaxis Games, LucasArts, Planet Moon Studios, RealNetworks, THQ, and Ubisoft.