BlackBerry is still a thing, and Sony made moves - This Geek in Review for 2022-02-04

By goz

I’ve started streaming on Tuesday nights at 8pm over on Twitch. Right now it’s been Atari Jaguar games, but I’ll expand into other retro things soon enough. It’s been fun, and for me, it gives me a chance to play things that I normally wouldn’t. I’m going to try to keep it as authentic as possible, playing on the original hardware. That hasn’t been a problem with the Jag since I lucked out and bought a very large collection in the late 90s.

Next up is to add S-video out to my 7800 so I can play some 2600 and 7800 games.

I can’t wait to see what BlackBerry does next!

At the beginning of the smartphone era, there was BlackBerry and then everyone else. It’s amazing to me how a company that had it all then lost it all in a few short years. This is what I’m reminded of with the current tech companies. There is never a guarantee that they will stay on top.

There was a quote credited to a BlackBerry executive going around from the introduction of the iPhone. Basically, they said it was impossible to do what Apple was doing. What happened to BlackBerry happened to Atari. The 2600 made Atari the fastest growing company in modern times, and they thought that they could milk the 2600 forever. BlackBerry had the corporate market sewed up and they thought that it would last forever.

I do miss physical keyboards on smartphones, maybe someone will take the BB patents and create an Android phone with them. When I had my iPhone 4, I had a slide out keyboard case for it, that would be cool to have today.

TIL I learned the Bungie wasn’t a part of Microsoft anymore

I don’t follow gaming that closely, but I do remember the uproar when Microsoft bought beloved Mac developer Bungie. The purchase brought Halo to Microsoft, much to the chagrin of Mac users who wanted an exclusive. What I didn’t know is the Bungie was spun off to an independent company in 2007.

After Microsoft bought Activision Blizzard, it must have scared Sony. This past week Sony bought up Bungie. The company will still stay independent with the goal of building out the Destiny franchise.

I started Destiny 2 but never finished it, the game was getting a little boring and repetitive. Maybe I was missing something?

When will the consolidation end? Probably when Activision Blizzard comes full circle and buys Atari.

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