Has new and digital media had an impact upon ownership and control of the media institutions involved in your case study?

The involvement of new and digital media in the gaming industry has an impact on the ownership and control of the media institutions. New consoles from the likes of Sony and Microsoft, such as PS3 and X-box 360, have allowed these institutions to be more in control of the gaming industry. Taking full advantage of the internet and new technology games and consoles are a lot more advanced and offer various different types of opportunity for the consumer, from playing alone to with your mates to watching Blu-ray films offline.  Sony announced it had sold over 70 million Play station 3 consoles worldwide, this has taken them just 7 years. On top of that the console comes with PSN [Play Station Network] which sells a variety of things from games to dynamic themes to avatars. However, Sony is not in complete control, little over 2 years ago PSN was hacked and the details of 1 million users were exposed which goes to show because of new and digital media they also not in complete control. There are also many new handheld consoles being released, one of the most recent ones would be the PS Vita which meant that consumers no longer need to be at home but can experience gaming on the go as well seeking to increase their audience range however, the recent performance of the PS vita is not gone the way Sony would have wanted it to. Even after the PSP vita was released it has been out performed by the PSP, a much older version which goes to show that new and digital media might not always be successful in a industry.  Some could say that institutions are losing control, one of the most recent examples of this would be the Connecticut school massacre in which it is said that gunman Adam Lanza spent hours playing violent video games such as Call of Duty.  This has led to criticism of violent video games, as the National Rifle Association blamed the entertainment industry ‘specifically the producers of violent video games for inciting what has become a pattern of gun violence in the United States’. These types of tragic events have occurred over the years, other examples of video games inspiring real life acts of violence would include a Thai student who murdered a taxi driver while trying to recreate a scene from the Grand Theft Auto as well as, Tristan van der Vlis who killed 6 people in the tragedy known as the Alphen aan den Rijn shopping mall shooting  was inspired by a game called Airport Massacre, in which the player can choose (or not choose) to participate in the killing of a large group of innocent people inside an airport terminal.