New ventures in the city are offering futuristic concepts, yet whether they take off means paying attention to the details. By Scott Murphy.

If you've ever had the absolute desire to read a same-day print edition of Le Figaro, The Guardian, The New York Times or 177 other international papers, your prayers are about to be answered. By that same token, if you've ever thought that you could design a more creative video game than "Warcraft," "Age Of Mythology," or the "Sims," you too could be in luck.

In a city where we often question thinking out of the box, these ideas truly are thinking out of the box. But whether they succeed, and whether their initiatives are entirely foolproof, is another story. For starters, in one instance, getting the companies themselves to agree on more than their press release is an exercise in hilarity. In another, industry insiders had such a hard time conveying their impressions that several of them ultimately requested that their comments remain off the record.

Today's News Today
New to Hong Kong—and only five-years-old in the rest of the world—Satellite News currently has one office in Wan Chai, a staff of less than a dozen, a slogan of "Tomorrow's Newspaper Today," a listing on NASDAQ and three kiosks around the city. Yet those three kiosks, which are located at DB Terminal 3, the Novotel Century Hotel and the Kowloon Hotel, are part of the key to their hopeful success. "It's the only kiosk in the world which allows you to read the news automatically via a foreign newspaper, printed anytime you want it. We call it print on-demand," says President Thomas Chan. The system was invented in 1999 by Dutchman Robert Piceni and a friend, who wanted to find out what was happening in their own country while traveling, but couldn't. After inventing the technology, they formed the company, bought bandwith on five satellites, and now have kiosks in cities throughout the world.

The vendors themselves are easy for anyone to use. Potential readers can either buy a subscription, which is encoded into a type of credit card, or buy the papers individually, using a one-time card, at an average of $35 per issue. At that time, readers can purchase the newspaper of their choice, and two minutes later, the latest edition is printed, stapled, and can be carried around just like a regular newspaper.  Yet with such a steep cost, it doesn't appear as if  "The Standard" and the "South China Morning Post"—who were unavailable for comments at press time—have to worry about potential sales eating into their own circulation. On the contrary, USA Today Asia Pacific representative Raymond Suen welcomes the concept. "It allows us to be in some of the areas that we cannot reach like South Africa and Australia. It's good for a lot of newpapers. The weak part though is that they don't have color and the paper takes some getting used to."

Satellite News staff claim that taking away sales from other papers isn't their intention. They even admit that they would welcome the "Top 5" newspapers in each city to become part of their service, be they foreign language—in this case Chinese, or English publications. "Hong Kong stopped issuing newsstand licenses a few years ago," claims Executive Vice President Althay Cheng. "We're aiming for foreign visitors who are only in a city for a few days who would like to read what's happening in their home town. Expats who have been here a long time most likely either have their own arrangements, or are content to read the local papers."

If this seems like a plan without potential, the Satellite News staff are already thinking ahead. They not only aim to have 60 kiosks in the city over the next year, but believe that their real revenue will be generated by the sale of video advertising on their kiosks, by ads within the papers, by a newspaper clipping service, and even via franchising and the sale of software to clients. It's an ambitious plan, and all media companies contacted about this concept declined to comment on the record as they were still familiarizing themselves with the product. One mentioned that "the internet could do the job just as well, but for those who want to 'feel' like they're reading a real paper, then the concept stands up."

Judging by the slow, but steady stream of foreigners coming into the office "tomorrow's newspaper today" could catch on. "I used to go to the French store on Wyndham Street but the papers are a few days old," said one Parisian native in search of the latest edition of Le Monde. "Now I will come here."

Video Games or Video Follies?
It's no secret that the amount of people around the world blasting each other away via video games is growing everyday. Here in Asia, Microsoft claims that they have sold 1,500,000 copies of their Xbox in the region, with more than a million subscribers on their Xbox live service, a number which they expect will grow by another half million by June of next year-and that's just one company.

But the Hong Kong government teaming up with Cyberport and Xbox in a joint initiative called the "Xbox Games Incubation Program?" That is a surprise. "The Xbox Games Incubation Program is one of the government's latest initiatives in nurturing talents and enhancing the industry's creative and technological levels by encouraging more local enterprises to take part in video games development in Hong Kong," says Betty Fung, Deputy Government Chief Information Officer.

What's an "Incubation Program?" According those involved, it's designed for individuals and small or medium enterprises who have never designed a game before to try their hand. There will be five winners selected next January, and those winners—now $5,000 richer—will get 24 hour use of Cyberport's Digital Media Center for a full year. If they complete the year, and their project, they'll receive another $20,000. "The end result will be a Hong Kong Xbox game that we can play with," says David Chung, Senior Manager IT Operations at Cyberport. "We are no longer playing a game from another country. Hopefully, we can have an edutainment game as opposed to killing. Hopefully, we can find the talent for that."

Chung believes that there will be plenty of entries, including those who have already been programming mobile phone games. "We'll provide the hardware, and the software, and even the game engine," Chung claims. Winners will also get full use of Cyberport's US$7 million worth of equipment, which includes motion capture equipment, cyber scanning, and a chroma key room. "Hong Kong SME's are very focused on their work so a lot of people wouldn't bother. We are helping the whole industry to upgrade themselves. If you have a good concept, please join us."

Which all sounds quite good until the question of who owns the eventual game comes into play. Will Microsoft put out the game? "At this moment, no," says an Xbox spokesperson, finally reached after endless inquiries through Microsoft's stonewalling. "The property rights for these games will be owned by Cyberport Management, so we have to go back and ask if they are willing to publish the games." Will Cyberport own the game? "The owner owns the rights. We try to stay as neutral as possible. Hopefully by the end of next year, we're going to see a Hong Kong made game. That's the big outcome. Then people are going to publish it and sell it locally or internationally," says Chung. Will it be Xbox? "It depends. Just like you write a book, then you will find a publisher. We'll network with the publishers. Microsoft is one. EA is another."

And in this case, with the government footing the bill, it's clear that someone will win this particular game. But who that is will become more apparent sometime next year.