Next-generation consoles from Sony and Microsoft, expected late this year/early next, will kick off a new cycle for the games industry, but enter a much more competitive market

Smartphones and tablets offer an alternative gaming model, with more variety, lower cost, greater convenience and, crucially, rapidly increasing sophistication

These new platforms are expanding gaming to a much larger audience, but also increasingly competing with consoles for the time and attention of core gamers. This could be the last recognisable console cycle

German unbundlers are in decline, unable to match cable for price or bandwidth, or to invest in new fibre networks. Vodafone, the second largest unbundler, must choose between consolidating and divesting Merging with Kabel Deutschland would deliver fixed line synergies – with high execution risks. But, based on the French and Spanish experiences, we doubt that a quad play strategy (synonymous with a price war) would generate value Mobile operators’ fixed line ventures are also in decline elsewhere in Europe, but cable is not always to blame, with pure play fixed line altnets also tending to outperform them, suggesting that genuine cross-selling advantages are marginal at best

Press advertising performed worse than we expected in 2012, with double digit declines both last year and this year now a very real possibility.

Previously resilient areas of the press have weakened. Popular national titles have seen sharp advertising declines, while faltering circulation in celebrity magazines exposes an underlying decline in demand.

Retail and services advertisers continue to pull spend from print, largely in favour of online, though TV is also very resilient. Industry efforts to offset these structural shifts include the development of trading platforms, further consolidation and a number of commercial editorial tactics.