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The future of gaming is highly likely to be dictated by the single most influential software company in the world - Microsoft.
Microsoft's vision of future 'Net' software suggests that software of the future will not come in CD, DVD or whatever format, but instead be subscribed to rather like a pay-per-view television service. They envsage a future where the Internet becomes so widespread and so much faster that rather than everyone having their own software it will instead be provided on massive servers and 'connected to' rather than 'installed'.
Correspondingly the lines betweens computers and consoles would become blurry. Computers would have no need for the massive processing power of modern PCs, they would simply decrypt the information transmitted to them and create the appropraite visuals and sounds accordingly. Similarly consoles, which have become more Internet-friendly since the arrival of the Sega Dreamcast, will perform in the same manner but, one presumes, solely for games.
The games of the future, therefore, will not be bought but subscribed to. How will this influence the way we play them, and who we play them with?
Traces of the answer to this have been apparent for some time. The most common example are the massive multi-player online role playing games such as the Ultima series on the PC. Here players perform roles as different characters in a huge online society. The growth of the Internet will see games such as these expand in scope, allowing players to perform more tasks and engage more directly with their characters.
The consequences for such immensely popular first-person perspective shooting games as the Quake and Unreal series, already available on many formats, will also be to see them expand in popularity and involvement by greater and grater numbers of people.
Sports games, particularly driving games, have been slower on the Internet uptake especially due to the high amounts of data needing to be transfered between different players at one time. The arrival of Rage Software's "E-Racer" may change this, as it boasts the ability to allow multiple player races over the Internet with little decrease in performance. This will spread out among the further reaches of sports games - expect massive online football management simulations between hundreds of players, perhaps even each member of a team being controlled by an individual person. Simulated racing seasons are also a likely prospect.
In hardware terms the advancements in graphics and sound technology will continue to take mighty strides. The release of NVidia's GeForce 3 chip has brough gaming another step closer to photo-realism. Digital-quality surround sound is already becoming more widespread.
Their are massive implications for this increase in realism, namely the ever-present question of violence, swearing and sexual content in computer games. Hopefully the advent of a system of software purchase via subscription will make it more difficult for minors to have access to material unsuitable for them in the same way that it is unlikely that a minor today would be able to see the Playboy Channel on Sky television.
The future of gaming will bring more people into direct competition with each other, perhaps even furthering computer gaming as a professional activity as it is already becoming established as in certain areas. Perhaps this growth of greater inter-human competition will make the need for artificial intelligence redundant in gaming? Or perhaps it will just become far more difficult to tell whether you're being beaten by a human or a computer.
Microsoft's vision of future 'Net' software suggests that software of the future will not come in CD, DVD or whatever format, but instead be subscribed to rather like a pay-per-view television service. They envsage a future where the Internet becomes so widespread and so much faster that rather than everyone having their own software it will instead be provided on massive servers and 'connected to' rather than 'installed'.
Correspondingly the lines betweens computers and consoles would become blurry. Computers would have no need for the massive processing power of modern PCs, they would simply decrypt the information transmitted to them and create the appropraite visuals and sounds accordingly. Similarly consoles, which have become more Internet-friendly since the arrival of the Sega Dreamcast, will perform in the same manner but, one presumes, solely for games.
The games of the future, therefore, will not be bought but subscribed to. How will this influence the way we play them, and who we play them with?
Traces of the answer to this have been apparent for some time. The most common example are the massive multi-player online role playing games such as the Ultima series on the PC. Here players perform roles as different characters in a huge online society. The growth of the Internet will see games such as these expand in scope, allowing players to perform more tasks and engage more directly with their characters.
The consequences for such immensely popular first-person perspective shooting games as the Quake and Unreal series, already available on many formats, will also be to see them expand in popularity and involvement by greater and grater numbers of people.
Sports games, particularly driving games, have been slower on the Internet uptake especially due to the high amounts of data needing to be transfered between different players at one time. The arrival of Rage Software's "E-Racer" may change this, as it boasts the ability to allow multiple player races over the Internet with little decrease in performance. This will spread out among the further reaches of sports games - expect massive online football management simulations between hundreds of players, perhaps even each member of a team being controlled by an individual person. Simulated racing seasons are also a likely prospect.
In hardware terms the advancements in graphics and sound technology will continue to take mighty strides. The release of NVidia's GeForce 3 chip has brough gaming another step closer to photo-realism. Digital-quality surround sound is already becoming more widespread.
Their are massive implications for this increase in realism, namely the ever-present question of violence, swearing and sexual content in computer games. Hopefully the advent of a system of software purchase via subscription will make it more difficult for minors to have access to material unsuitable for them in the same way that it is unlikely that a minor today would be able to see the Playboy Channel on Sky television.
The future of gaming will bring more people into direct competition with each other, perhaps even furthering computer gaming as a professional activity as it is already becoming established as in certain areas. Perhaps this growth of greater inter-human competition will make the need for artificial intelligence redundant in gaming? Or perhaps it will just become far more difficult to tell whether you're being beaten by a human or a computer.
New Jimmy wrote:
> The post does raise a number of questions though, what is .net
> finally going to be, and if it is as the poster describes i.e. we
> view data on our box and are hooked up to a massive (constantly
> being upgraded) super computer then thats not Microsofts dream, but
> an idea theyve stolen from a rival.
And a very silly idea it is too...
MS's idea is silly... and the original idea was completly ludicrous...
I thought .net would
> basically mean you had the PC but Microsoft controlled acess through
> their software(O.S. etc..) to the content you view and pay to
> download.
Sort of... but not quite...
> The post does raise a number of questions though, what is .net
> finally going to be, and if it is as the poster describes i.e. we
> view data on our box and are hooked up to a massive (constantly
> being upgraded) super computer then thats not Microsofts dream, but
> an idea theyve stolen from a rival.
And a very silly idea it is too...
MS's idea is silly... and the original idea was completly ludicrous...
I thought .net would
> basically mean you had the PC but Microsoft controlled acess through
> their software(O.S. etc..) to the content you view and pay to
> download.
Sort of... but not quite...
.net is a highly crap Internet magazine I used to get regularly, until they started repeating their features.
The post does raise a number of questions though, what is .net finally going to be, and if it is as the poster describes i.e. we view data on our box and are hooked up to a massive (constantly being upgraded) super computer then thats not Microsofts dream, but an idea theyve stolen from a rival.
I thought .net would basically mean you had the PC but Microsoft controlled acess through their software(O.S. etc..) to the content you view and pay to download.
I thought .net would basically mean you had the PC but Microsoft controlled acess through their software(O.S. etc..) to the content you view and pay to download.
Chrysler: Ha! Do you realise one can see your name to the left of the post...
ESB:Shhhhhhite
Chrysler: Yes quite....You aren't going to get many visits now are you...
ESB: No, no I think not...anyway - I'm taller so shut up!
Chrysler: I am much prettier than you - Mr Fancied-Up office block...
ESB: Well what are you?!
Chrysler: A more fancied up office block!
ESB: Idiot...
Chrysler: I know a song that will get......etc...
ESB: Grrrrrrrrrrrrr...!
World Trade Center: Will you two please shut up. I have all these humany things running up and down me all day shouting their heads off, the last thing I need is for you two girls to start bickering...Now, like I said, stop it!
Chrysler - ESB: Ooohhhhhhh! TOUCHY!
ESB:Shhhhhhite
Chrysler: Yes quite....You aren't going to get many visits now are you...
ESB: No, no I think not...anyway - I'm taller so shut up!
Chrysler: I am much prettier than you - Mr Fancied-Up office block...
ESB: Well what are you?!
Chrysler: A more fancied up office block!
ESB: Idiot...
Chrysler: I know a song that will get......etc...
ESB: Grrrrrrrrrrrrr...!
World Trade Center: Will you two please shut up. I have all these humany things running up and down me all day shouting their heads off, the last thing I need is for you two girls to start bickering...Now, like I said, stop it!
Chrysler - ESB: Ooohhhhhhh! TOUCHY!
SkyscraperFanClub wrote:
> The future of gaming is highly likely to be dictated by the single
> most influential software company... blah blah blah blah.....
*****************
Young man, as a result of this crap you are hereby excluded from the Skyscraper Fan Club...I expect your desk cleared of any counterfeit S.F.C merchandise by tomorrow morning...
Anonymous...
> The future of gaming is highly likely to be dictated by the single
> most influential software company... blah blah blah blah.....
*****************
Young man, as a result of this crap you are hereby excluded from the Skyscraper Fan Club...I expect your desk cleared of any counterfeit S.F.C merchandise by tomorrow morning...
Anonymous...
Seing as this is your first post, it is long, and it is about how xxx company will win, methinks this is a GAD attempt.
The future of gaming is highly likely to be dictated by the single most influential software company in the world - Microsoft.
Microsoft's vision of future 'Net' software suggests that software of the future will not come in CD, DVD or whatever format, but instead be subscribed to rather like a pay-per-view television service. They envsage a future where the Internet becomes so widespread and so much faster that rather than everyone having their own software it will instead be provided on massive servers and 'connected to' rather than 'installed'.
Correspondingly the lines betweens computers and consoles would become blurry. Computers would have no need for the massive processing power of modern PCs, they would simply decrypt the information transmitted to them and create the appropraite visuals and sounds accordingly. Similarly consoles, which have become more Internet-friendly since the arrival of the Sega Dreamcast, will perform in the same manner but, one presumes, solely for games.
The games of the future, therefore, will not be bought but subscribed to. How will this influence the way we play them, and who we play them with?
Traces of the answer to this have been apparent for some time. The most common example are the massive multi-player online role playing games such as the Ultima series on the PC. Here players perform roles as different characters in a huge online society. The growth of the Internet will see games such as these expand in scope, allowing players to perform more tasks and engage more directly with their characters.
The consequences for such immensely popular first-person perspective shooting games as the Quake and Unreal series, already available on many formats, will also be to see them expand in popularity and involvement by greater and grater numbers of people.
Sports games, particularly driving games, have been slower on the Internet uptake especially due to the high amounts of data needing to be transfered between different players at one time. The arrival of Rage Software's "E-Racer" may change this, as it boasts the ability to allow multiple player races over the Internet with little decrease in performance. This will spread out among the further reaches of sports games - expect massive online football management simulations between hundreds of players, perhaps even each member of a team being controlled by an individual person. Simulated racing seasons are also a likely prospect.
In hardware terms the advancements in graphics and sound technology will continue to take mighty strides. The release of NVidia's GeForce 3 chip has brough gaming another step closer to photo-realism. Digital-quality surround sound is already becoming more widespread.
Their are massive implications for this increase in realism, namely the ever-present question of violence, swearing and sexual content in computer games. Hopefully the advent of a system of software purchase via subscription will make it more difficult for minors to have access to material unsuitable for them in the same way that it is unlikely that a minor today would be able to see the Playboy Channel on Sky television.
The future of gaming will bring more people into direct competition with each other, perhaps even furthering computer gaming as a professional activity as it is already becoming established as in certain areas. Perhaps this growth of greater inter-human competition will make the need for artificial intelligence redundant in gaming? Or perhaps it will just become far more difficult to tell whether you're being beaten by a human or a computer.
Microsoft's vision of future 'Net' software suggests that software of the future will not come in CD, DVD or whatever format, but instead be subscribed to rather like a pay-per-view television service. They envsage a future where the Internet becomes so widespread and so much faster that rather than everyone having their own software it will instead be provided on massive servers and 'connected to' rather than 'installed'.
Correspondingly the lines betweens computers and consoles would become blurry. Computers would have no need for the massive processing power of modern PCs, they would simply decrypt the information transmitted to them and create the appropraite visuals and sounds accordingly. Similarly consoles, which have become more Internet-friendly since the arrival of the Sega Dreamcast, will perform in the same manner but, one presumes, solely for games.
The games of the future, therefore, will not be bought but subscribed to. How will this influence the way we play them, and who we play them with?
Traces of the answer to this have been apparent for some time. The most common example are the massive multi-player online role playing games such as the Ultima series on the PC. Here players perform roles as different characters in a huge online society. The growth of the Internet will see games such as these expand in scope, allowing players to perform more tasks and engage more directly with their characters.
The consequences for such immensely popular first-person perspective shooting games as the Quake and Unreal series, already available on many formats, will also be to see them expand in popularity and involvement by greater and grater numbers of people.
Sports games, particularly driving games, have been slower on the Internet uptake especially due to the high amounts of data needing to be transfered between different players at one time. The arrival of Rage Software's "E-Racer" may change this, as it boasts the ability to allow multiple player races over the Internet with little decrease in performance. This will spread out among the further reaches of sports games - expect massive online football management simulations between hundreds of players, perhaps even each member of a team being controlled by an individual person. Simulated racing seasons are also a likely prospect.
In hardware terms the advancements in graphics and sound technology will continue to take mighty strides. The release of NVidia's GeForce 3 chip has brough gaming another step closer to photo-realism. Digital-quality surround sound is already becoming more widespread.
Their are massive implications for this increase in realism, namely the ever-present question of violence, swearing and sexual content in computer games. Hopefully the advent of a system of software purchase via subscription will make it more difficult for minors to have access to material unsuitable for them in the same way that it is unlikely that a minor today would be able to see the Playboy Channel on Sky television.
The future of gaming will bring more people into direct competition with each other, perhaps even furthering computer gaming as a professional activity as it is already becoming established as in certain areas. Perhaps this growth of greater inter-human competition will make the need for artificial intelligence redundant in gaming? Or perhaps it will just become far more difficult to tell whether you're being beaten by a human or a computer.