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So what's next in the gaming industry?
Consoles
Consoles are no longer just consoles, Take the first decent console there was, The NES. It played games and that was all it could do. It started the whole gaming industry of and was the best console of its time. But now things have changed. The PS2 and X-Box have built in DVD players, the GameCube is just a console but there is a DVD player available for it. So is this the way things are going to go?
There are also a lot of additions that make consoles appear more like Personal computers than dedicated games machines. Most of that is for on-line game playing but is this the step we will se in the future?
Maybe they will all be combined into one single piece of hardware. A friend of mine works for a mobile phone company and he says that in time the abilities of what you can use a mobile phone for will have improved greatly so will consoles be the same? Since the combination of TV's and video machines a while back others have went along similar lines. Also could we see consoles making a leap away from just being dedicated games machines to allow a wide range of software to be used, not replacing the PC but for those who don't need all the functions a PC offers. I think that one day we may well see televisions with built in consoles that have the ability to play games, DVD movies, Audio and MP3's, and also mini disks. It seems people like the idea of things together rather than all separate. But how much would something like this cost? Which leads me on to the next point. Money. Are we being ripped off a little these days by console makers and developers?
I know that it does cost a lot for the console parts and for it all to be put together and we are in a way paying for quality, as these machines are capable of producing quality graphics and sounds. But what about some of the peripherals. Also games are we paying a little too much and is there any real way of reducing the price. Are people getting too much of a profit from all this. Ok so I know in any job you try to maximise the profit you earn but there must come a time where you are ripping off the customer and maybe you could lose out in the long run. There are a lot of games out there that are not worth the amount they are sold for yet still they get priced at the same level as the likes of Gran Turismo 3 and Metal gear solid 2, It seems that we aren't paying for quality at all just for the whole cost and their extra profit. Ok so gaming is no longer for kids anymore but still hugely popular with kids, not many young kids are going to be able to afford the amount charged for the console, required peripherals and a few games. The cost all adds up and one of the big problems with gaming is that it is addictive and advertising is so well done that if a new hyped up game is due to be released lots will want it although they can't afford it. I remember countless times as a kid trying to talk my mum or dad round to buying me a game, a lot of the times they wouldn't and I can see now why. It all adds up and if you can wait a while usually the prices get dropped. Which is a little unfair to those who bought it when it came out.
Going back to the mobiles for a bit. Mobile phones are hugely popular and most of the people you know probably have one or will get one soon. So what will the future of gaming for phones hold? Right now we are stuck with the black and white snake or space invaders to keep us occupied on when we are bored. But with technology improving we may well see games like those on the GBA being used on mobiles. New phones are planning on having JAVA built in which will allow full colour graphics and it is highly likely that games on phones will be popular and improve with time.
Consoles these days are very powerful and have a lot of complex components and each console is a little different and contain different architectures, this gives each console some good points and some bad points. Depends on what type of games you like to find out what console is best for you. So consoles will improve and we may well see extra features being built in to make them appeal to even more people. But what about the future of other things concerned with gaming.
The Games
Game today are usually of a very good standard and they will continue along these lines (apart from a few rubbish ones). More and more quality and original titles will appear and take the industry by storm. Games are expensive to make and if a game isn't successful then it could cause a developer to stop developing. This is why a lot of the developers will have to try and make good games to compete with the rest of the competition on the market. I'm looking forward to a lot of great games that are due to be released within the year and no doubt more and more will come round after that.
Storage Facilities
Right now we are using DVD's or Optical disks but what could the future hold? As soon as new PC technology is discovered and becomes popular the chances are that future consoles will also use this technology. I think that it may well be holographic memory that we see being used as the specifications for early devices look very good. With a CD you can hold at most 783 MB. The most you can store on a DVD is around 15.9 GB but that's only if it is double sided and double layered. IBM have been working on Holographic data storage, early devices have the storage capacity of around 125 GB and a transfer rate of around 40 MB a second. Eventually these
devices could reach 1 TB (Terabyte =1000GB) with a rate of 1GB a second.
Imagine a games machine that uses this technology. It wouldn't be for a while but imagine what this could do, instead of buying games they could be downloaded straight to your console and stored on a small disk, games developers would have far more room to create games without having to worry about how much room is left on the disk. I think in the future the storage will greatly improve, maybe not like this for quite some time but it will gradually get there. The way games are created would probably change as there would be more memory space to work with so graphics and gameplay could be improved greatly and maybe developers wouldn't have to limit the graphical ability of the game so that the gameplay doesn't suffer. This is just one of many possible storage devices that could be used in the future, the DVD's will be used until something better comes along and isn't expensive to manufacture and to buy.
We may see games being released on small mini-disk type disks (everything seems to be getting smaller and smaller) or maybe we could be downloading games straight to a hard disk unit that we no longer have the need for disks.
Developers
The gaming industry is growing and there is quite a lot of money to be made if you can do things right. We may see more developers entering the market and maybe bringing fresh ideas and original games. As new ones enter some of the older ones may no longer be able to make games of a certain quality and find themselves having to stop making games altogether. A lot of developers are developing games for more than one console, maybe the others will do so in the future meaning we may well see the same games on a few of the consoles.
Console makers
After Sega said that they were only going to work on software from now on that has left us with only three companies, Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft. I think these three will probably be around for some time (depending on how popular the GameCube and X-Box are when released) but maybe we will see a few other companies trying their luck in the industry in the future) They will need to be a big name company as starting off is not cheap and it is a big gamble when taking on the likes of Sony and Nintendo. Maybe Sega will try their luck again and try to attract all their old fans and new ones (from the games they release on other consoles).
On-line Gaming
Is going to be big if they get it right and developers make full use of it. Fast Internet connection will be needed and also the cost will need to be suitable to let most take advantage of it. One that I would like to see used in the future is updates that could be downloaded and stored onto a hard disk unit. Then if the developers want to add more to a game (instead of releasing a dodgy sequel with little
changes they could release an update) Some will say it should be a complete game when you buy it and I agree but this would allow them to release a finished game and then spend more time creating new levels, weapons, characters, and maybe sorting a few missed bugs. One thing here though developers shouldn't be able to release a game which they don't think is completely finished as not everyone will use the on-line facilities and download the updates. So the standard of games shouldn't be allowed to drop and this option shouldn't be allowed to be used as a way of fixing bugs (like patches for PC games) just as an extra option to those who want it.
Also with on-line gaming we could see more and more gaming competitions and maybe sometime in the future we could see professional gamers, an ideal job for a lot of people out there.
Peripherals
In the future we probably will se more peripherals, the next big step may well be voice recognition, some games in Japan already use basic commands to perform certain tasks such as shoot or pass in football games. But this idea could become more popular as it would provide a better feeling of interaction with the game although I guess some games would be hard or not much fun if the only input was speech. The standard of all peripherals should improve and extras will be added to add to the experience and try make games even more fun to play. Also what about smells, well a company is working on a peripheral that mixes chemicals to create certain smells, this would add to the whole gaming experience. The choice of smells is set to include things like burning rubber (driving games) and rotting flesh for the likes of resident evil. These will only take off if developers choose to add the programming for them in their games but who knows we could be seeing them and using them some time in the future. The one that caught my eye was the Sony one where the butterflies were attracted to the spheres and also repelled by some depending on the colour of the sphere. If they get this peripheral right and have games which use it to the best of its ability then we could be seeing some very good games. Maybe even a light sabre fighting game, we can only hope.
A.I
Artificial Intelligence could be used in games more in the future, we may even see a truly intelligent piece of software that is able to communicate just like a normal average human, if this idea was used in games we could see a large leap into much more realistic games, no more predefined routes but just a large area open to exploring and completing tasks in any order at any time. This could be big if it was ever to happen. Each game could be a little different as some may find places or things that others don't. The A.I in most of today's games is of a high standard and will probably continue to be like this but once it reaches the standard of being truly intelligent then maybe we could see games of a high standard that has never been seen before. Drivers in racing games would act and behave like real life drivers, making errors at times and doing their best to win. Enemies would attack better and be able to spot you from a far and plan their attack instead of coming straight for you.
Next Big Step
The next big one will be on-line gaming but what will be next after that? Bound to be something that will have us all waiting in suspense until it is available. Maybe something to get us more involved with the games or something to put us "in the game". Maybe it will be virtual reality games where the game depends on who is playing it and what kind of things they do. Something that will revolutionise gaming and show us the way the future of gaming is heading. One of the big things in the study of Computer Science is facial recognition. Every person has a unique face and there are ways of recognising people by these characteristics which are worked out from a photograph . It is being used by police to recognise football hooligans at football games but could be a good feature for games. I would like to see an option which allowed you to input your characteristics by (photo or another way) and the main character would then look very similar to yourself. It is a process which will be used more when it is improved (for unique identification, back machines etc) whether it gets used in games or not you probably will see it used in some places.
The End?
Will we see an end to the gaming industry? Or will it go on and on just like television and the music industry seem to do? I don't think there will be an end to the gaming industry, well not in my lifetime but maybe one day if something better was to come along and replace it. Maybe games will reach a certain standard where they can no longer be improved and all games will be as good as the developer can make them. Guess like everything else all we can really do is wait and see.
So what do you think will be the next step in gaming? What do you see as the next "BIG" thing?
Consoles
Consoles are no longer just consoles, Take the first decent console there was, The NES. It played games and that was all it could do. It started the whole gaming industry of and was the best console of its time. But now things have changed. The PS2 and X-Box have built in DVD players, the GameCube is just a console but there is a DVD player available for it. So is this the way things are going to go?
There are also a lot of additions that make consoles appear more like Personal computers than dedicated games machines. Most of that is for on-line game playing but is this the step we will se in the future?
Maybe they will all be combined into one single piece of hardware. A friend of mine works for a mobile phone company and he says that in time the abilities of what you can use a mobile phone for will have improved greatly so will consoles be the same? Since the combination of TV's and video machines a while back others have went along similar lines. Also could we see consoles making a leap away from just being dedicated games machines to allow a wide range of software to be used, not replacing the PC but for those who don't need all the functions a PC offers. I think that one day we may well see televisions with built in consoles that have the ability to play games, DVD movies, Audio and MP3's, and also mini disks. It seems people like the idea of things together rather than all separate. But how much would something like this cost? Which leads me on to the next point. Money. Are we being ripped off a little these days by console makers and developers?
I know that it does cost a lot for the console parts and for it all to be put together and we are in a way paying for quality, as these machines are capable of producing quality graphics and sounds. But what about some of the peripherals. Also games are we paying a little too much and is there any real way of reducing the price. Are people getting too much of a profit from all this. Ok so I know in any job you try to maximise the profit you earn but there must come a time where you are ripping off the customer and maybe you could lose out in the long run. There are a lot of games out there that are not worth the amount they are sold for yet still they get priced at the same level as the likes of Gran Turismo 3 and Metal gear solid 2, It seems that we aren't paying for quality at all just for the whole cost and their extra profit. Ok so gaming is no longer for kids anymore but still hugely popular with kids, not many young kids are going to be able to afford the amount charged for the console, required peripherals and a few games. The cost all adds up and one of the big problems with gaming is that it is addictive and advertising is so well done that if a new hyped up game is due to be released lots will want it although they can't afford it. I remember countless times as a kid trying to talk my mum or dad round to buying me a game, a lot of the times they wouldn't and I can see now why. It all adds up and if you can wait a while usually the prices get dropped. Which is a little unfair to those who bought it when it came out.
Going back to the mobiles for a bit. Mobile phones are hugely popular and most of the people you know probably have one or will get one soon. So what will the future of gaming for phones hold? Right now we are stuck with the black and white snake or space invaders to keep us occupied on when we are bored. But with technology improving we may well see games like those on the GBA being used on mobiles. New phones are planning on having JAVA built in which will allow full colour graphics and it is highly likely that games on phones will be popular and improve with time.
Consoles these days are very powerful and have a lot of complex components and each console is a little different and contain different architectures, this gives each console some good points and some bad points. Depends on what type of games you like to find out what console is best for you. So consoles will improve and we may well see extra features being built in to make them appeal to even more people. But what about the future of other things concerned with gaming.
The Games
Game today are usually of a very good standard and they will continue along these lines (apart from a few rubbish ones). More and more quality and original titles will appear and take the industry by storm. Games are expensive to make and if a game isn't successful then it could cause a developer to stop developing. This is why a lot of the developers will have to try and make good games to compete with the rest of the competition on the market. I'm looking forward to a lot of great games that are due to be released within the year and no doubt more and more will come round after that.
Storage Facilities
Right now we are using DVD's or Optical disks but what could the future hold? As soon as new PC technology is discovered and becomes popular the chances are that future consoles will also use this technology. I think that it may well be holographic memory that we see being used as the specifications for early devices look very good. With a CD you can hold at most 783 MB. The most you can store on a DVD is around 15.9 GB but that's only if it is double sided and double layered. IBM have been working on Holographic data storage, early devices have the storage capacity of around 125 GB and a transfer rate of around 40 MB a second. Eventually these
devices could reach 1 TB (Terabyte =1000GB) with a rate of 1GB a second.
Imagine a games machine that uses this technology. It wouldn't be for a while but imagine what this could do, instead of buying games they could be downloaded straight to your console and stored on a small disk, games developers would have far more room to create games without having to worry about how much room is left on the disk. I think in the future the storage will greatly improve, maybe not like this for quite some time but it will gradually get there. The way games are created would probably change as there would be more memory space to work with so graphics and gameplay could be improved greatly and maybe developers wouldn't have to limit the graphical ability of the game so that the gameplay doesn't suffer. This is just one of many possible storage devices that could be used in the future, the DVD's will be used until something better comes along and isn't expensive to manufacture and to buy.
We may see games being released on small mini-disk type disks (everything seems to be getting smaller and smaller) or maybe we could be downloading games straight to a hard disk unit that we no longer have the need for disks.
Developers
The gaming industry is growing and there is quite a lot of money to be made if you can do things right. We may see more developers entering the market and maybe bringing fresh ideas and original games. As new ones enter some of the older ones may no longer be able to make games of a certain quality and find themselves having to stop making games altogether. A lot of developers are developing games for more than one console, maybe the others will do so in the future meaning we may well see the same games on a few of the consoles.
Console makers
After Sega said that they were only going to work on software from now on that has left us with only three companies, Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft. I think these three will probably be around for some time (depending on how popular the GameCube and X-Box are when released) but maybe we will see a few other companies trying their luck in the industry in the future) They will need to be a big name company as starting off is not cheap and it is a big gamble when taking on the likes of Sony and Nintendo. Maybe Sega will try their luck again and try to attract all their old fans and new ones (from the games they release on other consoles).
On-line Gaming
Is going to be big if they get it right and developers make full use of it. Fast Internet connection will be needed and also the cost will need to be suitable to let most take advantage of it. One that I would like to see used in the future is updates that could be downloaded and stored onto a hard disk unit. Then if the developers want to add more to a game (instead of releasing a dodgy sequel with little
changes they could release an update) Some will say it should be a complete game when you buy it and I agree but this would allow them to release a finished game and then spend more time creating new levels, weapons, characters, and maybe sorting a few missed bugs. One thing here though developers shouldn't be able to release a game which they don't think is completely finished as not everyone will use the on-line facilities and download the updates. So the standard of games shouldn't be allowed to drop and this option shouldn't be allowed to be used as a way of fixing bugs (like patches for PC games) just as an extra option to those who want it.
Also with on-line gaming we could see more and more gaming competitions and maybe sometime in the future we could see professional gamers, an ideal job for a lot of people out there.
Peripherals
In the future we probably will se more peripherals, the next big step may well be voice recognition, some games in Japan already use basic commands to perform certain tasks such as shoot or pass in football games. But this idea could become more popular as it would provide a better feeling of interaction with the game although I guess some games would be hard or not much fun if the only input was speech. The standard of all peripherals should improve and extras will be added to add to the experience and try make games even more fun to play. Also what about smells, well a company is working on a peripheral that mixes chemicals to create certain smells, this would add to the whole gaming experience. The choice of smells is set to include things like burning rubber (driving games) and rotting flesh for the likes of resident evil. These will only take off if developers choose to add the programming for them in their games but who knows we could be seeing them and using them some time in the future. The one that caught my eye was the Sony one where the butterflies were attracted to the spheres and also repelled by some depending on the colour of the sphere. If they get this peripheral right and have games which use it to the best of its ability then we could be seeing some very good games. Maybe even a light sabre fighting game, we can only hope.
A.I
Artificial Intelligence could be used in games more in the future, we may even see a truly intelligent piece of software that is able to communicate just like a normal average human, if this idea was used in games we could see a large leap into much more realistic games, no more predefined routes but just a large area open to exploring and completing tasks in any order at any time. This could be big if it was ever to happen. Each game could be a little different as some may find places or things that others don't. The A.I in most of today's games is of a high standard and will probably continue to be like this but once it reaches the standard of being truly intelligent then maybe we could see games of a high standard that has never been seen before. Drivers in racing games would act and behave like real life drivers, making errors at times and doing their best to win. Enemies would attack better and be able to spot you from a far and plan their attack instead of coming straight for you.
Next Big Step
The next big one will be on-line gaming but what will be next after that? Bound to be something that will have us all waiting in suspense until it is available. Maybe something to get us more involved with the games or something to put us "in the game". Maybe it will be virtual reality games where the game depends on who is playing it and what kind of things they do. Something that will revolutionise gaming and show us the way the future of gaming is heading. One of the big things in the study of Computer Science is facial recognition. Every person has a unique face and there are ways of recognising people by these characteristics which are worked out from a photograph . It is being used by police to recognise football hooligans at football games but could be a good feature for games. I would like to see an option which allowed you to input your characteristics by (photo or another way) and the main character would then look very similar to yourself. It is a process which will be used more when it is improved (for unique identification, back machines etc) whether it gets used in games or not you probably will see it used in some places.
The End?
Will we see an end to the gaming industry? Or will it go on and on just like television and the music industry seem to do? I don't think there will be an end to the gaming industry, well not in my lifetime but maybe one day if something better was to come along and replace it. Maybe games will reach a certain standard where they can no longer be improved and all games will be as good as the developer can make them. Guess like everything else all we can really do is wait and see.
So what do you think will be the next step in gaming? What do you see as the next "BIG" thing?
you cheeky monkey : )
Still can't manage to read past the first paragraph without nodding off...
Cheers, now I just need to think of what game to get.
well done.
I hope the next big step in gaming will be in AI improvement. At the moment all games basically lead the player on a predetermined path. I'd like to see games that evolve depending on what choices and actions the player makes. I'm not sure whether this will happen in the near future, but in the long term, true AI (that has a mind of it's own) - this is what will take gaming to the next level.
Yes, feel free to go read "Desperately attempting pomposity, or how I learned to forget and love the game." Actually, just read the last bit where I actually manage to eventually make a point.
Ok I know its a little long but does anyone have any views or points they would like to make?
So what's next in the gaming industry?
Consoles
Consoles are no longer just consoles, Take the first decent console there was, The NES. It played games and that was all it could do. It started the whole gaming industry of and was the best console of its time. But now things have changed. The PS2 and X-Box have built in DVD players, the GameCube is just a console but there is a DVD player available for it. So is this the way things are going to go?
There are also a lot of additions that make consoles appear more like Personal computers than dedicated games machines. Most of that is for on-line game playing but is this the step we will se in the future?
Maybe they will all be combined into one single piece of hardware. A friend of mine works for a mobile phone company and he says that in time the abilities of what you can use a mobile phone for will have improved greatly so will consoles be the same? Since the combination of TV's and video machines a while back others have went along similar lines. Also could we see consoles making a leap away from just being dedicated games machines to allow a wide range of software to be used, not replacing the PC but for those who don't need all the functions a PC offers. I think that one day we may well see televisions with built in consoles that have the ability to play games, DVD movies, Audio and MP3's, and also mini disks. It seems people like the idea of things together rather than all separate. But how much would something like this cost? Which leads me on to the next point. Money. Are we being ripped off a little these days by console makers and developers?
I know that it does cost a lot for the console parts and for it all to be put together and we are in a way paying for quality, as these machines are capable of producing quality graphics and sounds. But what about some of the peripherals. Also games are we paying a little too much and is there any real way of reducing the price. Are people getting too much of a profit from all this. Ok so I know in any job you try to maximise the profit you earn but there must come a time where you are ripping off the customer and maybe you could lose out in the long run. There are a lot of games out there that are not worth the amount they are sold for yet still they get priced at the same level as the likes of Gran Turismo 3 and Metal gear solid 2, It seems that we aren't paying for quality at all just for the whole cost and their extra profit. Ok so gaming is no longer for kids anymore but still hugely popular with kids, not many young kids are going to be able to afford the amount charged for the console, required peripherals and a few games. The cost all adds up and one of the big problems with gaming is that it is addictive and advertising is so well done that if a new hyped up game is due to be released lots will want it although they can't afford it. I remember countless times as a kid trying to talk my mum or dad round to buying me a game, a lot of the times they wouldn't and I can see now why. It all adds up and if you can wait a while usually the prices get dropped. Which is a little unfair to those who bought it when it came out.
Going back to the mobiles for a bit. Mobile phones are hugely popular and most of the people you know probably have one or will get one soon. So what will the future of gaming for phones hold? Right now we are stuck with the black and white snake or space invaders to keep us occupied on when we are bored. But with technology improving we may well see games like those on the GBA being used on mobiles. New phones are planning on having JAVA built in which will allow full colour graphics and it is highly likely that games on phones will be popular and improve with time.
Consoles these days are very powerful and have a lot of complex components and each console is a little different and contain different architectures, this gives each console some good points and some bad points. Depends on what type of games you like to find out what console is best for you. So consoles will improve and we may well see extra features being built in to make them appeal to even more people. But what about the future of other things concerned with gaming.
The Games
Game today are usually of a very good standard and they will continue along these lines (apart from a few rubbish ones). More and more quality and original titles will appear and take the industry by storm. Games are expensive to make and if a game isn't successful then it could cause a developer to stop developing. This is why a lot of the developers will have to try and make good games to compete with the rest of the competition on the market. I'm looking forward to a lot of great games that are due to be released within the year and no doubt more and more will come round after that.
Storage Facilities
Right now we are using DVD's or Optical disks but what could the future hold? As soon as new PC technology is discovered and becomes popular the chances are that future consoles will also use this technology. I think that it may well be holographic memory that we see being used as the specifications for early devices look very good. With a CD you can hold at most 783 MB. The most you can store on a DVD is around 15.9 GB but that's only if it is double sided and double layered. IBM have been working on Holographic data storage, early devices have the storage capacity of around 125 GB and a transfer rate of around 40 MB a second. Eventually these
devices could reach 1 TB (Terabyte =1000GB) with a rate of 1GB a second.
Imagine a games machine that uses this technology. It wouldn't be for a while but imagine what this could do, instead of buying games they could be downloaded straight to your console and stored on a small disk, games developers would have far more room to create games without having to worry about how much room is left on the disk. I think in the future the storage will greatly improve, maybe not like this for quite some time but it will gradually get there. The way games are created would probably change as there would be more memory space to work with so graphics and gameplay could be improved greatly and maybe developers wouldn't have to limit the graphical ability of the game so that the gameplay doesn't suffer. This is just one of many possible storage devices that could be used in the future, the DVD's will be used until something better comes along and isn't expensive to manufacture and to buy.
We may see games being released on small mini-disk type disks (everything seems to be getting smaller and smaller) or maybe we could be downloading games straight to a hard disk unit that we no longer have the need for disks.
Developers
The gaming industry is growing and there is quite a lot of money to be made if you can do things right. We may see more developers entering the market and maybe bringing fresh ideas and original games. As new ones enter some of the older ones may no longer be able to make games of a certain quality and find themselves having to stop making games altogether. A lot of developers are developing games for more than one console, maybe the others will do so in the future meaning we may well see the same games on a few of the consoles.
Console makers
After Sega said that they were only going to work on software from now on that has left us with only three companies, Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft. I think these three will probably be around for some time (depending on how popular the GameCube and X-Box are when released) but maybe we will see a few other companies trying their luck in the industry in the future) They will need to be a big name company as starting off is not cheap and it is a big gamble when taking on the likes of Sony and Nintendo. Maybe Sega will try their luck again and try to attract all their old fans and new ones (from the games they release on other consoles).
On-line Gaming
Is going to be big if they get it right and developers make full use of it. Fast Internet connection will be needed and also the cost will need to be suitable to let most take advantage of it. One that I would like to see used in the future is updates that could be downloaded and stored onto a hard disk unit. Then if the developers want to add more to a game (instead of releasing a dodgy sequel with little
changes they could release an update) Some will say it should be a complete game when you buy it and I agree but this would allow them to release a finished game and then spend more time creating new levels, weapons, characters, and maybe sorting a few missed bugs. One thing here though developers shouldn't be able to release a game which they don't think is completely finished as not everyone will use the on-line facilities and download the updates. So the standard of games shouldn't be allowed to drop and this option shouldn't be allowed to be used as a way of fixing bugs (like patches for PC games) just as an extra option to those who want it.
Also with on-line gaming we could see more and more gaming competitions and maybe sometime in the future we could see professional gamers, an ideal job for a lot of people out there.
Peripherals
In the future we probably will se more peripherals, the next big step may well be voice recognition, some games in Japan already use basic commands to perform certain tasks such as shoot or pass in football games. But this idea could become more popular as it would provide a better feeling of interaction with the game although I guess some games would be hard or not much fun if the only input was speech. The standard of all peripherals should improve and extras will be added to add to the experience and try make games even more fun to play. Also what about smells, well a company is working on a peripheral that mixes chemicals to create certain smells, this would add to the whole gaming experience. The choice of smells is set to include things like burning rubber (driving games) and rotting flesh for the likes of resident evil. These will only take off if developers choose to add the programming for them in their games but who knows we could be seeing them and using them some time in the future. The one that caught my eye was the Sony one where the butterflies were attracted to the spheres and also repelled by some depending on the colour of the sphere. If they get this peripheral right and have games which use it to the best of its ability then we could be seeing some very good games. Maybe even a light sabre fighting game, we can only hope.
A.I
Artificial Intelligence could be used in games more in the future, we may even see a truly intelligent piece of software that is able to communicate just like a normal average human, if this idea was used in games we could see a large leap into much more realistic games, no more predefined routes but just a large area open to exploring and completing tasks in any order at any time. This could be big if it was ever to happen. Each game could be a little different as some may find places or things that others don't. The A.I in most of today's games is of a high standard and will probably continue to be like this but once it reaches the standard of being truly intelligent then maybe we could see games of a high standard that has never been seen before. Drivers in racing games would act and behave like real life drivers, making errors at times and doing their best to win. Enemies would attack better and be able to spot you from a far and plan their attack instead of coming straight for you.
Next Big Step
The next big one will be on-line gaming but what will be next after that? Bound to be something that will have us all waiting in suspense until it is available. Maybe something to get us more involved with the games or something to put us "in the game". Maybe it will be virtual reality games where the game depends on who is playing it and what kind of things they do. Something that will revolutionise gaming and show us the way the future of gaming is heading. One of the big things in the study of Computer Science is facial recognition. Every person has a unique face and there are ways of recognising people by these characteristics which are worked out from a photograph . It is being used by police to recognise football hooligans at football games but could be a good feature for games. I would like to see an option which allowed you to input your characteristics by (photo or another way) and the main character would then look very similar to yourself. It is a process which will be used more when it is improved (for unique identification, back machines etc) whether it gets used in games or not you probably will see it used in some places.
The End?
Will we see an end to the gaming industry? Or will it go on and on just like television and the music industry seem to do? I don't think there will be an end to the gaming industry, well not in my lifetime but maybe one day if something better was to come along and replace it. Maybe games will reach a certain standard where they can no longer be improved and all games will be as good as the developer can make them. Guess like everything else all we can really do is wait and see.
So what do you think will be the next step in gaming? What do you see as the next "BIG" thing?
Consoles
Consoles are no longer just consoles, Take the first decent console there was, The NES. It played games and that was all it could do. It started the whole gaming industry of and was the best console of its time. But now things have changed. The PS2 and X-Box have built in DVD players, the GameCube is just a console but there is a DVD player available for it. So is this the way things are going to go?
There are also a lot of additions that make consoles appear more like Personal computers than dedicated games machines. Most of that is for on-line game playing but is this the step we will se in the future?
Maybe they will all be combined into one single piece of hardware. A friend of mine works for a mobile phone company and he says that in time the abilities of what you can use a mobile phone for will have improved greatly so will consoles be the same? Since the combination of TV's and video machines a while back others have went along similar lines. Also could we see consoles making a leap away from just being dedicated games machines to allow a wide range of software to be used, not replacing the PC but for those who don't need all the functions a PC offers. I think that one day we may well see televisions with built in consoles that have the ability to play games, DVD movies, Audio and MP3's, and also mini disks. It seems people like the idea of things together rather than all separate. But how much would something like this cost? Which leads me on to the next point. Money. Are we being ripped off a little these days by console makers and developers?
I know that it does cost a lot for the console parts and for it all to be put together and we are in a way paying for quality, as these machines are capable of producing quality graphics and sounds. But what about some of the peripherals. Also games are we paying a little too much and is there any real way of reducing the price. Are people getting too much of a profit from all this. Ok so I know in any job you try to maximise the profit you earn but there must come a time where you are ripping off the customer and maybe you could lose out in the long run. There are a lot of games out there that are not worth the amount they are sold for yet still they get priced at the same level as the likes of Gran Turismo 3 and Metal gear solid 2, It seems that we aren't paying for quality at all just for the whole cost and their extra profit. Ok so gaming is no longer for kids anymore but still hugely popular with kids, not many young kids are going to be able to afford the amount charged for the console, required peripherals and a few games. The cost all adds up and one of the big problems with gaming is that it is addictive and advertising is so well done that if a new hyped up game is due to be released lots will want it although they can't afford it. I remember countless times as a kid trying to talk my mum or dad round to buying me a game, a lot of the times they wouldn't and I can see now why. It all adds up and if you can wait a while usually the prices get dropped. Which is a little unfair to those who bought it when it came out.
Going back to the mobiles for a bit. Mobile phones are hugely popular and most of the people you know probably have one or will get one soon. So what will the future of gaming for phones hold? Right now we are stuck with the black and white snake or space invaders to keep us occupied on when we are bored. But with technology improving we may well see games like those on the GBA being used on mobiles. New phones are planning on having JAVA built in which will allow full colour graphics and it is highly likely that games on phones will be popular and improve with time.
Consoles these days are very powerful and have a lot of complex components and each console is a little different and contain different architectures, this gives each console some good points and some bad points. Depends on what type of games you like to find out what console is best for you. So consoles will improve and we may well see extra features being built in to make them appeal to even more people. But what about the future of other things concerned with gaming.
The Games
Game today are usually of a very good standard and they will continue along these lines (apart from a few rubbish ones). More and more quality and original titles will appear and take the industry by storm. Games are expensive to make and if a game isn't successful then it could cause a developer to stop developing. This is why a lot of the developers will have to try and make good games to compete with the rest of the competition on the market. I'm looking forward to a lot of great games that are due to be released within the year and no doubt more and more will come round after that.
Storage Facilities
Right now we are using DVD's or Optical disks but what could the future hold? As soon as new PC technology is discovered and becomes popular the chances are that future consoles will also use this technology. I think that it may well be holographic memory that we see being used as the specifications for early devices look very good. With a CD you can hold at most 783 MB. The most you can store on a DVD is around 15.9 GB but that's only if it is double sided and double layered. IBM have been working on Holographic data storage, early devices have the storage capacity of around 125 GB and a transfer rate of around 40 MB a second. Eventually these
devices could reach 1 TB (Terabyte =1000GB) with a rate of 1GB a second.
Imagine a games machine that uses this technology. It wouldn't be for a while but imagine what this could do, instead of buying games they could be downloaded straight to your console and stored on a small disk, games developers would have far more room to create games without having to worry about how much room is left on the disk. I think in the future the storage will greatly improve, maybe not like this for quite some time but it will gradually get there. The way games are created would probably change as there would be more memory space to work with so graphics and gameplay could be improved greatly and maybe developers wouldn't have to limit the graphical ability of the game so that the gameplay doesn't suffer. This is just one of many possible storage devices that could be used in the future, the DVD's will be used until something better comes along and isn't expensive to manufacture and to buy.
We may see games being released on small mini-disk type disks (everything seems to be getting smaller and smaller) or maybe we could be downloading games straight to a hard disk unit that we no longer have the need for disks.
Developers
The gaming industry is growing and there is quite a lot of money to be made if you can do things right. We may see more developers entering the market and maybe bringing fresh ideas and original games. As new ones enter some of the older ones may no longer be able to make games of a certain quality and find themselves having to stop making games altogether. A lot of developers are developing games for more than one console, maybe the others will do so in the future meaning we may well see the same games on a few of the consoles.
Console makers
After Sega said that they were only going to work on software from now on that has left us with only three companies, Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft. I think these three will probably be around for some time (depending on how popular the GameCube and X-Box are when released) but maybe we will see a few other companies trying their luck in the industry in the future) They will need to be a big name company as starting off is not cheap and it is a big gamble when taking on the likes of Sony and Nintendo. Maybe Sega will try their luck again and try to attract all their old fans and new ones (from the games they release on other consoles).
On-line Gaming
Is going to be big if they get it right and developers make full use of it. Fast Internet connection will be needed and also the cost will need to be suitable to let most take advantage of it. One that I would like to see used in the future is updates that could be downloaded and stored onto a hard disk unit. Then if the developers want to add more to a game (instead of releasing a dodgy sequel with little
changes they could release an update) Some will say it should be a complete game when you buy it and I agree but this would allow them to release a finished game and then spend more time creating new levels, weapons, characters, and maybe sorting a few missed bugs. One thing here though developers shouldn't be able to release a game which they don't think is completely finished as not everyone will use the on-line facilities and download the updates. So the standard of games shouldn't be allowed to drop and this option shouldn't be allowed to be used as a way of fixing bugs (like patches for PC games) just as an extra option to those who want it.
Also with on-line gaming we could see more and more gaming competitions and maybe sometime in the future we could see professional gamers, an ideal job for a lot of people out there.
Peripherals
In the future we probably will se more peripherals, the next big step may well be voice recognition, some games in Japan already use basic commands to perform certain tasks such as shoot or pass in football games. But this idea could become more popular as it would provide a better feeling of interaction with the game although I guess some games would be hard or not much fun if the only input was speech. The standard of all peripherals should improve and extras will be added to add to the experience and try make games even more fun to play. Also what about smells, well a company is working on a peripheral that mixes chemicals to create certain smells, this would add to the whole gaming experience. The choice of smells is set to include things like burning rubber (driving games) and rotting flesh for the likes of resident evil. These will only take off if developers choose to add the programming for them in their games but who knows we could be seeing them and using them some time in the future. The one that caught my eye was the Sony one where the butterflies were attracted to the spheres and also repelled by some depending on the colour of the sphere. If they get this peripheral right and have games which use it to the best of its ability then we could be seeing some very good games. Maybe even a light sabre fighting game, we can only hope.
A.I
Artificial Intelligence could be used in games more in the future, we may even see a truly intelligent piece of software that is able to communicate just like a normal average human, if this idea was used in games we could see a large leap into much more realistic games, no more predefined routes but just a large area open to exploring and completing tasks in any order at any time. This could be big if it was ever to happen. Each game could be a little different as some may find places or things that others don't. The A.I in most of today's games is of a high standard and will probably continue to be like this but once it reaches the standard of being truly intelligent then maybe we could see games of a high standard that has never been seen before. Drivers in racing games would act and behave like real life drivers, making errors at times and doing their best to win. Enemies would attack better and be able to spot you from a far and plan their attack instead of coming straight for you.
Next Big Step
The next big one will be on-line gaming but what will be next after that? Bound to be something that will have us all waiting in suspense until it is available. Maybe something to get us more involved with the games or something to put us "in the game". Maybe it will be virtual reality games where the game depends on who is playing it and what kind of things they do. Something that will revolutionise gaming and show us the way the future of gaming is heading. One of the big things in the study of Computer Science is facial recognition. Every person has a unique face and there are ways of recognising people by these characteristics which are worked out from a photograph . It is being used by police to recognise football hooligans at football games but could be a good feature for games. I would like to see an option which allowed you to input your characteristics by (photo or another way) and the main character would then look very similar to yourself. It is a process which will be used more when it is improved (for unique identification, back machines etc) whether it gets used in games or not you probably will see it used in some places.
The End?
Will we see an end to the gaming industry? Or will it go on and on just like television and the music industry seem to do? I don't think there will be an end to the gaming industry, well not in my lifetime but maybe one day if something better was to come along and replace it. Maybe games will reach a certain standard where they can no longer be improved and all games will be as good as the developer can make them. Guess like everything else all we can really do is wait and see.
So what do you think will be the next step in gaming? What do you see as the next "BIG" thing?