Gaming has come a long way since the inspiring Atari 2600, all the way up to the lucrative Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 we see today. With that the industry has exploded, as recent as March 2010, US software sales in the video game segment grew 10% over the same period in 2009 with 875 million dollars in total sales. Revenue from video games has now exceeded the movie industry by a solid amount for the past several years.
The Nintendo Wii was launched in the United Kingdom on December 8, 2006 at £179.
Satoru Iwata (the fourth president and CEO of Nintendo) insisted "We're not thinking about fighting Sony, but about how many people we can get to play games. The thing we're thinking about most is not portable systems, consoles, and so forth, but that we want to get new people playing games." A massive development in gaming with the introduction of a motion sensitive remote like controller. This really broadened the potential of the gaming market for years to come, and would be the inspiration for future products.
Up until now, gaming so far has been predominantly with an input (controller) and a output device such as a TV, or computer depending on the platform. Project Natal is one of the first to integrate a "controller-free gaming and entertainment experience" into their product.
Alex Kipman, the technical director for Project Natal said, “The ability to allow people to get rid of the controllers, controllers no matter how simple, are a barrier...”.
This shows how far we have come that we are no longer looking for a new fancy input device, but stripping it down to you and the game, thats it. Which in turn is an example of the huge leaps in technology we are making in this day and age. We can now focus on a 1 on 1 interaction with the gaming device. This has created the foundations for future gaming.
With the development of such games and new ways of playing there is always going to be a down side. Arguably these consoles and gaming platforms have allowed people to experience things that they may not ever get the chance to do in real life. This is inspiring in the sense that people don’t have to be restricted by their natural ability, which is huge claim to have, and an amazing step towards future gaming in years to come.
The introduction of such games as World Of Warcraft have changed people not just in positive ways. A 28-years-old man from Beijing, nicknamed "Snowly", died last month after playing the online game "World of Warcraft" for several continuous days during the national day holiday.
This is where the advancement in gaming development can backfire. With making these amazingly addictive games comes the problem of controlling how much people play them. We’ve reached the stage where games are more to some people than there life, due to the incredibly interactive and vast worlds they can explore. Due to this several online game communities have posted announcements to urge their members to pay attention to their health.
Meanwhile, 7 major domestic game makers have agreed to install an anti-obsession system on eleven online game products.
As gaming becomes evermore influential in the modern day market, the more people will have to question and possibly restrict the intensity of these experiences. As some people can be highly influenced by these games in a negative way. The introduction into 3D interactive environments such as Project Natal has opened a door to a new realm of gaming, but who can say where that interactive realism ends? With the development of fighting games such as Manhunt which involves you hunting other people to kill with a weapon of your choice, there are great risks. To achieve the ultimate interactive experience we could be exposing our youth to interactive killing!
So with the development of these amazing new steps in technology, we have to be cautious as to how real these get. The closer to the goal the more restricted the environments will have to be as the player is becoming more integrated into the experience.
No comments:
Post a Comment