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The Future of Video Gaming and Shifts in Purpose
This is a very broad subject to tackle here, but as this is an Xbox website we’ll tackle, primarily, the future of the console.
The gaming industry has evolved quite heavily, if you step back and look at the bigger picture there have been some distinct changes. Look at it as a business and hardware perspective other than just a gaming perspective. Gaming originally started in the fifties, upon vector displays, however ‘Video’ Gaming started in the early seventies upon adapted TV’s, called interactive TV’s; this is where pong was born, or at least where it had originally started. From here projects slumped, were picked up, and then moved on. It wasn’t until 1975 when Video Gaming really took off.
If you look at it this way as a timeline, and view the console as a parallel line with the PC (Forget about the MAC for now), you’ll see the distance of similarity close to the PC, as a system. As computers have become more sophisticated, and then followed a straight line of progress, new companies coming in to the gaming industry and others falling, the line will begin to part rapidly from the PC. I see this generation, or at most the next generation, to be the last in ‘console’ gaming. What I mean by this is video gaming is restricted by what the console producers and game designers want you to do. If you compare, let’s say, the sixth generation (The last generation of the PS2, Xbox, GameCube & Dreamcast) to PC systems in the form of capability and compatibility, these consoles are very restricted in what they can do. They were basically able to play their format compatible games and that was it, you could arguably say Dreamcast had the foothold, being the first console to successfully pioneer online gaming and its limited online features. However, the Dreamcast only lasted the first half of the last generation; these impressive features couldn’t beat the PS2 vibes. With the PC you were able to create modifications, download additional content, download user created additional content and wield its online capabilities.Only later on with the Xbox’s release were you able to download extra content and fully interact with online play, but even this was limited.
Now comparing the last generation of console gaming, with the consoles of this generation, things are very different. The Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii, all have full online support, almost a standard with games now. There are broader features with the online support as well, you can download extra content provided by the publishers, and, you can download trailers & demos, you can even personalize your displays. Recently, Microsoft and Sony have been expanding the online capabilities even more. You now have the ability to download user created content with supported games from the PC and develop your own games using provided software. The gap is now closing again; our consoles are becoming very powerful PCs.
Now, this may all seem a little misleading from the topic, ‘this isn’t the future of gaming you’re talking about, this is the history and present!’ This actually leads perfectly onto the feasible, and quite likely, future of our games. Now, think about those parallel lines again, imagine if those lines came so close they were touching, it would become one line. I believe this is where the future of our media entertainment lies.
Let’s move onto a little bit of software, and how it’s distributed. Another popular topic in the gaming news at the moment, the format war with Blu Ray and HD-DVD, the drop out of Toshiba had destroyed the chances of HD-DVD ever having a chance. Millions were lost by this drop, over 600 million dollars to be exact (that’s just over 300 million in pounds). This must have been a hard decision for Toshiba, and now Blu Ray is the dominating high definition format. The money lost in these forms of media is a downfall to the producers and manufactures of drives and systems, as some have found out the hard way. Not only this, but how long is Blu Ray going to last until we need another larger more efficient format? Metal Gear Solid 4 had used the full potential of the Blu Ray disc, almost definitely because of insistence to compress the audio of the game; nonetheless this is an astonishing achievement this early into the fairly new format.
A new more resourceful way of distribution is needed, and it’s been here publicly for around seventeen years. The internet.
It’s a standard for PC users now, it has been for about six years, one way or another, we have access to it, and its capabilities are far from being fulfilled. The ease of browsing the internet and just buying what you need, having it delivered cheaper than the full retail price. People now browse the shops just so they can go home and buy what they have seen on the internet. Companies are aware of this, and they’re starting to see the good potential, with such growing technologies like online software markets we can give the consumers more reason, for example, Steam. The amount of companies that have jumped on the bandwagon of Steam and other software distributers within the last few months, there have been quite a few. I believe this is the future for our acquirement of video games and other software. This is saving the PC market, but what about our consoles? We can download original Xbox games, we can download trailers and even movies, but what about games from this generation? How about the expansion of the console following the compatible progress of the PC? Well, it’s possible, but I see it just as a matter of time.
The growth of online markets has been all sparked off by the amount of piracy we’ve seen with PC gaming, those smaller compartments of PC games you’re seeing in the stores, it’s not coincidence. Piracy means that the developer & publisher lose sales; it also means some poor bugger developing these creative games we all love and enjoy may lose some of his/her wages. On the other side, developers are being pulled into the console war, and it’s making huge profit, although the console restrictions are being lifted their primary theme is still gaming, developers and publishers are more likely to generate a larger profit from these single purpose systems.
Now, not surprising, although it stunned me anyway, were the recent activities of EA; more specifically EA sports. If you follow the gaming industry news, you would know that EA sports have ceased producing games for the PC system. It’s too early to say this is the start of a dying gaming system, and arguably so, it’s impossible to validate; but to me all of this does suggest the possibility of another form of system, completely bridging the incomplete gap between the console and PC. Home Media center systems. The ones you find plugged into or built into your TV, we’ve ran a full circle, remember the interactive TV?
Media center PCs to many people aren’t a necessity, a bog standard desktop or laptop does everything I need it to do, and I’m sure others will agree. They’re general purpose machines. But, there have been some interesting PCs and media center systems on the market lately, they’re quite rare still and they haven’t really taken off as a system, but I honestly feel within the next ten years these will be the dominating systems for gaming and entertainment in general, and I also feel they could feasibly replace the big three (Xbox, PlayStation and Nintendo systems).
If you think about it carefully; one of the reasons many people play their video game consoles instead of their PCs is because of the comfort of your position in the room, it’s most of the time on a sofa, or bed, in your living room, or bedroom. And now, with all these LCD HD TVs being released, rapidly dropping in price and HD becoming a new standard, we all want to be in our living rooms.
Let’s bring this all together a little, what does all this mean? Well, the point I’m trying to make is that new technologies are being produced all the time; yet, the console is still lagging behind, not in terms of improvement but in terms of development, development that could easily be harnessed from qualities used by the PC. I’m also pointing out that many recent situations, like the growth of online markets, the evolution of consoles, the pull from EA sports and the lack of PC games in the shops, all lead to upgrading existing hardware, media center systems, and the shift in purpose for the PC.
This would bring together the best of two worlds in media entertainment, for playing games and having ‘choice’, it could provide complete compatibility with all games and the options to install your own programs, operating systems, and even customize your own hardware, for the hardware enthusiasts out there. Microsoft seems to be bridging the software of the PC with the Xbox 360, with such things as MSN and XNA, and Sony is doing the same, however there is only so much a producer can do until they hit a ‘brick wall’ with the, more open yet, restricted systems we have here. But eventually the PC and gaming systems could, and may, become one machine.
 Posted By: Lee Burton
Date: 2008-04-21
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