It seems like this year has seen a lot of focus of what’s coming next rather than what’s happening now. All year we seem to have been looking at the next gen and just what it will bring, which is perhaps understandable. Looking towards the future is always more exciting than making sense of what’s going on now, speculation is a lot more interesting than looking at simple facts; it’s the same reason why there’s so much interest in celebrity rumour and gossip.
Of course part of this speculation has come to an end with the arrival of the Wii U; we now have one of the three home consoles that will, in all likelihood, compose the next generation of TV gaming. There are certainly some who will argue that the Wii U doesn’t belong in the next generation of gaming but for the purposes of this article lets put that to the side and simply include the Wii U.
[drop2]Just like they did with the Wii, Nintendo have taken the stance that the Wii U doesn’t need to be packed full of horsepower to be a success, instead focusing on gameplay. This is one of the two approaches that you can take with new hardware, placing innovation and gameplay above simply packing in more computing power. Of course computing power can contribute to gameplay, improving AI and the realism of a world, but in general it seemed like the two routes were separate.However, some of the rumours we’ve seen about the next Microsoft console do seem to suggest that the split that Nintendo had created had been sealed, with the next Xbox potentially having some augmented reality aspects in addition to the obvious Kinect improvements. Of course, more prominent than this is the PlayStation Vita.
Rumours so far imply that the PlayStation 4 will continue on the computing power route, but the Vita really appears to be the bridge between gameplay innovation and boosting the hardware performance. It’s clear that the Vita has some real graphical horsepower under the hood, but the almost ridiculous number of inputs that the system features has clearly introduced elements of innovation into portable gaming.
Of course many of these have been borrowed from the mobile gaming arena, and the DS has incorporated the same touch screen elements for many years now. However, I don’t think there’s been anything like the Vita before that so perfectly pulled together elements of innovation and power.
This, to me, seems like the obvious direction for the industry in the future. More power is great, and we all certainly enjoy improved graphics or more realistic worlds. However, without genuine innovation to couple with it what’s the point? It simply exists to make the games we already have look better or have more enemies in an encounter.
Obviously, it should be made clear that we can have innovation in gameplay without any innovation in hardware inputs and the like, titles like Journey make this abundantly clear. However, when you’ve got options like the Vita’s inputs or the Wii U’s GamePad it makes it easier to bring in new ideas and new ways of playing games. Really that seems like the best things for the future of gaming.
The Von Braun
My mate PM’ed me this afternoon, having spent a small fortune on upgrading his ‘rig’, the tech.talk was lost on me, but apparently the new graphics card was so powerful, it was too big for his PC case, had to buy new case (Electric board set up new sub station outside his house, just to power it.. :-)) and now he’s playing Far Cry 3 on MAX settings etc.
Thought fantastic, but…beneath the eye-candy, it’s STILL Far Cry 3, right? same flaws as if you’d been playing on medium or lower settings, the money spent has’nt made him think OMG, this is like……AMAZING, i feel like i’m there (man)…the jungle looks more realistic, higher res, more detail etc, but here’s my beef…..
Why is it always about better visuals? sure marketing love it and as Sega Europe M.D once commented, there’s a ‘Graphics Tarts’ market out there, but what’s really being done in other areas?.
Why is audio, still such an ignored medium? i’d say a jungle scene at night could really come alive with the audio side given careful consideration, all the animal+insect sounds, screeches, wails etc, your mind playing tricks on you etc, you’d be wondering just WTF that was, where it’s coming from, how close it was (and is it hungry?).
I’d love to play a FPS say, where i entered a building a could hear footsteps from above and i could fire through the cieling (like they do in so many bad action movies), thus out smarting my opponent.
And what about our other senses, that we rely on, on a daily basis? it’s not just sight and sound (and why are we still not catering for those who’s hearing+vision is’nt as good as ours? but that’s a topic for another day/rant), what about smell? touch? taste? tempature etc.
If your playing a horror game and you felt a chill or the hairs on the back of your neck stand up, would’nt you approach an area differently? or..rather than drowning in gore on screen, you could just smell a sense of decay or the coppery taste of blood (too graphic?), it’d be more about the fear of what you COULD’NT see than what you could.
Think Phillips had a set up for PC? where they had fans blowing hot+cold air at player, crude, but at least they were trying something different, i want more than another generation of same old sh*t, with at best same levels of opponent A.I and just better looking visuals.
All hardware designers seem to think these days is in terms of:Me too copycat control options with more=Better (whats better thn 1 touchscreen?why 2 of course), DLC, online passes and stamping out used copies of games.
Come on guys n girls, the ZX81 got me into gaming, 3D Monster Maze, T-Rex (Rex is watching you…He’s coming right for you, F**K!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ME!!!!!!! he’s coming right at me…..)
And that, dear sirs, was on a primitive 1K+16K wobbly Ram Pack (ahh Blu-tack to the rescue) machine with less processing power than a modern doorbell, black+white graphics and NO sound.
You seriousily telling me your struggling to better that in terms of delivering impact?.Heads to be hung in shame then.
PS3RULEZ890
Try the indie games on PSN/XBLA/E-SHOP then, there some true classics just waiting to be found. Also your mate is dick spending all that money on graphic cards and not great systems like the PS VITA and Wii U. As Nintendo always say ” innovation/game play over graphics “.