Tuesday, November 27, 2007

The Next Generation Gaming Platforms

The next round of game-platform redesigns may still be four to five years out, but chip and software designers in the areas of wireless, microeletromechanical systems, displays, miniature cameras, sensors, actuators and storage have an opportunity to be part of those multi-100-million shipments as platforms respond faster to user demands by focusing on interactivity, connectivity and information display.

Indeed, this may push gaming platforms from peripheral to the center of the home-entertainment system and replace the set-top box with broadband and cable/satellite capability, complemented by fully digital or optical audio and video inputs and outputs and PVR storage.

Ever since the latest crop of game platforms began rolling out late last year, improvements and upgrades were already in the works. The Xbox 360 Elite's big improvements over the Xbox 360 were a bigger hard drive and a HDMI connection.

Sony also is about to release a PS3 with an 80-Gbyte hard drive, up from 60 Gbytesand will kill the 20-Gbyte option. The move to online gaming and the ability to download content has been a huge driver of local storage.

Nintendo's Wii came with Wi-Fi capability out-of-the-box and while the others support Wi-Fi as a peripheral, SI expects them to have it out of the box soon. With the runaway success of Wii's 6-axis controller technology, MEMS (Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems) is expected to be an increasing part of controller design, as well as for PDAs and other handsets. For wireless, 802.11n is hot.

features that will be common in the next generation of video games include force feedback and rumble capability, motion sensing, vision feedback and high-definition using either Blu-ray or HD-DVD.

Also in the future, storage size or hard drive size will increase from Gigabytes to Terabytes. Once the debate on Blu Ray and HD-DVD settles down, video games will be released on one of these mediums instead of the current DVD technology.

The quality of video game graphics will also improve as more powerful graphic processors and game engines come out and will allow 100% realism in gaming experience.

For displays, super-high-definition systems that are now emerging will come down in time for next-generation boxes, while at the same time gaming and entertainment will converge on one box with DVD, Internet/broadband, storage, set-top box capability and video/audio.

Video gaming is helping drive technology and will continue to do so in the future. Log in to my blog after 4 years and see how many of my next gen console predictions come out to be true.

For more Technology reviews, please visit my blog http://the-tech-center.blogspot.com

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The Nintendo Wii is NOT the Game Cube

As nintendo chief Miyamoto says about the Wii

The hardware is basically a GC. Weve upgraded our development tools to new versions but, you can still use GC programs as they are. With that in mind, I thought we could remake GC titles for the Wii and modify them to work with the Wii remote so that theyre more fun to play.

This statement been making its speedy journey around the web, with the predictable result.

i tuld u tha Wee sux0rs! Thus proving the Wii is infact.. a repackaged gamecube Rofl @ Nintendo

The argument need to be split in half to avoid confusion. Lumping the two arguments together ends in a negative situation, where neither of the debating parties can influence the opposition.

Firstly, The Wii is gamecube 1.5?

Miyamoto, in his cute little Wish we had an international auxillary language to stop english speaking l33t gamers from mocking our consumers way, was accurate with his statement. The hardware is similar to the gamecube. WAIT! Dont go running away just yet, for here is a word equation that will float your boat.

The nintendo Wii hardware is similar to the gamecube, as A gaming PC is similar to a Windows 95 word processing computer.

What! Says you, but my uber el33tzo0r gaming PC has 4 GB of Ram! It has 6.7 Gigahertz of processing power! THINK. Instead of thinking about the technological specifics of hardware capabilities, when the above statement is made, one is referring to the style in which hardware and software are created. The Architecture of the device.

Going out on another tangent, nintendo would not be stupid enough to make the gamecube mistake again. The GC was not a high point for flailing nintendo. Why now, riding on the success of the nintendo DS, an innovative handheld device that has taken the world by storm, would nintendo choose to release an updated version of a failure?

Wii Vs Xbox360 Vs Playstation3

To be blatantly honest, the next-gen console battle will be fought between the Xbox360, and the Playstation3. Unfortunately for Sony and microsoft, they have launched products capable of the same types of activities, with the same types of controls and the same types of games. Its a marketing battle to see who will triumph. But for those looking for new, innovative [ie: Not BluRay] technology with an element of fun and a totally unique experience will choose the Wii. There is nothing else on the market to compete with it.

So who would buy the Wii? just little kids right? nintendo has many different demographics to target. From the very young, to the very old. The DS has opened the eyes of previously video game free generations, and inspired those just entering the market, as well as gameboy fans looking for a quality handheld. Half-core gamers want something fresh. they want to play with their friends and have fun. They dont want to shell out big bucks for a gaming system, but would be happy to pay a much lower price for entertainment.

You can not compare consoles on specifications alone. You must use implementation examples to compare things. On paper, the Playstation 3 is the strongest console. Better than the Wii, better than the Xbox360. But does it have quality games? Will there be many games? Will Sony finally be able to create a game that creates a third of the hype that Halo does? Until all consoles have been released internationally, it is futile to argue over which console is superior and which will succeed.

The nintendo Wii is not a Game Cube. As the old saying goes, its like comparing apples and oranges. Both are in the same general class, yet there are fundamental differences that make comparing them pointless.

Kit Allen, the chief contributor to nintendo Blog, http://nintendocommunity.com wrote this article to inform the world about the nintendo Wii.

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