Five Technologies that will Determine the Future of Gaming Industry
The history of gaming industry is full of ups and downs. In its short life, video game development industry has risen literally from stone axes to high-tech solutions of "tomorrow", and now it is striving into "space". Gaming industry acts regularly as a catalyst for new scientific discoveries.The current opinion that the technologies in their current form have almost reached their peak, shatters when looking inside R&D centers of such giants Sony, Microsoft, Google, Facebook and others engaged into visualization and related technologies.
Photorealistic images
Few people today dare to release a game with a mediocre picture. Photorealism has long ceased to be a "highlight" for developers and is taken for granted. Some games are almost indistinguishable from real world and this is where the so-called effect of "sinister valley" blocks the ideal hit. Computer characters that resemble too much human beings begin to unwittingly appall players. There are many websites on the Internet where users are offered to guess what is in front of them - a screenshot from a video game or a real photo.
Augmented reality
When virtual characters start running around the player’s room, when digital jungles are blooming on the table, this is called "ar toy ". As a rule, users need smartphones or tablets with a high-quality camera to play with them. Point the camera at the real window - and see on the screen how virtual enemies penetrating the room through it. Other use cases include cartographic services, car repairs, and much more. At the moment, augmented reality apps offer more than a traditional software solution.
Handoff controls
Some developers believe that managing a game in the old manner is boring. Microsoft released its controversial but interesting Kinect. Sony has proposed a PlayStation Move motion capture system. An American company NeuroSky went the farthest and released neuroslice. The device picks up brain waves and transforms them into commands in a video game. However, there is only one game for it, Throw Trucks With Your Mind!
The device is far from being perfect. You need to clear up your thoughts and concentrate for a successful game which is not always possible. Gesture capture systems, in its turn, are not accurate enough and can boast a very limited number of games. But a start has been made.
Virtual reality
Apparently, the traditional way to play video games using screen, keyboard, mouse, or gamepad will be replaced by virtual reality helmets like Oculus Rift and a pair of hand-held manipulators soon. Users who appreciate demo versions of VR helmet games note that even returning to favorite games on the screen is a complete devoid of all charm.
Helmets allow to freely explore the virtual world, diving deeper into the gameplay. Helmet developers promise new improvements that will display graphics as clearly as if the player was looking at the world through ordinary glasses. Now it remains to solve another problem - some helmet users felt dizzy.
High-speed streaming
Large corporations - Microsoft, PlayStation, NVidia - are convinced that the development of streaming and cloud services will transform the gaming industry in the same way that music or video has been already transformed. After serious work on improving the speed of access to the network, users will be able to forget about downloading tens of gigabytes of data forever.
The game will always be available as long as the person remains connected to the network. The decision has some flaws: corporate managers might get too much control over what users should play. And when an old but someone's favorite game gets turned off to free server space for new projects, the person will lose access to it forever.
These are only five technologies that are about to become a significant part of the gaming industry not only on single projects, but also for the mass development. But if we take into account capabilities of modern hardware, we can see a variety of new exciting titles in coming years.