So just what is the next big thing in gaming?
Let's have a quick recap as history has a lot to teach us, well history teachers think it has anyway.
We went from 2d to 3d! Sure there was a long journey inbetween that runs through such machines as Ataris's, Mastersystems and Snes. But it was the leap to 3d with the launch of the PS1 and Saturn that really made the big jump. Interestinly we'd had 3d on the home PC,Amiga and ST for a while but with the launch of Sega's penultimate console and Sony's first console we'd had the first big gaming jump since gaming started.
But then what? The Dreamcast came and made everything so much better but EA refused to support it and it died quite why that happened I have no idea but Sony played a clever if, untrue, advertising game based on the power of the PS2. A power that has maybe not that long ago reached it's pinacle with Black.
But I digress, I was saying the DC made things better, but did it really? What did it actually do? It added more polygons and smoother textures and that basically is what every system since has done. The only console to buck that trend is Nintendo's Wii.
Nintendo in what some would call "their wisdom" decided not to go toe to toe on graphics and raw power with Sony and Microsoft. Instead they repackaged the GC and put their R&D guys into designing a new family friendly interface.
Sony and Microsoft on the other hand just continued to push out new machines with more horsepower in both the graphics and CPU departments. It's arguable that sound quality has developed also but to a lesser extent as we've had 3d sound for a while.
Where I think Ninty had made a big error is with the limited capabilities of the Wii - it's essentially a console designed to compete with the PS2+Eye Toy+Buzz controller. It's good at two things, and if you like Tennis and Baseball you only need Wii Sports to play them and hey in the UK at least that's a bundled tech demo pretending to be a game. What they should have done at the very least is give it more memory and many more CPU cycles.
And I'll tell you why,as I know you are probably all screaming at me to get on with it, it's because of two things physics and AI. From water effects to breaking glass to smoke particles these are all controlled by physics computations and without the necessary processor horses you are limited with what you can do. And then you have AI, even the thousands of zombies in Dead Rising have to have AI. Guards, Aliens, Drug Dealers, Racing Cars all have to have AI.
With no decent physics or AI we'd all be stuck playing a certain PS1 racing game launch title where the cars drove on rails and wouldn't move from them if you hit them. Oh and if your car hit a wall you'd simply slow down or stop. No damage no big pile up or explosions.
The problem I think the Wii has is not enough pure power to make the difference. But enough about the Wii.
The future lies in two areas dedicated physics and AI processors. Physics we already have, AI is coming but expect the military to have it long before we do, even though they play our games to train on.
Will it be a big jump? I don't think so, do you play dead rising and think wow look at all those zombies isn't the AI great? Do you play Burnout and marvel at the physics involved in calculating the exact aftermath of the crash you just caused? I doubt it also.
However, when you first played Teken or Ridge Racer did you not marvel at the impact that 3D games had? There's probably 2 generations of gamers following in my footsteps that will never know that experience which makes me glad to have the memories and sad that it'll never happen again.
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