The Free hereafter of Gaming
The "free" hereafter of gaming is fast approaching. I don't mean free, as it relates to your wallet, but free as it relates to what goes into the game ideas and what goes in your hands. This means more downloadable games, and less discs, cartridges, and controllers. Will this hereafter also be make gaming get at least a limited closer to monetarily free? In the short term, no. In the long-term, possibly.
The Free hereafter of Gaming
From a disc/cartridge-free perspective, Sony is currently the farthest along among the three major console developers. Their recently released "Psp Go" ideas does not take Umds that the prior versions of the hand-held ideas ran games off of. Instead games can only be purchased via an online store and then downloaded onto the system. The Psp Go comes with built-in memory of 16 Gb and can have more memory if an supplementary memory stick is purchased. Like any "first" in technology, the Psp Go is not authentically the hereafter of gaming. For one thing, it offers no tangible advantage over the preexisting Psp units other than being smaller.
The older Psp systems are also capable of downloading games off of the store And can use discs.
Furthermore the Psp Go is more costly and, importantly, the Psp itself is one of the least sold consoles to begin with. It only narrowly outsells the Ps2 on a monthly basis, which was released some years earlier.
For there to be success with a download-only ideas it must whether be an entirely new console with unique games and features, or be economy than the alternative. Realistically, the economy idea is not going to work.
Microsoft has no incentive to sell a new version of the Xbox 360 that could only run downloadable games for less than the console they are already selling. So, as I said it won't be helping out your wallets in the near future. There has already been some success in adding downloadable games to consoles as one selection though. Hits such as Braid and Geometry Wars 2 have been only available for download. As a effect of games like this I would not be shocked to see at least 1 of the successors to a current platform (360, Ps3, Wii, Ds, or Psp) be fully disc-free from the get-go. Just don't expect it be any economy for it.
Next is the controller-free concept. Nintendo authentically made hitting the "non-gamer" market its priority. To do this they made each of their newer consoles have less former video game controllers. Each has buttons, but the Ds also as an interactive touchscreen and the Wii uses a controller that has motion-sensing controls.
It has so far worked out beyond anyone's beliefs for them with the Wii and Ds authentically outselling the competition, after Nintendo's more former approach, the GameCube was outsold by the Xbox and Ps2.
Clearly, Sony and Microsoft heard this news just like the rest of this. At an foremost video game trade show, E3, this year Sony showed off a petition sensor controller and Microsoft unveiled a totally hands-free way of controlling a game straight through a camera, faultless with voice-activation.
Now camera based gaming is nothing new. Microsoft even has a "vision camera" for the Xbox 360. The PlayStation 2 had something similar called the Eye Toy. These have always been gimmicky pieces of hardware with limited support and usually poor functionality. With Microsoft's new camera feature codenamed "Natal," they seem to be hoping to make it more mainstream and usable. whether this iteration of the hands-free gaming will be the one to finally take-off has yet to be seen. Certainly, it has more buzz colse to it than the Eye Toy or vision camera and major developers have been reported to be finding into its practicality and application in games. Regardless, it is clear that the thought of a controller-free gaming universe is one that is not dying off and I believe it is becoming obvious that it will become more and more extensive as the years go by.
Both the disc-free and controller-free concepts seem like they should advantage the customer by being less expensive. If all you have to physically purchase is the console and not controllers or games it should be cheaper. Buying games would only require downloading code and the ideas would come bundled with all the controllers needed. One day this may be the case, but for now, like with any new technological shift, it will not be any economy than the past, and may authentically be more expensive. Is this what gamers truly want or would a change to more marvelous hardware, good games, and former controllers be good received? Would gamers rather have the current way to play get economy or have developers continue to push for new ways of play that could be more expensive?
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