So this is happening again. A few articles about how mobile gaming is on the rise and will kill console gaming, a few videos on youtube with people who believe that and list off why they think so, and everyone ignoring that every reason they're giving is either a repeat of history, or defeats the purpose of mobile gaming.
We've heard it all. How smart tvs are going to come out with integrated gaming hardware, or a set top box will, or something other than a dedicated gaming console will come out and destroy consoles with help from mobile devices that are "as powerful as a GTX 780" or some other such nonsense. It's funny how people who say this are either too young to know, or completely forget, that those "threats" to console gaming are as old as console gaming.
Anyone growing up in even the NES era has seen the countless devices that could play game content and weren't consoles. Hell, mobile gaming was a threat to console gaming since before Gameboy came out. Now I know what some of you are going to say, "that's not the same thing because they weren't nearly as powerful as mobile devices today." True, but history has shown us that power doesn't mean anything when it comes to gaming (except to PC gamers).
There is big money in dedicated gaming consoles. There has been for decades. It's cheaper than mobile gaming because a mobile device that can boast an attempt at playing quality, console-esque games is, funnily enough, more expensive than a console that can do better justice for games than that device. Consoles are more practical, as you don't have to worry about how fragile they are in comparison to a mobile device (and face it, they're fragile as sh*t), nor do you have to worry about battery life for anything other than your controller, and you aren't straining your eyes when you game on a tv or even a monitor.
This segues into "you'll be able to hook up your mobile device to a tv via hdmi and connect a controller to the device as well." No one sees an issue with that? That defeats the purpose of "mobile" gaming and yet still carries the same problems as it. Do you want to hook up your phone, with its limited battery life, to your tv and take the chance that you'll be able to get a decent gaming experience that's worth your time?
Side Note: I once heard a long time ago about some engineering principle or law that applies to small devices. I can't for the life of me remember what it was, so I'm posting this side note for anyone who may know what I'm talking about and could post it in the comments. In any case, don't quote me on this because it's been a long time. What I heard is that with small tech there is a ceiling in terms of capability vs. power (as in battery life) and that unless a new source of energy is discovered or invented, that ceiling for small mobile tech will prevent any advancements one day. I could be very wrong about this, but it was on TechTV back when it was good so you know how long ago that was.
Continuing on, I'd like to reiterate how history is ever present in this issue. It's amazing how many people ignore that "all-in-one" devices aren't some kind of new technology that just sprung up out of nowhere. How many of you had a tv with a built in vhs/dvd combo? How wonderful was it when the VHS part broke and rendered your whole tv a piece of junk? This idea that an all-in-one mobile device is somehow better than a dedicated device is, like I said, not a new concept. It also ignores the huge problems associated with incorporating more and more tech into one device and expecting it to work the same as, or better, than something designed from the ground up to do one thing and do it well.
There will never be a phone or a tablet specifically designed for gaming. Oh sure, they'll have gaming capabilities, but they won't be focused on gaming. Count on mobile games never matching the quality of consoles or PCs in some fashion. Whether that be graphics, A.I., physics, tactile feedback, immersion, whatever. When technology is designed from the first chip up to do one thing well, it always does that one thing better than something that was designed to do everything and have all that tech crammed into one device. We've seen this before people.
Mobile gaming may come into its own in terms of gaming, cloud streaming may be a cool feature many many years from now when someone forces ISPs to loosen their grip on bandwidth and infrastructure is vastly improved, but console gaming is still worth a lot of money and is still far more convenient and practical than either of those two so don't expect them to be dying any time soon.
PC gamers, you know what I'm talking about. How many times have you all heard the same about PC gaming and the infinite number of reasons/excuses given for that? Has it happened yet? Exactly.
WTMG's Leo Faria: "My overall feelings about Phantom Fury are mixed. It’s far from being a bad game, mind you. There’s quite a bit to like about it, such as its Half-Life-esque presentation and expansive levels. With that being said, it’s not as over-the-top, and as a result, entertaining, as its predecessor, which featured better combat sections and more replayability. It does scratch a very specific itch. If you want to play something that vaguely resembles the original Half-Life in scope and gameplay, I think that Phantom Fury can satiate said niche."
Everything about The Forgotten Kingdom feels like Gunfire Games simply took what was great and made it even better.
Alex writes: "I have a habit of trying to rush through games, so Dragon's Dogma 2 was a nice reminder that taking it slow isn't the end of the world."
"Bu, bu, but Infinity Blade! Everyone is going to give up their console for an iPad!"
Maybe "kill" is the wrong word but if a company can take the idea of doing more with less then it will be Sony.
Consoles are getting smaller or at least have the potential to get smaller due to the internal designs. The big part of a console is the physical media drive.
By eliminating that you can reduce the overall physical size of the unit. But then how do we play the games??? we play them through downloadable methods or streaming.
As I said, if a company is able to do more with less it would be sony. Think of the vita tv as a test market for what could be the future of gaming. Microconsoles arent new but they lack the real brand recognition behind them to get the consumer support.
Sony could very well be seeing how well the vita tv does before investing more heavily into their infrastructure for delivering games via their own service. their service will grow and evolve but it is really dependent on consumer response.
if there is an overwhelming positive response to the idea of downloadable games we could see less and less physical releases. with less physical releases comes the idea that there would be no need for a physical media drive.
So mobility has, in a way, sort of brought to the front the idea that has always been in the back of peoples minds for years. Taking console quality entertainment but making it fit in the palm of your hand. Whether that means playing games on a phone or tablet (which are getting more powerful) or playing the games on a microconsole (like the vita tv and possible successor) the inevitable future seems to be we will be able to do more with less.
So mobile gaming is not out to kill console gaming but the idea of a convergence of the two is not that far out of the realm of possibility. The success of such an endeavor is really at the mercy of the right company to make it happen. For that i dont really see apple leading the way or MS or even nintendo. I can see sony though, they have the know how, they have the content and they have the connections AND they have the name/brand that people trust.
in the end, lets not close our minds to the idea but keep them open to the possibility that it can be done right by the right people.
Oy. The markets are hardly similar. People who buys games on phone generally are not big gamers. Just because phones play games does not mean they are games for big gamers (although I've noticed that some mobile games try to cater to that crowd).
There will always be a market for dedicated gaming devices. The 3DS and PS4 pre-orders have already proven this.
Mobile gaming for me is a great way to pass time other than that I will do most of my gaming on console or PC
Yikes the blogger on the defensive, anyhow I ask is it possible to sell a console with 10 cores and 10gbs of ram at $400.00 no is not. Consoles have reached the limits of hardware. The whole point for Sony and Microsoft investment on cloud computing technology was to move from selling hardware into selling a service. Basically, to execute and succeed on what Onlive failed and that is able to stream games directly from your television set. That will happen five years from now.
Now a smartphone is basically a micro computer at the palm of your hand or what people like to call phablets. Okay I have the LG motion smartphone it has a 3.5 in screen. It does have a dual core processor surprisingly though it can run Netflix, Crunchyroll, etc. Even more impressive is the fact it can read pdf files so with it I have my college textbooks, my personal novels, magazines, even able to edit my word documents. That's the power of the smartphone something that my PS3 is unable to do it. Consoles are a luxury item and not only that but consoles are only good for gaming. Still lack behind cellphones when it comes to non gaming tasks who knows five or two years from now we might see mobile gaming on par with consoles.........