New Trends in Gaming Development and Economics
The new era of gaming is upon us. While the PSP and DS and the new Xbox 360 have gotten lots of attention, we continue to see more cell-phone-based games. New gaming platforms are getting more capable, and could easily surpass the average PC in terms of graphics and overall processing power in the coming year. And increasing demands for realism and better gaming engines mean that games will cost more and take longer to develop and require more sophisticated and skilled programmers.
We are approaching an event horizon in the gaming industry. With new consoles, new marketing, new audiences, and new economics for games the industry will look very different a year from now.
We look at three trends that are changing the face of the gaming industry and what this means for you and your next gaming rig.
Trend 1: Increasing Game Development Costs
Next generation consoles will require more money and bigger development teams to crank out games that take advantage of their capabilities.
While conjecture about the new systems - and even claimed specifications - are showing up all over the Internet, very few in the industry know for sure just how powerful all the next gen systems will be. What there isn't much doubt about, is that they will be more powerful in relation to home PCs than any consoles in the past. In fact, most reports suggest that the traditional power advantage PCs have enjoyed over consoles has flipped. It may be PC gamers playing technology catch-up while the consolers now enjoy the bulk of new games featuring the latest shaders, physics and light engines.
In spite of this, console manufacturers are pledging to keep costs down to ensure that their platforms get into as many American homes as possible. With deeper penetration expected this time around, publishers will turn more and more of their limited financial resources towards console titles.
Another issue is that some of the rumored features specific to the different consoles will make direct ports of titles increasingly difficult, if not impossible. For example, Microsoft has announced that all games developed for the Xbox 360 must not only be Internet enabled, but also share the console's interface structure. Certainly this is intended to ease the creation of titles on their platform for developers, but it means taking that game over to the PS3, for example, becomes a chore.
Speaking of the PS3, Sony's plans for it are the least certain right now. But the rumors swirling around Nintendo's next console, the Revolution, may prove to represent even greater problems. The latest buzz has the Revolution's game controllers featuring touch pads. This would make porting a game designed specifically for the Revolution to other consoles very cost prohibitive.
Even a quick survey of porting efforts on current generation handhelds bears this issue out. Though the Nintendo DS and its touchscreen are quite innovative, games such as Spiderman 2 by Activision really suffered in translation over to the platform.
What does this mean? All the bells and whistles promised in the next crop of gaming hardware promise plenty of eye candy and new experiences for you and me. However, many developers and publishers are already getting headaches from the thoughts of ballooning development teams and costs.
