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Sponsored: Video Gaming – Where Next

 

The world of gaming is a constantly evolving one, and each year developers manage to stun the gaming community with new devices, consoles and games that constantly push the envelope to emerge on top as kings of the hill in the gaming industry. 2013 saw the launch of the next generation consoles, the Playstation 4 and the XBOX ONE. These new machines are chock filled with new features, more powerful hardware, better-integrated cameras and a sleeker performance. The consoles will show their true muscle power in 2014 with the latest games that use the potential of these machines to their full effect. But games are not the only things we can expect in the future with this new generation of what is truly a booming games industry.

The first things you can expect are new ways one can interface with the gaming system. The most prominent example was at the unveiling of Nintendo’s WII, way back in 2006, that featured controllers that could be used to input commands via body movement. This gave rise to different innovations like a boxing game where you can punch the air in front of your TV, effectively simulating a boxing match without the flying teeth and the concussions. Microsoft and Sony soon picked up on this trend, developing their versions to capture the body movement of the players. Now other peripherals like smart phones and tablets have recently been integrated into gaming systems like Two Souls where you can use your Android phone or iPhone instead of your game controller, effectively giving the user a sort of swiping action. Battlefield 4 can be played via the tablet to access a new Commander Mode, where you can coordinate troop movements and air strike then jump back into first person action via your controller. This is a trend that is definitely going places so we should expect more things to come in this area.

Battlefield 4 Review

It’s not just interfacing that’s changing though. 10 years ago, you wouldn’t dream of using real world money to buy stuff within a game; these days this is as common as can be, across platforms and in all kinds of games. Exchanging money for pixels is no novelty now; perhaps bolstered by the enormous growth in popularity of online gambling games such as roulette, which in essence, have you bankrolling games of pixels with real cash, and winning real cash thereafter. All this can be from just a simple game of luck.

And of course there is the king of all new peripherals, the Oculus Rift. Set to debut for the general public in 2014, this new device is set to change the way we experience games forever. Starting as a Kickstarter project back in 2012, Oculus VR soon garnered several backers after launching its prototype a year later and is now poised to take the gaming world by storm. The Oculus has been on a lot of people’s wish list (including mine) for some time now, so this upcoming device is certainly not a new advent for 2014. It is more the prospect of how the gaming industry will evolve around this device that propels one’s goose bumps into full emission. First person shooters will take an entirely new meaning as the combat environment is literally (or is that still ‘metaphorically’?) everywhere around you. And new innovations to complement this new invention could range from special gloves that allow for precise finger movements to automatic defibrillator machines to go along with your survival horror games. An interesting note is that this device could conceivably be used for non-gaming purposes as well. In the near future where robotic drones will be the norm, it will probably be an off shot of the Oculus that will be used to operate them.

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Along with new ways to control your console, the will also be a new console set to debut in the near future. Originally set for a release date in 2014, Valve will be launching the latest contestant to the console wars, The Steam Machine. With competitors like Microsoft and Sony to face in this market, the Steam Machine will need some serious firepower to avoid a DOA. The Steam Machine’s first advantage is that will have complete access to the abundant Steam online library that currently has over 2500 titles to choose from. Although one might scoff at the idea of trading their prized console for a fledgling one, there will be far more advantages that hit the gaming industry in general with the arrival of this new console. First and foremost the new Steam Machine will provide competition in the market. With Nintendo having been blown out of the water by its competition, the console market has mostly been dominated by Sony and Microsoft, who basically had free rein regarding prices, thus stagnating the market quite a bit. Now that other developers have also announced that they will be making their own versions of the Steam machine, the monopoly will be broken and players will also have a variety of choices of consoles to choose from to satisfy their own preferences.

Portable consoles have also made a great leap forward. Although, as mentioned earlier, Nintendo seems set to abandon the home consoles battlegrounds, they still has two feet, or hands, solidly planted when it comes to handheld consoles. Its biggest competitor being Sony with its new PS VITA, Nintendo is still holding its own with its DS. The DS made a hit by integrating a screen and a separate touch screen in its handheld device that offered new innovative ways for gaming. Its recent creation, the 3DS, features a 3D background. Although the PS VITA leads out with a higher performance engine and better graphics, it is always Nintendo that delivers entirely original concepts that keep gamers interested. Future plans from Nintendo are still marred in rumors and campfire stories, but so far the Japanese Giant has failed to disappoint in this area, so expect something fresh and tasty in the near future.

The possibilities for the future are always endless in the digital world, but the general path of what we might expect in the near future already has solid foundations and we can rest assured that there will definitely be a lot of great things coming our way. And this will soon become noticeable even to the non-gaming community. This could be evident in a revitalization of the retro arcade centers, or even in places like casinos. Although Slot machines are a dime a dozen nowadays, newer machines like arcade roulette that uses a proper roulette wheel to determine the winner, eliminating the possibility of human error by the dealer are on the steady rise. So get those sunglasses ready. It’s going to be a very bright future