The video game industry is now what you could consider as being a mature industry. It has gone through loads since the first arcade games in the seventies started finding their way into our homes.
When the early home entertainment systems such as the NES started appearing in the living rooms of kids across the world, people probably thought that the future was there and that things could not get better than that.
The Future Of Mobile Gaming
Our smartphones have become truly ubiquitous items that we cannot live without. They are the means of connecting with everyone we know through countless different social media apps. They allow us to speak and video chat with people from all over the world. Every single thing that we need to know can be found out at the touch of the button, or, more simply by asking Google or Siri without typing anything. We are spoilt. We have technology in the palms of our hands that is better than that which took us to the moon in the sixties, and since smartphones appeared just over a decade ago, they have developed rapidly.
One of the biggest challenges for smartphone makers and software and software developers is Making Mobile Gaming As Fun As Console Gaming. Mobile gaming already has a solid market share of around about half of the total gaming industry. But, smartphones have a way to go in terms of catching up with the processing power of console technology. Having the ability to handle more complexity will open up a whole new depth of gameplay, bringing it up to console levels.
Virtual Reality
The technology is already there for gamers to enjoy the fully immersive world of virtual reality. With the option to play VR games on your smartphone using viewers that you can slot your phone into, through to the likes of the Occulus, virtual reality gaming is a massive area.
At the moment, the additional technology needed to play games can be costly, however, prices will drop and when they do there is likely to be a lot more development in this sector with lots more games being released.
The Next Generation Of Consoles
The formula is definitely working for Sony and Microsoft, and the next year will see them release the next generations of Playstation and Xbox. The Xbox Scarlet and Playstation 5 will, of course, be eagerly anticipated and will no doubt fly off the shelves, regardless of the price tags. Both of these tech giants have built up a considerable amount of loyalty from gamers, with most people picking sides instinctively. In much the same way as Nintendo and Sega throughout the eighties and the nineties, the likelihood is that this lineage will continue into the next generations.
With enhanced CPUs and the potential for 8k video, both machines look set to be hardcore pieces of kit that will be capable of new levels of gaming greatness.
Gamers will no doubt want to know whether their new machines will be backward compatible. While many out there are happy to own every machine ever made, it can be a bit of an impractical space drain for many. But with the potential for backward compatibility across all previous models, it may be a great way to attract retro gamers in too.
More Lavish Productions
The gaming industry has already become more like that of the movie industry. The last decade or so has seen games production move from primarily being about the coding to now being more like the movie industry with writers, directors, and music arrangements. It is no wonder though, with many games going on to achieve greater sales than movies.
In the movie industry, as technology has developed, so has the budgets of the films. Twenty years ago it was astonishing to spend $200 million on a movie, and now many of the blockbusters that get released each year far exceed that. With games grossing as much as the biggest of the box office smashes, it stands to reason that productions will soon exceed many of those in Hollywood in terms of production values.
Greater Industry Training
With the boom in production will come the demand for people to enter the industry. New creative blood will always be needed and as such the industry that trains new game designers will also grow.
Twenty years ago, games design was a very niche subject to study. Universities may not have had courses. Many will have just had modules tacked onto other courses, or games makes may have studied a much broader IT course. These days there are entire departments in colleges and universities devoted to training and developing the future talents who will take the gaming industry by storm.
Esports
Esports is a big money industry already. But again, this will be set to rise the more established it is. With prizes already well into the millions, there will no doubt be bigger stakes soon and more pressure on the competitors to push themselves to succeed.
Retro Games Will Continue To Delight And Inspire
We’re still playing the classic franchises of thirty years ago, and there does not seem to be a waining in the enthusiasm for characters such as Sonic and Mario. Young kids even have the desire to play the classic games that appeared years ago on the Mega Drive and SNES, and retro gaming is no longer just of interest to games aged thirty-plus. Nostalgia is and will continue to be a big industry with the attention firmly remaining on anything from early arcade games up to the first PlayStation era. These classic games will no doubt one day be rightly looked upon as important pieces of our culture and history.
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