Transcript What will the future of gaming look like?  State of Art  Technology Advances – – – –   Devices & Displays User interfaces Haptics/Feedback Handheld convergence Consoles Mobile Gaming – Continuous play – Find me/follow me  Other –

What will the future of gaming
look
like?
 State of Art

Technology Advances
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Devices & Displays
User interfaces
Haptics/Feedback
Handheld convergence
Consoles
Mobile Gaming
– Continuous play
– Find me/follow me

Other
– PC, Arcades, Theme parks, Education, Training, etc.
New Gaming Consoles

Xbox 360
 Sony Playstation 3
– 2 TFLOPS
– Demo 1
– Demo 2

Nintendo Revolution
New Entertainment Consoles

Xbox 360
 Sony Playstation 3
– DVD
– Internet/Communities
– HD Video
– Surround Audio
– Disk/DVR

Micro-transactions
Driving Forces: Technology

3D perf doubling every year
– Movie quality: 4.8BT/s
– Global illumination, subsurface
scattering, shadows, photon tracing

Speech recognition
– $22.6 billion in 2003

Beyond WIMP
– Natural language, gestures,
300
250
200
150
tri/sec
100
expressions, words
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Wild Cards:
– Quantum computers
– Photon computers
– Nanotechnology

Worldwide internet 2004
@12.5% (800M)
50
0
1997
2000
2003
Hardware:
Networked World
PROs:
 Broadband: 20% US,
70% Korea
– 4x game expendatures

Wireless games $50100k vs. $5-10M
 RFIDs
 GPS
 Networked home
CONs: (E-S-A STUDY)
Overwhelming preference pc’s
vs consoles for online gaming
Growth in online gaming is
relatively flat
Favorite genres are puzzle,
board and trivia…not action
Less than 8 percent are paying
to play online.
Hardware:
Displays
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LCD, Plasma
StereoScopic:
– Sharp $1500
– SeeReal -> $500
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Cinefour theaters in
Logan, Utah has
midnight Xbox. Teams
of four play against
each other on the
theater's huge screens
OLEDs
HMDs
Hardware:
User Interfaces

“We believe [user interface] advances—
improving the way a player connects to
his game—are at least as vital as
enhanced on screen graphics because
they make games play better—not just
look better.”-Nintendo Executive VP Reggie
Fils-Aime
Hardware:
Haptics and Force Feedback
hap·tic ('hap-tik)
adj. Of or relating to the sense of
touch; tactile.
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Phantom
Cybergrasp
Flight-force Joystick
Cell-phone haptics
– SMS: high-frequency high-five slap , low-
frequency belly laugh
– screen tactile feedback

Psychophysics study subjective
perceptual dimension
Hardware:
Wearable Internet Appliances
Vanderbilt's
Anesthesiologists
 Call center
 Maintenance
 NASA’s WARP

Hardware:
Handhelds
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Convergence
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Dual Screens
Chat, SMS
Touch Screen
Wireless
Voice Recognition
MP3, Video
GPS
Telephone
Convergence is nice,
but….
Hardware:
Caveat: The
IronPhone
Just because we can
doesn’t mean we
should!!
 What technologies
belong together?
 Content
transportability?
– Timex DOOM?
State of the Industry
$11B US Industry…
 This is a problem?
 Yes…Market is currently
relatively flat!!!!
 Why????????

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Who is the customer?
Customer

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Pays $20-70 for 20-40hrs entertainment
($1-$2/hr)
Under 18: 34% PC, 45% console
– 90% adult purchased
Average 28 y.o., (27 female)
 43% female
 5 out of 7 dollars is on console gaming
 20M Xbox, 80M PS2
 How many Xbox 360s does MS want to
sell?
 …………1 BILLION!

Gaming Future
Where are we heading?

How does game industry expand?
– Better games for hardcore gamers
– Reach the Casual Gamer!!!

How?
– Better Graphics….DONE!
– Expand hardcore gamer communities/marketplace
– Expand gaming market through new game paradigms…beyond the
console
– Reach the Casual Gamer (via new consoles)


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Create emotional bond
More variety of games
Better/simpler interfaces
Expanding Hardcore Market:

Consumers as Producers as
Consumers…
Game Mods
– Consumers modify game

Virtual Properties
– Build, buy, sell…some professionals
– $200M+++

Professional Gamers
– 3 channels, big $$

Advertising & Commerce
– Order pizza while playing

Cross Media
– Which came first, the video game or the movie?
New Paradigms:
Ubiquitous Gaming
convergence of sensing, computing
and digital communications
 embedded computer technology to
support users’ activities wherever
and whenever it is needed
Examples:
 Environment-aware

– Location, context, bio
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
VR,AR,MR
Pervasive Games
– always available
Ubiquitous Gaming:
Environment Aware
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Location
 Pirates! Uncle Roy All Around You
 The Go Game – corporate training
Body Sensing
 EyeToy
Bio-feedback
 The Journey to Wild Divine
User information: skill, specifications, etc.
Experimental: SIGGRAPH Interactive Theater
Ubiquitous Gaming:
Augmented Reality
HMD, Tracking, Power, Haptics, Digital “flats”
 Current Uses:

NFL 1st down marker
 Night-vision obstacles
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Who could use this?
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Service/Repair
 Tourists
 Soldiers
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Holodeck?
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USC & Army -> $100M Institute of Creative Technology. Richard
Lindheim (UPN Star Trek)
Gaming
 AR Quake – Wearable Computer Lab, U. of South Australia
Ubiquitous Gaming:
Pervasive Games
The Commander stared at the ice forming on the
pilot window… “Switch on No. 8 auxiliary!” he
shouted. “Switch on No. 8 auxiliary!” repeated
Lieutenant Berg… The crew, bending to their various
tasks in the huge, hurtling eight-engined Navy
hydroplane, looked at each other and grinned. “The
old man will get us through,” they said to one
another. “The Old Man ain’t afraid of Hell!”...
“Not so fast! You’re driving too fast!” said Mrs. Mitty.
“What are you driving so fast for?”
-The Secret Life of Walter Mitty by James Thurber, 1941.
Ubiquitous Gaming:
Pervasive Games

played continuously even if intertwined with
daily activities such as working or sleeping
 variety of channels to reach the players:
Internet, press, radio, email, phone and TV
 Pervasive games need to facilitate
communication and creativity to their
audience
Examples
 Assassin – no computer required, only a hand!
 Nokia Game – 600,000 in 28 countries
 Botfighters
 Majestic
Casual Gamer:
How to reach them?

Different games
– Emotional bond
– Eliminate negatives (difficulty, violence, stress,
etc.)
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Katamari Damacy, Eye-toy Groove
Less investment required
– ‘Inter’-tainment—action occupying short
bursts of time between other activities
– Less ramp-up
Dumb down/Eliminate
controller
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Nintendo Revolution Controller
– 3D Pointing. Sensors for up, down, left,
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right, forward, backward.
Tilt Sensitive. Controller can be rotated or
rolled from side-to-side.
Buttons Included. Has a trigger on its
backside, face buttons, and a D-Pad.
Multifunctional. Has an expansion port
which can be used with different types of
controller peripherals. Analog stick with two
trigger buttons for left hand.
Wireless.
Rumble Built-in.
Playstation Eye-toy
– Demo
Quotes from the Industry:
Where are we heading?

“Absence from cyberspace has a cost.”
- Michael Benedickt,
Cyberspace, First Steps
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"It means that for a persistent game, you really can just
pick up and play anywhere..” - Dominic Mallinson, director of R&D for Sony
Computer Entertainment
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“.. in the world of financial gaming, being off-line – even
for a few minutes – can have enormous consequences.
This is the harbinger of the gaming environments to
come. Gaming is about to extend into everyday life,
continuously and deeply; each of us will find the kind of
challenge that suits us best - and engage a far-flung but
ever-present community of players.” – Mark Pesche, VRML inventor