Hookedgamers
New mobile gaming technology is making the current gen of consoles look even older and will force living room entertainment to evolve or die.
I have never been an advocator of mobile gaming, it just doesn't suit how I like to play my games. But after seeing what hardware developers are doing to take mobile gaming up to the standards of (and perhaps surpassing) the current gen of consoles, I find my interests piqued.
Back in February, Nvidia made clear their bid to work on mobile chips but now Jen-Hsun Huang, the CEO of Nvidia has stated what platforms they are aiming to develop for during the earnings conference call:
We’ve made very, very large investments in the Google operating system. And we have a great working relationship with [Google]. As soon as the next-generation Kal-El processor goes into production we can run like the wind.
Huang also said that he is looking "forward to Ice Cream Sandwich and expect to be very successful with it.” Ice Cream Sandwich is the next version of Android upgraded from Honeycomb and Gingerbread. Not only this, but Huang also mentioned a heavy interest in Windows 8 running on tablets and laptops: “We’re very bullish on Windows 8 for the second half of next year.”
Nvidia's new chip, known as Project Kal-El, is ridiculously small and powerful as has been showcased previously. Their next-gen Tegra super chip is the world’s first mobile quad-core processor. Kal-El combines a battery-friendly, powerhouse of a quad-core processor with a 12-core NVIDIA GPU that supports 3D stereo. The first tech demo of Kal-El can be seen below. In the words of Nvidia, the demo showcases "true dynamic lighting, rendered in real-time with physics" - a first for mobile gaming.
Nvidia have expressed a determination to outdo these outstanding specs in the very near future. Their goal is to produce a yearly refresh of its architecture, as can be seen in their TEGRA roadmap. Although their target set back in February of releasing Kal-El this month has not been met, their determination has not been swayed. The original plan to double the performance of Kal-El by 2012 and then another 5x increase in 2013 is still reachable. The furthest NVIDIA is willing to go out is 2014 with 'Stark', which they say will roughly double the performance reached in 2013.
Whether a mobile gamer or not, a lot of effort is being poured into part of the industry which is often thought of as inferior to consoles and PC gaming. The cycles of hardware compete with those of PC gaming development, and obviously outstrip the console's typical 5 year + cycle of generations
http://www.hookedgamers.com/blogs/chrispriestman/2011/08/12/next-gen_chips_favour_mobile_gaming_leaving_xbox_360_and_ps3_behind.html
Not sure what to make of this..
