| Landguy said: Another Iphone launch and another prognostication of the DOOM of console gaming!
As most of us know, the Iphone 6 was announced yesterday. Earlier this year, Apple also announced Metal http://www.polygon.com/2014/6/2/5773128/metal-ios-gaming-wwdc their "almost direct access" utilities for developers. It's interesting to note that Apple designs their own proprietary processors, as that means they also design them with their own OS in mind. THe new processor in the Iphone 6 http://www.extremetech.com/computing/189787-apples-a8-soc-analyzed-the-iphone-6-chip-is-a-2-billion-transistor-20nm-monster has over 2 BILLION transistors. THat is a crapload for a phone. During the keynote, Apple demoed VainGlory http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/09/09/vainglory-the-ios-moba-league-of-legends-and-dota-2-players-may-care-about . It was pretty impressive for a cell phone game. The thing to remember about this game, is that it wasn't designed to work only on the new Iphone 6, but previous Iphones too. So, this game is only scratching at the surface of what will be available in the future when developers aren't afraid to make games for "only Iphone 6 or later" type of scenarios. If I was making portable gaming systems, I would have been worried 2 years ago that cellphones will eventually wipe out my business. As of today, I would no longer be worried, I would be accepting my fate. You can take your cellphone and hook it up to just about any HDTV and get the same output (1080p in most cases) as you do on your cellphone screen. Yu can also add controllers to get past the screen mashing of the cell phones. I would guess that at some point, they will sell a Docking Station for cell phones. This will be a simple thing that provides continious power to the phone and a direct hook up to both the tv and wireless controllers. That would basically eliminate the need for console for 75% of the market. As far as Console makers go, I am sure that they have a few years to go before they hit the panic button. But, based on how hard Nintendo/Sony/Microsoft want you to get in their ecosystem now, they know what is coming. |
Mobile gaming is more than 10 years behind consoles. Look at Bioshock on iOS, click pic to see larger version:
Mobile gaming finally catched up to PSP, maybe in 5 years they'll be at Wii level, and the decade later they could produce God of War 3 level visuals around 2030.
