In 20 years what gaming techologies we have today will seem unfairly dismissed/held back?
In general technology it is popular to look back at what people have and what people dismiss, and what could have happened had they not dismissed. For instance the technology for mobile phones existed for many decades before they became an expensive fad for executives, the idea that programmable mobile phones started with the iphone is laughed at but they did at least make it popular such that the common man might thank that, digital cameras probably could have come around years before, 3d printers in many cases were said to have been held back by patents which expired a few years back, and this could go on for a long time. Computer games themselves were once dismissed as a toy fad by many, a matter not helped by the little crash, and in some cases arguably still are. Now technology does move on and make things possible that were impossible before, computers and gaming thereupon being one of the best examples of this, however this is not what will happen if you have a the equivalent of supercomputer today under your TV that can sense your fingers so much as twitch (or indeed read your mind) but what you could have today but will likely only see in 20 years.
In this case I asked some time back for some games to justify wiimotes, and the validity of motion controls in general is often questioned, despite some great efforts from homebrew developers at the time. Maybe you are a fan of the Steam controller and find its demise heartbreaking. In games we often talk about firsts when digging up old history of things, and it is only natural to ask what if that took off at that point. The state of VR and 3D and whether they had once more failed to take hold was an earlier discussion in this thread series. One of the big points of discussion in E3 a few years back was "second screen", which does indeed speak to a fundamental part of gaming (as in quite literally a fundamental part of game theory as it allows different players to have different information) but as few people have any memories of anything there, other than technicalities with online/network games, it tells you what happened to that particular one.
Will any of those be looked back to in 20 years with people asking why could we not have had this back then? Do you have any particular overlooked pieces of hardware, technology, gameplay styles or similar? At the same time do you have anything you enjoy now you could have had said 20 years ago but were not given. Some allowances can be made for expense as well; the inaccuracy of the wiimote means it was never likely to take over, however not all that more investment could get it comparable with some other things.
This is part of a discussion series in which we discuss and ponder things about games, be it individual games, aspects of the game industry, gaming culture, mechanics or gaming concepts. Previously we discussed your best story from free form games .
when your mental cutoff for "old games" lands, games and media franchises you know mostly from offbeat and forgotten sources, game franchises that rose from the dead, and those that should have stayed dead,Back in my day we didn't have X but did have Y. Gaming edition., what would $20 get you in your preferred gaming genre, games you play by your own rules., the state of VR and 3D and whether they had once more failed to take hold, the last game skill you unlearned, The game you invested the most money in, times where people said gameplay styles would not work for a platform, the value of online play, emulation vs hardware, a favoured game style that might have become less common in recent times, skills one might have learned or honed because of a game, games on the PS4 and Xbone that will stand the test of time, games that got better after launch, cancelled games and shuttered devs, and story canon in games.
