In 20 years what gaming techologies we have today will seem unfairly dismissed/held back?

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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 .

 

64bitmodels

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please provide evidence on how "more people fondly remember the saturn than the playstation" because im not feeling ya
 

duwen

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please provide evidence on how "more people fondly remember the saturn than the playstation" because im not feeling ya
Look, I owned both back when they first launched. I loved the Saturn, but I sold it to my bro so I could buy the Playstation when that launched. And I loved that too. Literally hundreds of hours playing a ton of great games... but graphically they've all aged badly - well the 3d ones have at least, and the 2d ones were already severely nerfed in comparison to the equivalent offerings on Sega's machine. And that's the thing - 2d sprites are timeless, 3d polygons of that period are hideous... especially the Playstations texture-warping muddy mess and the N64's "blur the fuck out of everything" anti-aliasing. Objectively, what looks better to you now... Battle Arena Toshinden or Street Fighter Alpha? Both released on the Playstation in 1995. One is a laughable mess of low poly models poorly animated, the other wouldn't look out of place being released today. And the Saturn ran those games better; more animations, less loading times, etc.
Why do you think there are so many 2d games being made these days? It's because history has proven that 2d sprites stand the test of time and 3d stuff less so (far less so in the case of 3d on the systems of that period).
If you want evidence head to youtube - there's overwhelming opinions there from level headed gamers that aren't interested in just fanboying for the one system they grew up with, they're interested in the games and the best way to experience them, regardless of the platform they're on.
 

Ryab

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You may have natural camera control from a mouse, but a keyboard is certainly not an ideal way to play most games (try playing Dark Souls with one). You use a mouse because you want the precision of a mouse and a keyboard also comes along with that I suppose, other people use controllers with gyro support because they want the versatility of a controller, and the precision aim gyro offers.

You may use a mouse because you believe it gives you better aim control, but that does not mean other people are inclined to use a mouse for that reason.
Generally keyboard and mouse work best for games not originally designed with controllers as the main source of input
 

raxadian

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I don't know what people you surround yourself with because everyone i've talked to has said that the playstation is better than the saturn by a landslide- it's not even funny

Hardware wise, hell yes. Games wise? The Saturn might had a few good games but you need to know Japanese for most of them.

Heck there is a lot of Nostalgia going on for the Playstation what with games from it getting remakes and so on.
 

FAST6191

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The wiifit board thingy. Marty McFly would be proud, though.
Combine a wii fit board with one of those run any direction but stay in place things and we might have an agreement.

That said I do eagerly await the day when the realism discussion is instead about having to be actually able to run and shoot vs move a mouse quickly vs realistic weapon recreation in game (I assume 3d printers will go for that one).
 
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cracker

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Definitely 3D. It was a little upsetting that the Switch doesn't have it. Also augmented reality. The games were few and far between but there were some titles that showed the potential off on 3DS and Vita.
 
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Taleweaver

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...is it me, or are most of the last 3-4 pages completely ignoring the OP's original question? I mean...sure, we can bicker all day about what controller we liked best, but for the most part, we neither lack the technology nor is that technology a niche product (1).

Still...it inspired me into something I would consider a gaming technology that we certainly have today but is absolutely held back. Namely: universal controller drivers. I'm probably not the only PC gamer who does a :rolleyes: face whenever there's arguments for or against console controllers...because we can just plug most of 'em into our PC's regardless.

It might seem like a radical (even revolutionary) idea, but if you ask me the "big three" should really reach an agreement and share the drivers of all their controllers, allowing the others to implement them(2). Why? Because different people have different tastes in controllers. I can bicker about the greatness of the PS4 controller or the bless of the wiiu controller, but I won't convince anyone swearing by hori fighting sticks, xbox controllers, gamecube controllers or whatever else on the market. The hardware hasn't been a problem for over ten years, as everything's connected through bluetooth and/or USB nowadays, and roughly the same goes for the controllers (a few quirky or specialized buttons aside, there is a standard set that'll work).

I'd also argue that the mobile market is doing this as well: there's plenty of external controllers, and none are company-tied (fuck...some can even be played both on android and iOS). This of course isn't the reason they're eclipsing the "big three" in terms of revenue on the game market, but it really should get that group to reconsider what they want to achieve(3).





(1): the steam controller's joycon thingies would be an exception, but nobody's talking about that.
(2): or at the very least all but their most modern ones...I get that the exclusivity is an appeal
(3): it's not the only reason, but part of why I don't have a switch is that the controllers are too small for my big hands. And I don't feel like forking out even more money for a proper controller when I've got half a dozen perfectly working them right here
 

AlexMCS

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just chiming in to agree that GCN controller is terrible - most GCN games DO play better on DualShocks/Wii U Pro Controller and whatnot.
And that 32-bit consoles (PS1/Saturn) should have been 2D only.
We could have had (more of) the best looking 2D games of all time, instead of some of the worst looking 3D titles ever.

On topic, when talking about gaming technologies, Sony is going on the right direction with the audio focus now, since graphics have already reached a point where future installments won't look THAT much better than the PS1->PS2 and PS2->PS3 era shifts for a good while.

Gaming technologies are also not only hardware - controllers, VR (which sucks and will still suck for years/decades), haptic feedback and whatever. Certainly something on the software side should evolve too - mechanics, online gaming netcode, gaming design and so on.
 
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Sumasuun

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I haven't looked into it in a while and it was definitely not used for gaming.
But I remember a few years ago seeing research into both visualizing dreams/mapping them to be something others could see, and also helmets that read brain activity to control things. Both were used for medical reasons but the first thing I thought of when I saw those was if it developed further how interesting it would be to apply to games.
 
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Tarmfot

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More beat saber things. I loved Die by the sword.
I just at least steam has support for all kind of controllers including wiimote, wiifit and all kind of weird stuff. I would like categories about games with wiimotion plus, etc...
 

64bitmodels

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just chiming in to agree that GCN controller is terrible - most GCN games DO play better on DualShocks/Wii U Pro Controller and whatnot.
And that 32-bit consoles (PS1/Saturn) should have been 2D only.
We could have had (more of) the best looking 2D games of all time, instead of some of the worst looking 3D titles ever.

On topic, when talking about gaming technologies, Sony is going on the right direction with the audio focus now, since graphics have already reached a point where future installments won't look THAT much better than the PS1->PS2 and PS2->PS3 era shifts for a good while.

Gaming technologies are also not only hardware - controllers, VR (which sucks and will still suck for years/decades), haptic feedback and whatever. Certainly something on the software side should evolve too - mechanics, online gaming netcode, gaming design and so on.
ugly games don't mean bad games
besides, i can list many good looking 3d games from that gen at the top of my head
 

UltraDolphinRevolution

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I think many N64 games still look good (e.g. Wave Race, Smash Bros, DK64, TWINE) but sometimes 2D objects within 3D environments look out of place.

I kind of like fog and those shiny textrures (not sure what to call it... you know like Metal Mario).
 
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