the game begins…

the everything platform

// January 2nd, 2010 // Opinion

As of this writing, December 27, 2009, I see a very interesting change in the game industry. My point of view comes from various sources so nothing I’m about to say is really “mine”. There have been other interesting/smarter people that have stated in one way or another the same concept, or question, that I have. Which is: Is there a point to have a gaming specific platform anymore? Now before you call for war, lets think this through. And to set the record, the type of gamer I see myself as is a Completist-Tourist. Here we go.

This is definitely not a discussion about a “one console” to rule them all. Some might argue that’s the PCs role. No, this is much more than that. This is about no longer needing a device that is specifically designed for gaming. There will always be a market for such devices but I see that being a niche market in the future. Image for a second PSN built right into a Blu-ray player or an Android-powered (phone, netbook, etc) device? Or Xbox Live (the service) built into the next TiVo? That’s the simplest way to describe how I see the game industry changing: Gaming as a service. Steam-esque services on various devices. Wow, never thought I would ever say, or even want, that. But in some weird way I do and I think it’s for the best.

Thanks to facebook, web/browers-based games are all the rage at the moment. And really it’s nothing new. It’s do to facebook’s huge community that companies realizing the potential of such games. When the biggest “hardcore” game of the year, Modern Warfare 2, as of now has 6 million units sold and compare that to say FarmVille with it’s 69 million monthly active users . Of course we’re comparing apples to oranges. One is free to play and the other charges you $60. Being realistic MW2 will never reach anywhere close to 70 million units sold. What the industry is starting to realize is why should they limit themselves to platforms that have a very limited install base compared to facebook, PCs, the internet, mobile devices (that also happen to be phones and play games), etc.

This obviously won’t happen over night. Just like Steam took a couple of years to fully develop into the kickass app that it is now, gaming everywhere will take a while as well. But it has begun. Apparently for the moment Flash seems to be the dominant platform of choice for said movement. But it’s not the only one and won’t be the last. Who knows what will be possible with future tech such as HTML 5 or WebGL. Very interesting ideas to say the least. Ideally it would be built on an open platform, but we’ll see.

I really believe gaming as a whole will benefit. No longer will be limited to devices that are expensive and serve one purpose only. Heck we’re even seeing our current generation of consoles turn into multi-purpose equipment. Limited but still branching out. Exciting times and I’m proud to be apart of, and hopefully influence, this gaming renaissance.

** Interesting update after this post went up.
** Really?!