E3 2011 announcements and mobile gaming
E3 2011 is here and as we’re sure you’ll agree, some amazing announcements have been made already and it’s making us thirsty for more.
Microsoft have named some things to get excited about, namely Halo 4, cloud storage and Xbox live TV designed around the voice controlled functionality of Kinect, to name but a few. Sony will be bringing a new handheld touch screen console to us; the Playstation Vita and let’s not forget the Playstation 3D TV that shows different images to two players through partnering glasses and with one push of a button, you can switch from player one to player two. Very impressive!
For a lot of people though, Nintendo stole the show with the announcement of its new touchscreen controller; the Wii U. This bit of kit looks ridiculously impressive, with its precision motion controls, full HD graphics, beautiful touchscreen, different views, ability to switch from TV to controller and a lot more. I’ve got to say, I definitely want one of these!
So, with all this going on, where does it leave mobile gaming on our phones? If we think back to 1997 when Snake was launched as the first preinstalled mobile phone game, it was popular instantly. According to Nokia, the legendary game of Snake is now on more than 350 million mobile phones. It was entertaining back then and had a great following, but there were technological limitations preventing mobile phones from being any kind of decent platform for gaming.
Years later, here we are, with an array of smartphones on the market and thousands of games to choose from various app markets. Games like ‘Angry Birds’ recently hit its 200 millionth download and numbers are still rising!
Our smartphones are always with us, so these games are on standby to keep us entertained whenever we wish, but is the line between casual and core gaming going to blur as time goes by? We’ll have to wait and see, but with so many technological advancements coming to light each year and game developers having such a promising area to work with, we’re sure the outcome will make itself known in the not so distant future.