The Future of Video Games: What’s worth focusing on?

There are a lot of subjects that come up when thinking about the future of video games, how good are games graphics going to get?, will digital distribution become bigger than physical?, what will Nintendo name their new new 3ds? (haha console joke). Besides hiring a medium to tell the future, there’s no real way to see where video games will go, but there are some interesting gadgets that the industry is putting their money into. So that’s a good place to start I think.

First off the biggest contender on the list, the Oculus Rift! And it’s many copy cats. Starting off with the basics, the Oculus Rift is a VR headset made by Palmer Luckey and the Oculus VR team. The Oculus will be the first consumer available VR headset of its kind, so that a big step in the right direction. And over its development process, it’s overcome a lot of obstacles that would stop consumers from buying it, the biggest of these being how heavy it was, it’s resolution and its accessibility all of which have been overcome   (http://www.techradar.com/au/reviews/gaming/gaming-accessories/oculus-rift-1123963/review).  Except not all of them. In fact with all VR headsets there is one obstacle none will ever overcome. How long you can use them for. Back in 2013 and 14 this was a big problem for Oculus, as anyone trying to play games on it for longer bursts of time would experience headaches and nausea, big downfalls when it comes to gaming. Not only that, but having the screens so close to your eyes for long periods of time (or continued frequent use over time) no matter what anyone will say, it’s going to mess with your eyesight, and that’s not even going into the problem of people with already bad eyesight using the Oculus Rift. So sadly, while VR headsets are here and most likely to stay, I doubt It’ll ever beat classic gaming systems.

For our next contender (and usually listed right after the Oculus Rift, in any given ‘New Gadgets’ video) is the Omni! Made by Virtuix, the Omni is a treadmill like device that enables the player to move around while playing the game, and their movement will translate to the player character. So basically you walk around to move the character.  It’s also designed to work with VR headsets and hope to completely immerse the player in the game (http://www.virtuix.com/).  Now this is a pretty odd way to try and improve a person’s gaming experience, and a pretty risky one.  The odd thing about the Omni and its concept is that players will have to exert themselves while playing and this might sound like a good way to get players off their butts and moving. However people, unlike game pads have a limit, and running around will eventually tire a player out and so they stop playing. This is the same problem as with the Oculus Rift, how long can players use it for? The risky thing about the Omni? It’s big. Being what the Omni aims to do, it’s a given that it would be big, but because it’s so big it’s going to be hard to sell. Virtuix will never be able to sell the Omni at a general public level as I doubt anyone who isn’t dedicated to gaming would want such a big accessory in their house. It’s only going to sell to a niche of gamers and for such an advanced piece of equipment, that’s not a good thing.

So now having look at both these two big advancements into gaming future, neither look to be massive leaps, more so just little things some people will look forward to.