The hardware and software front has been pretty quiet for gaming recently, which is to be expected in the winter lull between the big-name holiday releases and the summer blockbuster games. For this reason, this article will be focused on a topic that has interested me for a while: the potential for intercompatibility between gaming platforms, both consoles and computers.
I have written before about the reason why I personally switched to gaming predominately on a console instead of a PC. The main reason was the seemingly never-ending need to continually upgrade computer components to be able to play the latest games, as well as the associated costs. A console offers a gamer the guarantee that any game released for that system will run on that system. While this is a great benefit, it also limits the games made for the system over its lifespan. In the early years of the system, the games increase in quality rapidly as developers learn how to program for the system and take advantage of the technology provided. Unfortunately, as time passes and the system gets older, the games eventually reach a plateau where the console has reached its software and hardware limits. At this point, the ever increasing capabilities of PC gaming really begins to look appealing, as developers can continually make use of the newest graphics engines, designing for the best processors and fastest systems.
Now this presents a dilemma for a PC and console gamer every time a new game is released: Should you buy the game for PC or for the console? From a pure performance standpoint, the clear choice is PC (unless a game is a platform exclusive, in which case there really is no question at all), but there are cases where it may not be as simple as that. When a game is under development, it is normally created for a specific system, then ported to others. While this works fine for systems like the Xbox 360, which uses a processor architecture extremely similar to PCs, it results in difficulties when developing or porting games for the PS3 and Wii, both of which have very different programming requirements. When this transfer happens between systems, you may end up with drastic changes in control – Gamepad vs. Wiimote vs. keyboard and mouse. There can also be limitations based on graphics capabilities. A game developed for the PC can easily be capped at a certain graphics level to run on the Xbox 360 or PS3, but the Wii has very different graphics capabilities than the Xbox, Playstation, or PC, so what do you do there? Often, a Wii-specific version of a game is created just because the control scheme and processing/graphics capabilities are so different.
Besides all this technical stuff, there is the issue of online gaming and the ability to interact with other gamers. Some games have bridged the gap between systems online, allowing people to compete against whoever they want no matter what platform they are playing on. But most games do not do this – if you are playing a game on Xbox Live, you are not going to be going up against a player on the Playstation Network.
The big thing that I want to see in the future is a way to solve all of these issues: complete interconnectivity between platforms. What if you could play a co-op section of a game on your console (and it didn’t matter which console you had, or even if you had multiple consoles), then switch to your computer or tablet to continue solo in the same game and continue from the exact same point?
There are already some technologies out there that are stepping in the right direction, specifically OnLive and the Xbox’s new cloud storage capability. While OnLive doesn’t seem to put much attention into offering their services within Canada, they do have a very promising technology. I have talked about OnLive before, but basically it works by running a game off of company servers then connecting you via the Internet. This tech allows you to play an extremely advanced game on a computer that wouldn’t be able to play it normally because the game is running off the company servers, not your system; you will need a good Internet connection though. OnLive technology is available through a “console system” which just looks like a little USB hub, and is now being built directly into some “smart” TVs. Recently, OnLive released a mobile app for smartphones and tablets which allows you to play PC level games on these systems, again with the games running off the company servers, not your device. The great thing about this system is that your game progress is stored in the cloud as well, so when you switch devices, you can just continue to play from the same point.
Microsoft has also taken steps towards interconnectivity with the release of Xbox 360 cloud storage. Now your Xbox Live profile can be stored in the cloud and quickly accessed from a friend’s console and you can use the storage space to save your games. This means you can go to any other Xbox 360, put in the game disc, log into your account, and continue playing from right where you left off.
Another interesting new feature, but may just be a rumour, is the upcoming ability of Windows 8 to be able to play Xbox 360 games. For a yearly fee (hopefully included in a Xbox Live Gold membership), you will theoretically be able to put an Xbox 360 disc into your DVD drive and play it on your PC. This could solve the dilemma of whether to buy a game for an Xbox or a PC, assuming that games will be developed to run at the higher graphics performance capabilities of gaming PCs.
So that is it for this week. Who knows what the future will bring? Hopefully it is greater compatibility and freedom to move between platforms without buying four different copies of the game. In the meantime, Keep On Gaming.
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