Browsers — the Gaming Platform of the Future? 95
Trip Hawkins, founder of Electronic Arts, spoke at the recent Game Developers Conference about how he expects game platforms to evolve in the future. Hawkins thinks the role of web browsers as a platform will greatly increase as the explosion of mobile device adoption continues.
"For all of the big media companies, this phase of disruption is dramatic and happening fast. Where it's really going to lead is where the function of the browser is going. ... The browser has taken over 2 billion PCs — it's going to be taking over a billion tablets over the next few years, billions of mobile devices. It will end up in my opinion very strong on the television. The browser is the platform of the future."
Unlikely, but, whatever, everybody has an opinion. (Score:3, Insightful)
If everybody in the future plans on selling micro-games with abysmal graphics [technabob.com], then maybe. There's really not that many situations that I can see where developing for a web browser would be more advantageous than developing a game for a native OS architecture, whether it be for a console (xbox, PS3, etc.) or computer (Mac, Windows, etc.). Even for mobile devices, if you design for a browser, what does that leave you with? Native application SDKs exist for android, iOS, and the like, which I'm sure provide better performance capabilities for rendering and whatnot than Flash or something yet-to-be-developed. That leaves ChromeOS, which I assume will use HTML5 or Flash. But, if the day it comes, it would be glorious to see Black Ops playing in a browser tab. Call me skeptical, but I just don't see this really make a dent in the hardcore-gaming market.
Sure, why not? (Score:3, Insightful)
Yay. More Javascript and Flash.
Quake Live works... (Score:3, Insightful)
Why couldn't something else?
Re:Quake Live works... (Score:0, Insightful)
Quake Live doesn't run in the browser. It launches from a browser but the game runs in a native browser plugin so it's not like Quake Live is and HTML5 game or something.
This.
Semantics troll much? Because like, browser plugins run in like, the browser and stuff. So I still think my Quake Live citation counts as using the browser as the platform for gaming.
Just sayin'.