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Games Entertainment

What is Next-Gen? 75

Posted by Zonk from the toaster-oven-console-action dept.
Rosethorn writes "IGN's Sci-Fi Brain has a weekly column covering relevant topics in video games as they relate to science fiction. This week TK-422 defines what it takes to create a 'next-generation' gaming experience. He examines some innovative games from the past, and looks at where innovation will come from in the future." From the article: "Contrary to popular belief, the ability to create more realistic and lifelike graphical environments doesn't always count as innovation. Next-generation graphics should not just rely on a console's or PC's ability to render better visuals. Next-generation graphics should permit players to become completely immersed in the universe that the developers have created for them."
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What is Next-Gen? More

What is Next-Gen?

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  • Silly question... (Score:4, Funny)

    by __aaclcg7560 ( 824291 ) on Thursday February 16, 2006 @06:49PM (#14738051)
    Next gen is when I can afford it (~ $100 USD). :P
    • I can even see paying 2 bills, which means i'm stuck w/ current gen til revolution drops. -j3rry
    • how can the reader arbitrarilly discard graphical inovation as not inovation??? Yet then argue that creating ever larger gaming environments IS inovation. The logic of that is severely flawed since expansive environments is part of the graphics system anyway. I dont see any real connection between inovation and console generations...invoatation just happens in the games...then every few years a console is upgraded to include new inovations, then these are exploited. i dont see how that leads to any defin

  • DNF (Score:5, Funny)

    by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Thursday February 16, 2006 @06:50PM (#14738061)
    Duke Nukem Forever is next-gen. Always will...

  • six years ago... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by scenestar ( 828656 ) on Thursday February 16, 2006 @06:54PM (#14738089) Homepage Journal
    The ps2 was considered next-gen.

    Next-gen is nothing but a fsckin buzzword.

    • Re:six years ago... (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Exactly.

      Next-Gen is not something that we obtain or experience. You don't play a next-gen console. You play today's console. It's just a placeholder label for x+1 iteration of gaming systems and games where x is our current generation of said systems and games.

      Asking someone 'what does next-gen mean to you?' or 'what do you think of next-gen graphics?' is like asking them 'what does next year mean to you? What do you think of next year's weather?'

      The whole of the summary's paragraph is meaningless waffl
      • It's just a placeholder label for x+1 iteration of gaming systems and games where x is our current generation of said systems and games.

        I completely agree with you, that is the deffinition of next generation. It is nothing wrong per se. Say, Xbox360 is the next generation console of Xbox, and PS3 will be the next gen. of Ps2 and Revo of GC. The interesting bit is which of the three consoles will be *better*.

        Better does not mean "will have more polygons or pixels per inch*, it means which one will be more en
    • I don't think it's insightful to say that what was once next-generation isn't anymore. That's like saying "Man, in 1910, 1950 was considered the future!" It might blow your mind if you're high, but it quickly stops being deep when you come down.

      Six years ago, the PS2 was the next generation of gaming consoles. That's not marketing hype, that's just a tautology. Once the PS3 has come out, it will be the current generation, the PS2 will be last-generation, and the PS4 will be next-generation. That's just th

  • It's a trap! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by jclast ( 888957 ) on Thursday February 16, 2006 @06:58PM (#14738116) Homepage

    Next-generation graphics should permit players to become completely immersed in the universe that the developers have created for them.

    So next-gen gaming is all about whether I have a good enough imagination to become immersed in a game?

    Attention /. reader! You are being led astray! The true next generation is the Super Nintendo Entertainment System! It has games in which you will become immersed! Final Fantasy IV! Final Fantasy VI! Chrono Trigger! Abandon your XBOX 360s! The next generation of games technology isn't about technology at all!

    Games have always been about story. Technological generations aren't about immersion, they're about the technology. The machine doesn't make me feel. It does math and pushes it to my TV. Video game designers and writers immerse me in the game, not the console itself.

    • Re:It's a trap! (Score:3, Insightful)

      by caffeination ( 947825 )
      Games have always been about story.
      I'm not flaming. I can tell you just weren't thinking about what you were saying. That you got modded up is slightly more disturbing.... anyway, onto my point, which I will give in list form:
      1. Pong
      2. Space Invaders
      3. Galaga
      4. Every racing game ever made with a few exceptions
      5. Every fighting game ever made
      6. Bishi Bashi
      7. Mario Party & Clones
      8. That's enough list items

      I'm fairly sure you're not generalising as much as your words themselves indicate, but then there is your use of t

      • You are correct. In retrospect, 'fun' or 'immersion' would have been better choices.

        In my defense, I was trying to be funny, not insightful.
    • Games have always been about story

      You sir are talking complete and utter shit. RPGs revolve around the story and a good exploration system, where as games like Sonic and Mario have no story at all. Yet are some of the greatest games ever.. So no, games arn't about story (only the latest generation of gamers would think such crap). Games are about 1 thing, a very simple thing which I shall point out on it's own line so you can clearly see it.

      HAVING FUN.
      • True, but to many of us a decent story helps that out. Even back on the original NES, I found games with a story, even a silly one like Ninja Gaiden, much more compelling than those without.
        • It very much depends on the game. Some suit a story while others a story just gets in the way. Arcade games for example don't suit a story at all, where as very few RPGs could live without one.
          • I disagree- I prefer even my arcade games with a story. If they don't come with one, I make up bullshit ones of my own.

            • I prefer even my arcade games with a story. If they don't come with one, I make up bullshit ones of my own.

              Interesting. What story did you come up with for Tetris? Or did you strongly prefer Dr. Mario?

    • Wrong. I've gotten hundreds more hours out of my old copy of Doom 2 than I have with pretty much any other game. Still play it to this day. A good story might contribute to an RPG, but who says that run and gun shoot-em-ups or arcade 'get a higher score' games aren't good games?

  • Eye of the Beholder (Score:4, Insightful)

    by MyLongNickName ( 822545 ) on Thursday February 16, 2006 @07:00PM (#14738129) Journal
    Next-generation graphics should permit players to become completely immersed in the universe that the developers have created for them

    Well, a well designed text MUD could qualify by this definition. Different things float different peoples' boats. In some ways, text adventures have an advantage... energy can be put into building a world, with the user supplying the graphics (imagination).
    • you may be able to build a world with a text adventure but theres no pace eg: Mario has encountered a goomba do you want to A.jump over it B.jump on it C.run into it IMO it takes about 2 generations of gaming to perfect that generations advantage eg: basic gameplay, all the first gaming systems, 2D graphics, with the nes graphics things look better and more attention has to be put into artwork snes reached the pinnacle of 2D gaming, any 2D game since hasent been much different to what you could do on the s

  • Halo -- what about Goldeneye? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 16, 2006 @07:01PM (#14738137)
    From TFA: "Gameplay innovation could range from the original Halo's ability to create a playable first shooter experience on a console controller."

    It's been a while for me (and I'm basically a PC gamer)...but what about Goldeneye? iirc, that was a pretty "playable" experience for a lot of people. Maybe they mean the total package (and I still think Goldeneye was at least as good--Halo's main bonus here was online play, sort of), but when they elaborate down below:

    "Innovation: Console friendly controls for FPS games."

    Goldeneye was pretty sweet in this department...

    Maybe I'm just a jaded PC gamer who thinks Halo is oversold.
    • Step 1: Set a console with Goldeneye and a console with Halo side by side.

      Step 2: Empty your mind of rosey nostalgia.

      Step 3: Play each game for and hour, and see how much you like Goldeneye.

      I did basically that same thing once and it was scary.

      Goldeneye's greatness lives in our fond memories, not in the actual reality of the game.
    • Rose-tinted glasses. After playing Halo I couldn't go back to Goldeneye.

      1. FPS issues. Hard to accurately hit someone at 2FPS with millions of explosions going on.
      2. Ridiculous objectives in single player that required wandering around in a single level for hours until you found where that one objective was. It was OK on agent, but if nobody had told me about how to complete some of the other objectives on a greater difficulty level I would have never gotten it.
      3. Straferunning. Straferunning is great w

      • Straferunning is great when you are allowed the reaction time to hit something going that fast. Unfortuniatly, goldeneye's FPS problems combined with the system designed for you to stand still in order to get any accuracy

        You were supposed to switch the game's control style to Solitaire (left stick aim, C-buttons move), a style that Turok originated on the N64. It ends up just like southpaw mode on a modern ps2/xbox FPS.

      • Slow framerates are not relevant to the discussion of innovative controls, nor are your own difficulties in finding objectives. Your third point has some modicum of merit, but you seem to forget that the N64 controller had only one control stick, while the Xbox had two; it would be impossible for Goldeneye to control both movement and aiming with control sticks... using only one controller. (I will also point out that, with some skill, a player could use the C buttons to aim while moving with pretty good re
      • No no no...

        1) You are comparing two seperate consoles here with years of performance between them. Obviously, the new console will perform better. Besides, with all those explosions, you aren't shooting. You're trying to dodge them while still throwing mines, grenades, etc..

        2) Besides not explaining that the bungie cord was not an actual item (contrary to the instruction manual), the objectives were not difficult to figure out if you read the mission briefings. The game also should tell you where to p
    • Innovation: Console friendly controls for FPS games.

      Don't forget Turok.

  • Next Generation (Score:5, Insightful)

    by dch24 ( 904899 ) on Thursday February 16, 2006 @07:09PM (#14738200) Journal
    From the article: Gameplay innovation could range from the original Halo's ability to create a playable first shooter experience on a console controller, to the creation of completely new genres such as the first RTS, FPS, or RPG.

    2001: Halo is released (XBOX)
    Innovation: Console friendly controls for FPS games.

    Okay, I'm not trying to start a flamewar here, but I wasn't that impressed by Halo's controls. Now, Splinter Cell on the other hand, had innovation in the way the controller was used. But "Console friendly controls"? 007 Goldeneye for N64 was a console friendly first person shooter. It doesn't matter whether you judge it by number of units sold, or that Goldeneye became the game packaged with the N64... Clearly, it was a Console Friendly FPS.

    Am I just missing something? Did somebody discover that Up-Up-Down-Down-Left-Right-Left-Right-A-B-A-B-Sele ct-Start worked in Halo? Because otherwise, I'm really confused...

    • Yeah, I agree. Halo was NOT the first popular FPS game for consoles. Now, Goldeneye may not have had the best controls, but it did the best with what it had (only 1 analog stick). But you can't say that it wasn't popular or not a success, since it very much was. (That said, I'm a PC FPS player at heart, and nothing matches keyboard+mouse)

      Now, I can see someone arguing that Halo 2 was more innovative, because it brought in the notion of quickmatching, ranking systems, etc. to the console. Even PC FPS titles
    • Basically, the innovation in Halo's controls was auto-aim. The game subtly nudges your crosshair toward enemies as you move it, compensating for the lack of precision that comes from using a gamepad.

      • Basically, the innovation in Halo's controls was auto-aim.

        Goldeneye on Agent and Secret Agent had auto aim.

        • Ah. My mistake, then.. I never played much Goldeneye.

          Either way, the innovation in Halo's controls is greatly overstated. Quake 3 Arena on PS2 had the same control scheme. More than anything, the popularity of Halo on consoles just proves that people can get used to any remotely usable control scheme with enough practice.

  • Definitely not graphics (Score:4, Interesting)

    by ardor ( 673957 ) on Thursday February 16, 2006 @07:12PM (#14738219)
    Graphics reached a "good enough" point. The next major breakthrough is likely to be real-time raytracing and/or real-time global illumination. Also, animation still sucks. Completely believable animation with real-time reactions to environmental changes and to player actions is still far off (it involves physics and AI too).

    An example: A guard patrols an area. You are hidden behind a wall, waiting for the right moment to sneak past the guard to the room's other side. Then, you accidentally hit a bucket. The guard hears the sound, and runs to investigate it. No problem so far, this can be done with premodeled animation sequences (walking, standing, running...)

    But then there is a rock on the ground. The guard hits it with his left foot. What happens? In real life, the guard would fall down. Now this is quite hard since the animation has to change in real-time. It involves physics (rock shape, amount of force, collision location...) and AI (since the animation has to change in a convincing manner, and this is achieved by letting an AI decide what to do next). This further leads to letting the guard stand up, checking himself if there are serious injuries etc. None of this is even remotely possible today.

    So, you want next-gen with "next-gen" being purely technical? Look for advanced animation.
    • I'd agree. at this point, it's not the graphics, the droplets of water spattering on the ground. instead, it's the feel, the sound, the realistic physics of stubbed toes when my troll kicks the castle wall and his right foot moves a little bit less and jerks from pain.

      Or the slower reaction as my character gets tired or wounded. the involuntary camera pitch from the head nod when my sleep meter is almost empty and I haven't moved while I wait in ambush.

      The involuntary jerk when the cannonball hits next t
      • Correct. Ironically, FEAR impressed me most with sequences like these, and NOT with its graphics (being a 3d-graphics-coding hobbyist apparently saturates). I found it quite impressive to be blown out of through the shattered window when a really big explosion incinerated the building I was walking in. Or the nuclear reactor meltdown, which causes a HUGE atomic explosion, everything gets really bright, and in the distant, the shockwave can be seen, nearing and smashing everything in its way..... really awes
    • It's quite possible to get physical realism for the NPCs. The hard part is physical realism for the player characters. You have such limited control over the character that if it is running in a physically realistic simulation, it has to be nearly autonomous.
    • I'd be happy if they'd just solve the damn clipping problem.

      "Hey, check it out, King Kong's arm is sort of going into the wall. He must be a g-g-g-ghoooooost!"
    • I dunno, stuff like Half Life 2 and any other game with rag-doll physics seem to be getting pretty close to this, so saying it is not even "remotely possible" is a bit off. AI is still pretty lame, I grant you that, but having a guard stub his toe on a rock is more than possible.
  • something awful [somethingawful.com] satirised the "next-gen" gaming attitude beautifully a few days ago, with this work of art:

    After almost a combined man-hour of intense research with our Vice President's grandson, Steve, we have discovered the only two things modern gamers really care about: Motion blur and light bloom. And believe us, we have those two things in spades.
  • It's obvious. The next-gen is the ability to replicate not just visual reality but all senses.. including the sense that you ARE in a real world. I.E. Matrix.. everything reflects the real world down to if a body dies.. it goes back into the food chain.

    That is a real world simulator. Heck.. we can't even simulate real world weather.
    I guess we'll stick with trying to get a life!

  • Why, $60 games of course.
  • Bigger worlds, better artificial intelligence, more expansive storylines, more things to do, and better ways to play - these are aspects that will expand the scope of games and bring them into this "next-generation."

    I'd agree with the article that better multi-character story plots and reaction gradients from alterable characteristics/reactions would help. Characters being both good-natured and helpful, but willing to sell you out to save their little sister from the gallows or for a lot of the local curre
  • When you spend more time writing out the gameplay mechanics and storyboarding a great plot with as many choices given to the gamer as possible, all while giving them a beautiful engine and ultra-realistic physics. An equally or more important part is making sure the controls are accessible. Almost every game out there that's worth playing has 15 buttons to memorize, a less than fun experience for people new to gaming. Nintendo is, of course, on the right path with an intuitive interface with the Revolution.
    • It wouldn't hurt for the graphics and physics engines to be made beforehand and sold to the company making the new game; the time has come when every game developer cannot afford to spend half its time writing out ultra-intricate physics and rendering engines for each game before making textures and models and THEN writing in the gameplay.

      Which is why most PS3 FPS are scheduled to use the Unreal 3 engine...

      My own opinion - ya its nice when a dev company has the time, money, and dedication to put out gr

  • Next Gen Ideals vs. Reality (Score:4, Interesting)

    by nick_davison ( 217681 ) on Thursday February 16, 2006 @07:51PM (#14738479)
    "NextGen" sadly - whatever we might hope - doesn't mean anything other than a quantum step in graphics power.

    The author identifies three categories:
    1) Gameplay.
    2) Scope.
    3) Graphics.

    I'll use a simple question: If you added the feature to a game from say the early 90s, would you suddenly call it NextGen?

    Gameplay
    So we're playing Doom on the SNES. The author claims a great control scheme is what makes it work. Would adding Halo's controls to SNES Doom make it NextGen? I'm guessing most people would laugh at the idea.

    Scope
    The author says NextGen games should be bigger. Anyone remember Ultima 7? That thing was freaking huge. Morrowind was also huge. Both are from previous generations. Both are bigger than anything seen on future consoles, even in previews, with the exception of Oblivion. Take a small Ultima type game. Give it a massive game world with lots of cool things to do, you don't get NextGen Ultima, you get Ultima 7.

    Graphics
    Take a fairly typical console racer. Give it 720p graphics and nothing much else. That gets called NextGen pretty quickly. Take a basic beat-em-up and add 720p graphics, again, NextGen.

    We may want Next Gen to mean quantum increases across the board. We may feel a true "Next Gen" game should step up its game in every field not just shiny stuff. They're a whole bunch of nice ideals but the sad truth is, we're judged by our actions and our actions have us simply calling a quantum increase in graphics "NextGen" because it's the only thing that really needs the next generation of systems to be possible.

    Better music, better gameplay, bigger worlds, longer playtimes, [basic] physics systems, improved AI, better control schemes... These are all great things but none of them require the next generation of system - most of them can be done on the system before last (PS1) or even earlier.

    About the only thing that requires the next generation of systems are prettier visuals. It may feel empty, it may not suit our ideals, but, truth is, that's all NextGen really is.

    The only reason people question the "NextGen"ishness of some 360 launch titles is because, as with any new system, many of the launch titles are so inefficient they really aren't that quantum step up from the old one.
    • There have been, however, important developments that come from the increase in processor and graphics power. I mean, wasn't Mario 64 the immersive, exciting next gen game it was due to the sudden addition of a third dimension? I suppose advances like that have been few and far between lately, but doesn't the addition of online play increase the scope of a game? The internet on a console still seems next gen to me, since I don't have an Xbox. Taking your racing examples: if you gave the original Mario K

  • Better Physical Modelling increases possibilities (Score:3, Interesting)

    by LoveMe2Times ( 416048 ) on Thursday February 16, 2006 @08:21PM (#14738689) Homepage Journal
    I'm going to make a broad generalization here, so bear with me. There are basically two types of games:

    1) Abstract, pattern, or board type games. Puzzle games, party games, and non-game-games.
    2) Stylized simulations of various kinds. Simulated driving, sports, fighting/combat, and so forth. Even fantastical worlds have kind of implied rules that are being simulated.

    For type #1, since there's no pseudo real world to simulate, designers are free to make up their own rules, and convincing physics or human-like AI aren't so important. Additionally, good graphics tend to be irrelevant to these types of games. As a result, there's almost no such thing as a "next-gen" puzzle game, because pretty much any puzzle game that gets made could have been done on previous-gen hardware. One exception might be TetriSphere.

    However, for simulation type games, the drastic changes come from increases in the fidelity of the simulation. Since perfect simulation is impossible, we're stuck with a mixture of scripted/canned behaviors that cover a wide array of interactions along with actual simulation. So a primary driving force in making these games feel "next-gen" is migrating an entire category of functionality from scripts into simulation. Doing this requires more horsepower, thus next-gen hardware, and makes the game seem qualitatively different because player freedom has increased.

    I think a basic development that has to happen soon is a move towards more realtime skeletal animation. I think it's practically criminal that new games being made today still have characters get hung up on the slightest corners of objects. Getting "stuck" on a crate is ridiculous, or a doorframe or a rock or anything. You need to appropriately account for momentum and have skeletal animation to realistically show the effect on the character, so you can stumble, bump, trip, twist etc. Deformable environments need to be common place, with decent collision/impact calculations (I've never played Red Faction, so I don't know how good of a job it did). Elements in the environment need to react properly to extreme heat or cold. You can come up with an almost endless laundry list of these things.

    These types of things will give players more freedom and more convincingly immersive games. You could then make Sequel 127 and have it seem fresh and distinct, as the play experience will be unlike what came before. But then you'll need something else by the time you hit Sequel 130. But for right now, there are plenty of REALLY OBVIOUS things that need to be done, but don't seem to be chased very much. Of course, that's because these things are *hard* while improving graphics is easy...
    • As to Red Faction - a good lot of enemy movements were scripted, yes, but the Geomod (destructable environments that you mentioned) kicked ass, you could roughly carve out a ramp/stairs out of a wall and get to odd ass places. Red Faction 2 however, was *very* sadly dissapointing - AI was improved yes, though 75% of it was still scripted, and worse yet than scripted AI was what it did to Geomod. In Red Faction 1, you could carve 20 feet into a cave wall - in Red Faction 2 (I only played the PS2 version of t
      • Yes, I remember reading that the sequel kinda screwed the pooch. I've always wanted to play the first one though. Just not much time for games these days :( It's just so damn annoying that rocket launchers will not harm a flimsy wooden door in the slightest, nooooo, you have to find the right key or passcard or whatever. Bleh.

  • Next gen is... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Sathias ( 884801 )
    ... when the first time you boot up a game your jaw hits the floor at how much better the game is than the ones you currently play. As far as FPS games go (which have the most instant visceral effect) Doom did that to me, so did Quake 1, the next one to do that was Half-Life during the sequence where the portal opens into the alien world and everything goes to shit. Far-Cry was probably the next one that did that to me when you come out of the caves and see that massive view distance for the first time. I h
  • This is Next Gen [next-gen.biz]
  • I don't know what makes a game next gen, but I know what makes a console next gen.

    A next gen console can run a prev gen console emulator.

  • While it's true that most of the supposed 'innovative' gameplay entries listed are the games which are often credited with these innovations, most of them aren't the true innovators. Others did it first, and they've simply given it a bit of spit and polish, and been able to exploit newer technologies.

    It's already been pointed out that Halo was hardly the first playable FPS on a console - while not quite as polished in control (mainly due to the controller design, IMO) as Halo, Perfect Dark and Goldeneye bot
    • Hell, Doom listed as being innovative because it was a FPS? What happened to Wolfenstein 3D? Doom is a great game, but again, it refines on the innovation provided by earlier games.

      Doom is the game that really started the game hardware upgrade cycle. At the time, it was therefore a truly next-gen game. You wanted to buy the biggest, baddest hardware you could afford just to play Doom. You upgraded just to play Doom.

  • There was talk of hitting limits on processor speed.

    Wonder if the same thing can be applied to video games.

    Yes, Super Mario Brothers was a big step up from pong, or anything atari 2600.

    Sure, Super Mario 64 was a big step up from super mario bros.

    But when I tried Tony Hawk for the xbox360, it just looked like a cleaner crisper display(it was on an HDTV) version of Tony Hawk for my PS2.

    Yeah, so, um, were gonna play hundreds of dollars for slightly crisper, probably more detailed graphics, but no revolution in
  • "Contrary to popular belief, the ability to create more realistic and lifelike graphical environments doesn't always count as innovation.

    Who's popular belief would that be, marketing drones'? Inventing wheel was innovative, inventing firemaking was innovative, etc. It seems that these days everything that's applauded as innovative, isn't.

  • > 2001: Halo is released (XBOX)
    > Innovation: Console friendly controls for FPS games.

    As many said before, Goldeneye for N64

    > 1998: Half Life (PC)
    > Innovations: Seamless integration of Story and Gameplay in a FPS, Enemy A.I.

    Maybe one of these:
    - 1996: Marathon 2: Durandal
    - 1995: Dark Forces ...

    > 1996: Resident Evil (PSOne)
    > Innovation: Established the Survival-Horror genre.

    1992: Alone in the Dark (PC)

    It may not have established the genre, but establishment for something that already exists d
  • Perhaps next gen won't be based on a great leap in graphics or in some of the other things that have been mentioned here, but rather on the games ability to change over time based on the users skill. To use a first person shooter game as an example, one ends up fighting the same monsters over and over again in exactly the same way each time you die in order to learn the game patterns until you ultimately reach the final goal. Now perhaps next gen games will see that you are doing better each time you re-l

    • "Perhaps next gen won't be based on a great leap in graphics or in some of the other things that have been mentioned here, but rather on the games ability to change over time based on the users skill."

      That doesn't require next-gen hardware. IIRC, Resident Evil 4 adjusted the gameplay slightly based on the player's performance. Also, God of War provided players with health bonuses after each death, to give them a slightly better chance at victory. I'm sure there are better examples than these, but they il

  • No, seriously!

    years ago there was this device by DigiScent [slashdot.org] called iSmell [gamasutra.com] that could connect to your computer. By combining a mixture of base scents from a palette, the device could synthesize a number of different scents that would be aerated out. The human olfactory system can recognize far more distinct smells than what iSmell could mix, but DigiScent promised thousands of possible scent combinations.

    The product became vaporware sure, but such a technology could increase sensory immersion in video g
    • That sounds rubbish. If you had a system like this, you have crossed the line from simulating something to actually doing it, which is not why we play games.

      Games allow you to pretend to do things that you would not necessarily really want to do. You only want to bring realism so far. Even if displays were holographic 3D displays, they still wouldn't be real - there is a line there that can never be crossed, only approached. However, a fighting game that actually punched you in the face, that would have gre
      • There any many reasons why people play video games; realism has always been one of them. Some gamers are content with smashing the green dots deep within the mysterious red square - I'm one of them, but there are serious gamers that want to push realism as far as technology will make possible. I'm not even talking about the diehard simulationist camp that play games that allow them to pretend to do things they only wish they could do.

        I promise you there are gamers that would enjoy a more physical reaction f
  • Why is everyone trying so hard to re-define the obvious? I remember ColecoVision being advertised as 3rd generation because it was preceded by the 2nd generation (Intellivison, Arcadia etc.) and before that the 1st generation (Atari 2600, Odyssey 2). The first generation refers to the first wave of programmable systems, the ones before that mostly had their games built in. By the time of the NES and Master System, it was unclear what generation had been reached. Was Intellivision II still a 2nd gen syst

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