Monday, May 26, 2014

COD Advanced Warfare: Too Advanced Maybe?



 The name of the next Call Of Duty should be telling enough .... advanced warfare means war using advanced technology to win. One of the problems with recent Call Of Duties is the unrealistic nature of the technology used in game. Look, I understand that the franchise has grown stale and you can only add so much to a yearly game where you play basically the same game modes with different guns to kill the other team. Why not spice it up a little bit? Sure.... but a 3D printed rifle? Not just any 3D printed rifle either, its a 3D printable rifle that "prints" its own ammunition right there in the guns own chamber. Look, 3D gun printing is real (and illegal ) and we know it can be done, however, magically printing bullets in the chamber of the rifle is a feat which shall never be accomplished no-matter how advanced a society grows. Its simply impossible that a gun could print its own bullets in the very same chamber used to eject them.
 I know this concept is probably exiting to the to a 9 year old wanting to blast a plasma rifle ( and yes there is a plasma rifle in AW ) and slip on a exoskeleton suit. But what about the serious competitive players? Where does this leave the pro competitive gamers in this whole "more advanced every year" scheme of things which leads each new installment of Call Of Duty looking more like Star Wars than a competitive war game on planet Earth.

Minecraft Coming To PS Vita With Cross-Buy.


 In what's probably the best news for Sony's struggling handheld to date.... Minecraft has been confirmed for the Playstation Vita to be released in August. Even better news is that it is cross-Buy so if you have purchased the game on PSN the Vita version can be downloaded for free. This is huge news for the Vita as it will represent the only viable portable version of the highly popular game yet. An IOS version of Minecraft has been released but is universally recognized as horrible with very small worlds, less crafting and bad controls.
 Now a comprehensive and complete portable version of Minecraft with multiplayer is available soon and could represent a nice boost to Vita sales as the power and fan base of Minecraft is strong enough to move units for Sony. I can only imagine that a special Vita/Minecraft bundle will be available and I also imagine that these will sell off the shelves. Just imagine being able to bring your vast world created out of blocks and other materials wherever you may go whether its on vacation or sitting in a doctors office.
 The news for the PS Vita just seems to be getting better as it ages and ages well. With a vast log of video games including triple A titles, indies and classics alike things may just start looking up for the Playstation handheld. There is no exact release date as far as I could find, however, it will release in August and since I did in fact buy Minecraft from PSN I will be sure to download this version swiftly at launch. Thank you Mojang we love you.

Breaking : Comcast And Electronic Arts Partnering To Battle Consoles.

 Maybe one of the most important developments in gaming history is getting ready to take place. Electronic Arts (NASDAQ:EA) and Comcast (NASDAQ:CMCSA) might be partnering to stream games via T.V using a service which would effectively bypass major gaming consoles. If this would happen (and it looks like it will) EA games would be available to Comcast subscribers. Gamers who use Comcast's service to play games will be able to use their tablets as controllers.
 This deal has come about after wide talk about the inevitable decline of the home gaming console and this deal confronts that possibility head on. Moves are being made in high places in anticipation of video game console decline and this partnership will start the giant wheels turning. The bottom line here is that EA is ahead of its competition by diversifying beyond revenue from console gaming. This deal represents a brilliant key move for both EA and Comcast.
 Cable is getting ready to die off so that the next generation of home entertainment can take over. The future of home entertainment can only be very similar to what EA and Comcast are doing with this partnership and others will surly follow. We all know by now that Xbox1 has chosen to take the T.V entertainment path with features that include watching T.V while playing video games and much, much more. Just maybe Microsoft had seen all this coming and created their next gen console based on a set-top-box concept for a very good reason. I don't know about you but I'm going to go take a look at how much EA stocks are going for because I just might pick up a few.

Video Game Market To Reach $111 Billion By 2015


 Well it looks like alot of us has been making investments in the wrong fields. After looking over some numbers in regards to the future of video gaming I was blown away by the amount of money generated by the video game industry. After studying some stock market trends going back to 2013 and ending in 2015 some truly amazing figures surfaced.
 We all know that mobile games are fast becoming the new way to game but did you realize that mobile games are the fastest-growing segment of the market, with revenue set to double between 2013 and 2015 from $13.2 billion to $22 billion?

Graph : Video Game Market Revenue, 2012-2015
  1. Segment                                      2012          2013          2014          2015
  2. Video Game Console               37,400      44,288        49,375       55,049
  3. Handheld Video Games           17,755      18,065        15,079       12,399
  4. Mobile Games                           9,280       13,208        17,146       22,009
  5. PC Games                                14,437       17,722        20,015       21,601
  6. Total Video Game Market       78,872       93,282      101,615     111,057  
Source : Gartner (October 2013)

In other words besides the temporary reduction in game console hardware sales during 2013 growth will resume again in 2014 with the sales of next generation gaming hardware from $15.9 billion to $22.7 billion in 2015. In other words ..... gaming is going to do great going into 2015 and investments in these fields should seriously be studied.