Gaming platforms

Game platforms article

It seems that if there is an electronic device capable of displaying visual content then someone on this earth has made a game for it. The various different platforms for games is an ever expanding field consisting of PC’s, Laptops, Tablets, Mobile phones, hand held consoles, consoles (PS2, PS3, Xbox, Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii), Coin operated arcade machines.

Some would argue that one platform, usually their preferred one, is superior to all others and this simply isn’t true. Each platform offers something different, if it’s a handheld platform such as mobile phone, tablet or handheld console you have the advantage of being able to take your games with you anywhere. But then even within this group of mobile gaming options there are the different aspects such as the difference in games, tablets and mobile phones have a very casual style of app based games which can be picked up and put down in seconds. Games like Angry Birds, a game which has been immensely popular due to not only its extremely fun and addictive gameplay but also the fact that it is accessible to all from older more experienced games to young children using their parents smart phone. Meaning that they’re great when you’re standing around waiting for a bus or during the commute to work on the train, where you may have to close the game down and dart off at any time. Handheld consoles focus more on full on games that require a bit of time and as well as having bigger games, the graphics are more often than not much better than the app based games. There have however been exceptions to this such as the Sony Experia Play which was a smart phone that featured graphics to rival any other handheld console at the time and was released with a wide of games. While the smart phone and tablet may not be able to easily reach the same graphics quality as a handheld console such as the PS Vita. 

The PS Vita, first released in japan in 2011 then in Europe in 2012, which was released as the successor of the PSP (Playstation portable) is a very impressive piece of mobile game technology boasting and OLED touch screen and a quad-core GPU SGX543MP4+ as well as its up to 2Gh  quad-core ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore processor to power its high quality and graphically impressive games. Another feature of the PS Vita is its rear mounted touch pad giving the player an even greater amount of control within games and also allowing you to use features similar to the touch screen without having to remove your thumbs from the other controls. With the progression of handheld gaming it has not only been the quality of game graphics that has improved but also the way in which we interact with said games, for example the touch screen which has now become common place among the mobile hardware market, mobile phones, tablets and handheld consoles all use this feature with almost all recent releases. The way in which touchscreen changed the industry was no small thing, it has changed the way in which we text, play games, surf the internet and even take pictures. Using the entire screen as a button with almost unlimited potential means that we are writing texts and emails using a full keyboard, drawing pictures with our hands (thankfully with no mess), focusing a camera shot with the glide of a finger-tip and making the gaming process much more involved. There is however a small downside to the touch screen gaming, as Angry Birds is not for everyone, games that require moving a character around with the use of digital directional buttons or joystick this can cover a large chunk of most mobile phone screens which any mobile RPG gamer will tell you is highly irritating. There is one big advantage to the app based game medium and this comes in the form of the vast amount of software available on the internet dealing with the creation of new apps and games, meaning that the next big game craze could potentially come from anyone with access to the software… which is anyone with access to the internet.

Another platform which is the Arcade Machine has been a constant success since it first released in 1971 with Computer Space which was the first commercially sold arcade video game. As the years have gone on the amount of games released to the arcade market has increased exponentially. The Arcade games would have started out just being put into places of business as a gimmick, something just to attract more customers or one or two machines placed into amusement businesses alongside the already popular games like table-top football, ping pong, snooker/pool. But soon there were businesses springing up that focused on nothing but the arcade machine as there were more and more titles being released. The Graphic abilities of early titles would be seen today as extremely basic but at the time these machines were the cutting edge of game graphics. The Arcade machine was also extremely popular due to the fact that it gave those without the means to purchase a home game console the chance to play the most recent games for only a small amount per play. The arcade game has become engraved in the minds of many gamers and the aesthetic of the arcade machine is a pleasure, being able to show all those around you just how good you are and publicly displaying your high score as a challenge to all others who played.

When it comes to in home gaming there are many options for the consumer, you can go with the console gaming platform which offers a plethora of games, Laptop or PC which although they are using the same or at least similar operating systems, will offer different levels of performance.

Over the years The PC has gone from being the clear winner in terms of power and graphics to being just another contender in the battle for the consumer’s attention. Even though the home gaming console has been around since 1972 with the release of the Magnavox Odyssey it was only in 2000 with the Playstation 2 that the console finally caught up to the gaming power of the PC and even though it has been succeeded by the PS3, there are still a lot of people who still play the PS2 as it is such a loved console. Despite this however the home game console has been a great success for a few decades ever since it was made possible for 2 people to play competitively on the same console as it meant that you could now have fun socially with your friends but without needing to leave your home. This is where the console had the advantage over the PC up until the online revolution that is very much the dominant selling point of almost all modern games across all platforms, but this was something that first began with the PC given that it had been the users access to the internet ever since it was made commercially available.

The gaming capability of these two platforms is at the point where it is almost identical, although with the PC it is a case of how much you spend or what upgrades you install, such as improved graphics cards or more powerful CPU (Central Processing Unit) whereas with the console everything you need for fast powerful gaming is all there and included in the initial price (and that price is substantially lower). But with the increased Price of the PC comes increased possibilities, unlike the console the PC can be periodically upgraded to move with the ever increasing requirements to play more and more graphically intense games as well as the multitude of other tasks that it able to perform, making your purchase almost future proof.