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3-D Gaming on Your Cellphone
to_kallon writes "As game devices, cellphones leave something to be desired. Most of the games found on them are rudimentary, with flat, cartoonish graphics and simple scenes.
But that is going to change. Soon cellphone owners will be able to play games with realistic three-dimensional graphics rivaling those on PC's and game consoles."
Sorry, this discussion is about games on cell phones, we don't need to hear it.
Just remember that the more advanced features these phones get, the cheaper your plain jane phone will be.
Anyways... I personally think this is stupid. As the age old /. battle continues, they need to work on making a better PHONE before working
on the features OF THE phone. And besides... Who wants to play PC-type games on a small, cell-phone screen anyways? I think the basic
2D games that pass the time while waiting for your girlfriend to finish getting ready is just fine. However, I thought the majority of gamers
want everything bigger and better?
The only good thing I found out of the article was that they are finding ways for it to use "less than a tenth of a watt for the power" of these games. Ingenious... Make use of this same technology to make the battery life of the phone in general, increase.
Hmmm.
...but could we please get more reliable cellular networks before we work on 3D gaming for cell phones? Is there really that large a demographic for this? Keep it simple: cheap, clear calls. I'll play my games at home
Don't be a looter...and yes, I know that it's spelled with an "A" instead of an "E".
Although I'm the first to point out the serious problems with this platform.
The fact is that it already supports allot of elaborate 3D games.
www.enterweb.pt
> Most of the games found on them are rudimentary,
;)
> with flat, cartoonish graphics and simple scenes.
Yes, because as we all know, the only way to make a fun game is to make it photorealistic.
Sure am glad it took a cell phone to teach me all the fun I've had the past 20 years with gaming really wasn't.
If only they were available for phones, that is.
...to gaming while driving. Hope they make hands-free joysticks for these phones, or the "driving while talking on cell phone" bans are really going to start ratcheting up.
IronChefMorimoto
games with realistic three-dimensional graphics rivaling those on PC's and game consoles
I just came out of PlanetSide. This baby gives me about 60fps on my 19-inch monitor, with full keyboard controls, a force-feedback joystick, 5.1 surround sound of thunderous explosions, and frantic squad radio chatter in my headset.
When I look at my phone, I don't think I'll be holding my breath for it to catch up with that experience.
...graphics rivaling those on PC's and game consoles."
I didn't know cellphones now had 640x480 pixel screens (and higher)! That's awesome!
Stupid sexy Flanders.
Cell phone games as they are currently are fun for a few minutes while trying to kill some time, and I guess going accelerated 3-D is the natural evolution of packing more features into a device to try to stand above the competition, but it's supposed to be a phone. I think the big winners here will be the memory manufacturers. As more games and higher device requirements become mainstream, the phone is going to need more memory. How long till we see entry-level phones with 32MB or more of user ram? Samsung is the only phone maker I know of that also makes their own memory...humm, seems like a competive advantage for them right out of the blocks.
Also, what of battery life? With the screen on all the time (while playing the games, that use chip(s)/memory that require more power), battery life could be an issue. Now with OLED screen technology, that should help, but I don't want to have to carry around 3 spare batteries.
Maybe we'll need to carry more than one phone (if you don't already)...one to play games, listen to music on and one to make calls with.
"Look Lois, the two symbols of the Republican Party: an elephant, and a fat white guy who is threatened by change."
I would rather have integrated GPS and some useful applications like driving directions built into the phone. Like what you can get with Nextel + Televigation.
Plus the ability for people to write their own location based services. I want to see what the people will do with GPS linked to a two way wireless network. I am sure that there are some good ideas out there.
Things are not as they appear, nor are they otherwise.
Having 3d graphics is not going to suddenly transform a cellphone into a gaming device to be desired.
It's not just the screen size, it's the controls. People like cellphones to be small. But they like to have controls big enough to hold and use. The two are mutually incompatible. And if you have a seperate gamepad, you might as well have a seperate gaming device.
That's not to say that having 3d graphics won't improve the games on a cellphone. But in general it's not going to make them anything comparable to those on, well, pretty much any other gaming device.
Soon cellphone owners will be able to play games with realistic three-dimensional graphics rivaling those on PC's and game consoles.
Rivaling... as in an approximately equivalent feature set...
Disregarding antialiasing, polygon throughput rates, and the like... let's look at just the single most important feature in any display; resolution, color depth, and refresh rate
Game console: 640x480 (underscanned) 24-bit color with a 60 field per second refresh rate
PC: 800x600 (and up) 24-bit color with a 60Hz+ refresh rate
Cellphone: 256x256 12-bit color with a 15+ Hz refresh rate
Doesn't really seem to rival to me...
I am disrespectful to dirt! Can you see that I am serious?!
The problem here is you have a bunch of "suits" who don't play games at all planning out these strategies. They study the markets, see how big console gaming as become and they think people want to play games "anytime, anywhere". And fine, maybe you do when you're bored and have 5 - 10 minutes to spare in a waiting room or on the bus.
But who's the real audience? The suits would have you believe they need to capture "the gamers". But the gamers won't play games on their damn dinky phones!! Besides, you can't build a solid business model based on games for phones. People just won't pay for them. At best you can hope for $3 a game, and elaborate 3D games are just too cost prohibitive for that piddly revenue! There's a reason sites like Pogo.com and Zone.com are successful: Sell the little games to the casual players, not the "hardcore". There's an old saying... would you prefer 50% of 10,000 sales or 5% of 100,000? A smaller market does not necessarily mean a bigger revenue, and vice versa. So sticky to 2D should be enough. It's the quality of games that matters.
Personally, I wouldn't mind if I had a few of the "classics" on my phone (ie: Pacman, joust, Galaga...) but that's about it. I only need about 5 of them and I'll have my fill.
Mods, c'mon, this is not a troll, it's common sense. Seriously, who the fuck is paying for this shit? Who is demanding this shit (that has a life and a mind capable to constructing thought whilst "waiting for one's girlfriend")?
Seriously, the only thing i see from this is that the small moments people have in the day to perhaps think on their own (shocking, i know) are now filled with playing some shitty, non-imaginative, no-plot having games. Yes, no-plot having...what the fuck kind of plot are you going to build into a game that these mindless morons play for 2 minutes at a time? Yeah, yeah, old NES/atari games...spare me that argument; people should play those at home, or on the bus, anywhere but behind the wheel OR in front of me in line whilst not paying attention.
What kind of reception do they get? How long does the battery last? How long will the phone last before it breaks or is made obsolete? There's nothing on the site about those things, which are the main criteria for most cell phone users. But every phone talks about all the stuff you could do while waiting to get reception.
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
One more thought: I think the gain for the antenna in a phone should be clearly marked at the points of sale. If they're going to be an important part of our infrastructure and they don't work without reception, they should have it marked like mileage on automobiles, so that you can compare them based on an actual, tested criteria, instead of mindless feature creep.
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.