Top Technologies of Next-Gen Gaming

SlappingOysters writes "Gameplayer is running an article that examines the key technology developments of the next-generation of gaming. They go into plenty of detail as to why they believe each piece of technology is helping to take gaming on the PC, Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii to more spectacular heights. They also have a related story which takes a look at the best game engines of next-generation games."

Comments

Mind Control?

[PC and Sony Fanboy]

Widespread use of non-standard inputs. You know, like a little wand we could wave around... or a light sabre ... Only, this time, with decent graphics.

Re:Wait....

[AKAImBatman]

on the next gen (ps3/x360)

See, right there. You did it. "Next-gen" and "PS3/360" right next to each other. That's bloody confusing. PS3 and 360 cannot possibly be "next" generation as they are here today and have been here for 2-3 years. The "next" generation is whatever comes after them. Even worse, the title of the article (Top 10 Game Technologies of the Next-Generation) uses a hyphen between "Next" and "Generation". Are they referring to some generation called "Next"? Maybe the kids who grew up with "Next" magazine?

Is there something wrong with saying, "Upcoming technologies for the latest game systems"? Or is that not hip enough for the Next magazine generation?

Please stop the abuse of the English language!

*sigh*

[Knara]

Still no VR total immersion interfaces =(

Also no sex droids =(((

Procedural Generation vs Virtualized Textures?

[SanityInAnarchy]

#5 is procedural generation -- which suggests that, rather than drawing each individual texture, we'd write algorithms and let them generate themselves.

#7 is id's megatextures, which suggests that, rather than doing anything algorithmic, we'll just add more and more detail to a gigantic image.

These seem to be pretty much direct opposites of each other. Are they suggesting that each will be good for different areas? Or do they just not know what they're talking about?

Or maybe I don't know what I'm talking about.

Re:Wait....

[chromatic]

However, do you not understand the meaning of a hyphen between nouns means?

Subtraction?

Re:Missing one key tech

[meta-monkey]

Uh, because this is about the technology. And new technology can make new kinds of fun.

For instance, have you played the Star Wars: Force Unleashed demo on the 360? It's a free download, so go grab it. And it's AWESOME and FUN. And what makes it so much fun? Because you have control over everything. You can use the Force to manipulate pretty much any object in the game. For instance, I wanted to destroy a TIE fighter that was zipping around the hanger. Instead of just shooting at it like you would in any other game, I chose to use the force to rip one of the support beams for a walkway right out, and BEND IT in any way I wanted to put in the path of the flying vehicle. This isn't pre-scripted, or one of those things where it's "what you're supposed to do." You can deform most of the environment in whatever way you want. And it bends and deforms and breaks realistically, in real-time, based on the user's inputs.

And why can you do that? The brand new Euphoria engine the game runs on, which uses Digital Molecular Matter, that allows any object in the game to be defined in terms of basic properties that describe how it will break/bend/deform, etc. So now, instead of there being only certain objects in the environment you can manipulate in certain pre-scripted ways, you can do whatever you want to any object. It's fun as hell! And what makes all this fun possible? New technology, and a next-generation engine. (and yes next-gen is the correct term here, because we're talking about next-gen engines, not next-gen consoles)