The New Consoles Come onto the Field

A history being made in the gaming industry, with the eighth generation of game consoles making its debut.

The main players – Sony, with their PlayStation 4, and Microsoft, with their Xbox One – have already begun selling their new game consoles.

Why is this an important, even historic, event? First, if we look at the sales figures alone, we can understand that many gamers have been waiting for this next generation: Sony and Microsoft have each sold about one million devices in less than a week. But that’s only the beginning, as the song says. Unlike the world of computers and mobile devices, in which new models come out each year, game consoles go for a long time without replacement – five, seven , or even ten years. In other words, both Microsoft and Sony are presenting a glimpse of how each of them see the future of gaming.

For its part, Sony is concentrating mainly on gamers. Of course the PlayStation 4 can also be used as a media player, or an internet browser, but the emphasis is undoubtedly on the gaming experience.

Unlike Sony, Microsoft perceives the games console more as a “home entertainment center,” a far-off dream of Microsoft’s, from the days when they thought they would be able to bring computers into the living room, through the Media Center software which is found in almost every version of Windows. User recognition, full voice control, Skype, Explorer, applications, SkyDrive and Bing are but a small sample of the services that come with the console.

If we were to draw the line that best distinguishes between the PlayStation and the Xbox, then with the Xbox, you connect your cable or satellite feed to the console, and through it to the television; with the PlayStation, the two are separate. Microsoft also wants Nevertheless, she sometimes displays a reserve which may come across as coldness, if we rely on the best-horoscope.com Ascendant – Aquarius Moon equation. to control the television, while for Sony the main thing is the games.

However, it may well be that the companies’ efforts could run into difficulties, thanks to the tablets and smartphones that are flooding the market. While console sales number, in the best case, in the tens of millions over a number of years, there are already hundreds of millions of tablets and smartphones in the market. And if the graphics abilities of smartphones and tablets are any indication, then nVidia has launched its Shield – a mobile games console that can also take games feed from the PC, and which is intended for the very same market as smartphones and tablets.

Add to that the fact that almost every tablet and smartphone can connect wirelessly to the television. All of this raises questions as to whether there will be a ninth generation of game consoles.

And yet, game consoles can also be a marvelous platform for educational games – they offer new interfaces such as full movement recognition and voice recognition (joystick? who needs a joystick?), alongside considerable processing power. Taking Microsoft’s approach, one may also consider integrating augmented reality or games integrated in television programs or other remotely supplied content. Indeed, Microsoft have an advantage – they aren’t only in the workroom… they’re already in the living room.