Of all the technology on display, we've highlighted the five trends we expect to change gaming in the next few years or so. See something we missed? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
1. Motion Controls Get Smarter
While Nintendo's Wii pioneered motion controls for gaming and Microsoft's Kinect brought a whole body sensor to the Xbox 360, the current offerings on the market are far from perfect. Motion controls are often gimmicky or added in unnecessarily. Additionally, Kinect's camera often requires exaggerated movements to follow the player's action.
Microsoft's new Kinect for the Xbox One is much more precise than the demos shown at E3. Microsoft's tech demo showed how it could detect more precise movements. In order to raise your shields and deflect bullets during a first-person shooter style match, you would simply tilt the controller upward. To activate your night vision goggles, you would tap the side of your head, and simply tilt your body left or right to literally lean around corners.
"We tried to make the motions more natural to what a gamer would do," Yusef Mehdi, Microsoft's corporate vice president of marketing and strategy for Interactive Entertainment Business branch, told Mashable.
This may include any natural moves by intense gamers. For example, in a racing game, a player might lean his body into the turns, which this upgraded Kinect would detect.
Harmonix, a company adept at working with the Kinect for its Dance Central games, showed how motion controls could operate in a more abstract way during the demonstration of its upcoming title Fantasia: Music Evolved. In the game, players conduct music with motions, enhancing the world around them. It's a unique game, and we haven't seen a control scheme quite like it before.
2. The Evolved Second Screen
At this year's E3, we saw more second-screen integration from not only console makers, but also from game publishers.
Microsoft revealed much more information on the interaction between tablets running SmartGlass and Xbox One games. In Roman action-adventure game Ryse, for example, players can use tablets to watch friends' concurrent progress through different levels, along with videos of their conquests. In Xbox One's Project Spark, a game-creation game, players can use tablets in concert with the controller to create your game world.
Publisher Ubisoft released two titles with their own apps designed for tablets, both which added value for players. In Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, an Android and iOS app functions like a GPS device, allowing players to use it as a map in-game for their quests. When the game isn't running, the app allows players to send their fleet to quests while they're not playing.
Tom Clancy's The Division is a multiplayer, third-person action game that challenges players to control a pandemic in New York. The drop-in/drop-out co-op allows for players to quickly join one another's games, and also allows for players to join via tablet. That tablet player operates a drone in the game, which can aid its team by marking enemies for takedown, healing allies and surveying the area well. It's impressive because the player on the tablet is actually taking part in a real-time game session.
Of course, the Wii U tried to bring this idea to fruition last year with its touchscreen GamePad controller. While third-party games take full advantage of the screen's ability to convey extra information to the player, the screen hasn't been very widely adopted. Some of Nintendo's newer first-party titles use the feature frequently, such as in The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker Wii U remake, which uses the GamePad screen to swap items rather than forcing the user to pause the game to access a menu.
3. Virtual Reality
Developers have only been working on Oculus Rift for a few months, but already the virtual reality headset shows promise in creativity. Virtual reality often feeks like a gaming pipe dream hallmarked by goofy accessories and poorly functioning technology — but that's about to change.
Oculus Rift creator Palmer Lucky said his company has come a long way since last year's E3, when the headset was only being shown off by former id Software co-founder John Carmack. With 10,000 developer kits in the wild (and more shipping), creators from all backgrounds have been working on virtual reality games, and now, Oculus Rift is working with some of the most commonly used engines such as Unreal 4 and Unity.
We played five or six Oculus Rift games at E3. The biggest of note was EVR, created by CCP Games, the makers of EVE Online. This space fighting game was only a tech demo, according to CCP developers, but it still demonstrated the awesome, immersive power of virtual reality.
Other indie titles featuring the Oculus Rift were playable at the IndieCade booth, and each provided a different take on the benefits of virtual reality. Soundself, a game created by Robin Arnott, focused on meditative chanting; the player's tonal hums made the dizzying spirals in front of his eyes spin and pulse along with the sounds he made.
Oculus Rift continues to expand. The company announced Monday that it received $16 million in venture funding to continue hardware development, and OculusVR showed off its new HD Rift at E3 — a first for the platform.
4. Game DVR and Streaming
It's hard to ignore the growing trend of gaming as a spectator sport, with the rise of Major League Gaming and Twitch as places for fans to watch live streams of games.
Both Sony and Microsoft have recognized that gamers want to share their content, so they integrated methods in the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One to simplify a previously complicated process. Both consoles feature the ability to broadcast gameplay live with minimal work; the Xbox One streams to Twitch, while the PS4 sends live video to Ustream. Both consoles also capture gameplay continuously via game DVR, and both allow players to edit and share key moments with friends.
Console makers have turned to cloud computing as a way to extend the life of gaming consoles and ensure players get more out of the hardware in their living rooms. Instead of the console acting as the entire workhorse for processing, some will be handled by remote servers.
This isn't a new idea to gaming. The now-defunct OnLive started a few years ago on the premise that players could harness server power to play a wide variety of games that weren't on their home computers — and it wasn't the only company working on that idea. In 2010, Sony purchased streaming company GaiKai, and its technology is now helping power the PlayStation 4's cloud services.
Sony detailed streaming in its February press conference, sharing that it would be used to eventually bring older PlayStation games to the next-generation console (which are currently incompatible due to radical architecture changes from previous generations). Sony also plans to use cloud computing to allow PlayStation 4 games to stream on the handheld PlayStation Vita.
In an Xbox One demo, Microsoft software engineers harnessed the console's internal processor to render 40,000 of the asteroids in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, displaying their movement in real time. Then, they showed that with help from Microsoft's 300,000 servers, the Xbox One could render 330,000 asteroids in that same belt. The engineer explained that this technology could make games look better, increase the map size and decrease load times.
These technologies are the biggest examples of trends found at this year's E3, but they aren't the only ones. Gaming is evolving rapidly with the launch of new consoles, new players getting involved in the field and the rise of mobile gaming. I'm sure we'll see great things in the future, even as soon as next year's conference.
Image by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images
Read more: http://mashable.com/2013/06/19/gaming-tech-trends/
Gran Turismo 6, the upcoming addition to the realistic racing game franchise for PlayStation, comes out at the end 2013, but Mashable recently test-drove the game and talked to Sony's Taku Imasaki at E3 to give you some early details about it in the above video.
Gran Turismo 6, developed by Polyphony Digital, is built on a new gaming engine, which will greatly improve the game's graphics and load times, Imasaki said.
While the game is coming to the current-generation PlayStation 3 instead of the PlayStation 4, it will still look much better than previous titles. The game features over 1,200 cars, and players can customize the look of each car by earning money through races.
BONUS: The 10 Most Stressful Moments in Gaming
10 Most Stressful Moments in Video Games
1. Drowning Sonic
If you've played any Sonic the Hedgehog game, you've no doubt experienced the panic when our poor blue hero finds himself underwater for too long.
If a reduced-speed Sonic and the disorienting water modes weren't enough, the frantic soundtrack and the inevitable countdown from "5" are absolutely unbearable. Sega mastered the horrors of running out of time underneath the ocean, so tread those levels if you dare.
2. Disturbing the Witch in Left 4 Dead
There are plenty of scary zombies in this post-apocalyptic shooter, but none get the heart racing quite like the Witch. If hearing her cries from far away and shakily trying to sneak past her slumped-over body -- which is invariably right where you need to go -- without a flashlight weren't enough, waking her is even worse.
The Witch goes after whoever wakes her first and immediately incapacitates that person, so furious backpedaling to get her away from you is a challenge in itself. If she does manage to grab you, then good luck, because you'll have to fight her off sideways and pray your friends or the AI can save your sorry butt.
3. Hiding in Amnesia
Make no mistake: All of Amnesia is stressful as you wander around the creepy estate trying to uncover disturbing secrets.
But nothing ever beats the fearful, frantic scrambling to find a hiding place from the horrific gatherers -- deformed humanoids that wander the halls and will kill you on sight. With no weapon to fight back, just finding a closet or escape route can drive players to tears. Waiting the appropriate length to ensure safety is also harrowing, particularly since hiding in a totally enclosed area is the best way to survive.
You may need to take a breather after this one.
4. Fighting Satan in the The Binding of Isaac
The Binding of Isaac is brutal. The top-down Roguelike indie game has unforgiving, labyrinthian levels. When you die, you don't get a second chance. You have to start all the way over, as a blank slate.
By the time you even make it to Satan, the journey has been long. In order to fight him, you must have already separately killed Mom and Mom's Heart 10 different times, which is a feat for any player. Then, it's another nine twisting and turning levels, filled with increasingly more difficult enemies and rarer item drops. Finally, the last part of Sheol, where Satan lives, is essentially a maze full of bosses -- not the easiest thing in the world to navigate.
If by some miracle, you make it to Satan alive, you have to dodge three separate forms, culminating in evading Satan's meaty legs while dodging exploding leeches that continually respawn.
5. Sending Pikmin to the Onion in Pikmin
For a large part of the game, Pikmin is actually a really happy and upbeat adventure. As Captain Olimar, you have the great task of herding and delegating tasks to little Pikmin, who obey your whims enthusiastically. Heck, they'll even pick up your ship parts and bring them right back to you.
But, at the end of the day, once the little twinkle of the chimes indicates it's time to go, it's hard not to stress the heck out trying to find all of the little envoys you've dispatched throughout the day. You may think you know where all the Pikmin on the field are, but nothing is worse than sending most of your workers to their respective Onions only to find out that you're missing 10 or 15 dudes out in the middle of nowhere. If you can't find them before the timer runs out, they will unfortunately, be eaten by the local predators.
Oddly enough, very few things weigh on the conscience heavier than needless Pikmin deaths. Curse you, wandering adorable servants!
6. Getting out of Zebes in Super Metroid
After traveling through a handful of perilous sectors, defeating the planet's biggest bosses, venturing down into the most dangerous part of the world, fighting the most dangerous, mobile Mother Brain, and surviving one of the most dramatic boss fights, you'd think it would be a cakewalk outta there.
Immediately after destroying Mother Brain, Samus must run from the core of the planet back to her ship on the surface. In four minutes. What comes next is just as, if not more, stressful than the final boss itself, and that's saying something.
7. Chainsaw Hedge Maze Mayhem in Zombies Ate My Neighbors
The first few levels of the SNES B-movie horror classic Zombies Ate My Neighbors feel pretty approachable. You wander through a level, finding your seemingly ignorant neighbors before monsters find them first, tossing any sort of weapons that you can find. It's very straightforward and not too hard.
But then level four (level four!), "Chainsaw Hedge Maze Mayhem" cuts that noise really quick. Trapped in, as the title suggest, a classic garden hedge maze, you must wander through it while being stalked by tons of Chainsaw Maniacs. The worst part is that you can't just break down the garden to get to your neighbors. Instead, you must shoot valuable bazookas, use rare potions, or somehow trick the Chainsaw Maniacs into cutting it for you.
It's not the hardest of the 48 levels in the game, but it prepares you for spontaneously transforming werewolves, relentless vampires and 20-foot babies. Be prepared to sweat all over your controller.
8. Running from the Angry Sun in Super Mario Bros. 3
There is perhaps nothing more stressful in any of the games in the Mario franchise than walking into a level and seeing that Angry Sun staring right back at you. The sun swoops down mercilessly as you race to the other side. It's a pain in the butt that happens early in World 2, and it's easily one of the hardest levels in the first half of the game.
A later appearance of the Angry Sun is also definitely a weed-out level if you were smart enough to check your GamePro FAQ and do all of the necessary steps to find the warp whistles and skip to the end of the game. Any cleverness you feel after switching to the new world is quickly dissipated once you hit the second level and start breaking into a full-on run trying to make it to the end.
Think you're taking on Bowser in a breeze? This will make you think otherwise.
9. Fighting Motaro in Mortal Kombat 3
After fighting through the merciless tower of enemies in Mortal of Kombat 3, not to mention multiple endurance levels with more than one combatant and tons of cheap, overpowered AI moves, Kintaro is really a spirit-killer. The sub-boss before Shao Kahn, whether it be Goro, Kintaro or Motoro, is always much more difficult to predict and overpowered than the average enemy -- and can sometimes be more difficult that Shao Kahn himself.
Midway has gotten a lot of flak throughout the years for making their boss combatants even more overpowered and cheap than usual, but Motaro breaks all the rules. In addition to being able to teleport in and out of the frame at will, making him entirely unhittable, Motaro can also deflect projectiles and shoot lasers from his tail.
Pray for some great spamming moves and more than a little luck, because he will stress (and rage) you out.
10. Time Limit Declassifieds in Gears of War: Judgement
A lot of the Declassified options in Gears of War: Judgement are stressful, and that's on purpose. These optional mission enhancers are meant to make your time fighting through the city of Halvo Bay even more challenging. But nothing is more stressful than the time limit options, and you will find yourself on the brink of rage-quitting from the stress.
The reason these missions are more stressful than any part of the game, even the boss fight, is because the game's AI spawning system (which adapts to the player's style and sends enemies to "shake up" the gameplay) doesn't let up when the mission is chosen. The best technique is to keep leaning on the Roadie Run and pray that you can kill necessary enemies as efficiently as possible.
This is a true time limit challenge, so don't be surprised if you need to get some fresh air once it's over.
Read more: http://mashable.com/2013/07/11/gran-turismo-6-video/
Harmonix, the makers of Rock Band and Dance Central, announced its plans to team with Disney to release a Kinect-based game based on the 1940s animated classic Fantasia.
In Fantasia: Music Evolved, players will be able to control the tempo, speed and other aspects of popular songs by artists like Avicii, Bruno Mars, Queen, Kimbra and Fun. The gameplay will be entirely hands-free and focus on the Kinect.
In the trailer released Tuesday morning, young people waved their hands in different directions, presumably influencing the music. Players will participate in different worlds picked by Fantasia's famous sorcerer Yen Sid, according to press release from Harmonix.
Fantasia: Music Evolved will operate on both the Xbox 360 and Xbox One. The Xbox One will boast a significantly improved Kinect — so it will be interesting to see how each version has adapted to the hardware.
The game won't be released until 2014, but is on display at the Disney Interactive booth at E3 next week.
Read more: http://mashable.com/2013/06/04/fantasia-harmonix-disney/
Posts Tagged: e3 2013
5 Tech Trends That Will Change Gaming Forever
by Gamegeek - March 22, 2016
This year's E3 showed off a myriad of new technology intended to enhance our gaming experiences. The impending release of two powerful next generation gaming consoles this holiday season means games are going to become more advanced.
These advancements will not only improve the quality of the games' looks onscreen, but also allow them to interact with the players unlike ever before. From motion controls to second-screen gaming, E3 offered a glimpse of the bright, innovative future to come in gaming.
Of all the technology on display, we've highlighted the five trends we expect to change gaming in the next few years or so. See something we missed? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
While Nintendo's Wii pioneered motion controls for gaming and Microsoft's Kinect brought a whole body sensor to the Xbox 360, the current offerings on the market are far from perfect. Motion controls are often gimmicky or added in unnecessarily. Additionally, Kinect's camera often requires exaggerated movements to follow the player's action.
Microsoft's new Kinect for the Xbox One is much more precise than the demos shown at E3. Microsoft's tech demo showed how it could detect more precise movements. In order to raise your shields and deflect bullets during a first-person shooter style match, you would simply tilt the controller upward. To activate your night vision goggles, you would tap the side of your head, and simply tilt your body left or right to literally lean around corners.
"We tried to make the motions more natural to what a gamer would do," Yusef Mehdi, Microsoft's corporate vice president of marketing and strategy for Interactive Entertainment Business branch, told Mashable.
Harmonix, a company adept at working with the Kinect for its Dance Central games, showed how motion controls could operate in a more abstract way during the demonstration of its upcoming title Fantasia: Music Evolved. In the game, players conduct music with motions, enhancing the world around them. It's a unique game, and we haven't seen a control scheme quite like it before.
At this year's E3, we saw more second-screen integration from not only console makers, but also from game publishers.
Microsoft revealed much more information on the interaction between tablets running SmartGlass and Xbox One games. In Roman action-adventure game Ryse, for example, players can use tablets to watch friends' concurrent progress through different levels, along with videos of their conquests. In Xbox One's Project Spark, a game-creation game, players can use tablets in concert with the controller to create your game world.
Publisher Ubisoft released two titles with their own apps designed for tablets, both which added value for players. In Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, an Android and iOS app functions like a GPS device, allowing players to use it as a map in-game for their quests. When the game isn't running, the app allows players to send their fleet to quests while they're not playing.
Tom Clancy's The Division is a multiplayer, third-person action game that challenges players to control a pandemic in New York. The drop-in/drop-out co-op allows for players to quickly join one another's games, and also allows for players to join via tablet. That tablet player operates a drone in the game, which can aid its team by marking enemies for takedown, healing allies and surveying the area well. It's impressive because the player on the tablet is actually taking part in a real-time game session.
Of course, the Wii U tried to bring this idea to fruition last year with its touchscreen GamePad controller. While third-party games take full advantage of the screen's ability to convey extra information to the player, the screen hasn't been very widely adopted. Some of Nintendo's newer first-party titles use the feature frequently, such as in The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker Wii U remake, which uses the GamePad screen to swap items rather than forcing the user to pause the game to access a menu.
Developers have only been working on Oculus Rift for a few months, but already the virtual reality headset shows promise in creativity. Virtual reality often feeks like a gaming pipe dream hallmarked by goofy accessories and poorly functioning technology — but that's about to change.
Oculus Rift creator Palmer Lucky said his company has come a long way since last year's E3, when the headset was only being shown off by former id Software co-founder John Carmack. With 10,000 developer kits in the wild (and more shipping), creators from all backgrounds have been working on virtual reality games, and now, Oculus Rift is working with some of the most commonly used engines such as Unreal 4 and Unity.
Other indie titles featuring the Oculus Rift were playable at the IndieCade booth, and each provided a different take on the benefits of virtual reality. Soundself, a game created by Robin Arnott, focused on meditative chanting; the player's tonal hums made the dizzying spirals in front of his eyes spin and pulse along with the sounds he made.
It's hard to ignore the growing trend of gaming as a spectator sport, with the rise of Major League Gaming and Twitch as places for fans to watch live streams of games.
This isn't a new idea to gaming. The now-defunct OnLive started a few years ago on the premise that players could harness server power to play a wide variety of games that weren't on their home computers — and it wasn't the only company working on that idea. In 2010, Sony purchased streaming company GaiKai, and its technology is now helping power the PlayStation 4's cloud services.
In an Xbox One demo, Microsoft software engineers harnessed the console's internal processor to render 40,000 of the asteroids in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, displaying their movement in real time. Then, they showed that with help from Microsoft's 300,000 servers, the Xbox One could render 330,000 asteroids in that same belt. The engineer explained that this technology could make games look better, increase the map size and decrease load times.
These technologies are the biggest examples of trends found at this year's E3, but they aren't the only ones. Gaming is evolving rapidly with the launch of new consoles, new players getting involved in the field and the rise of mobile gaming. I'm sure we'll see great things in the future, even as soon as next year's conference.
in Uncategorized e3, e3 2013, Entertainment, Gadgets, Gaming, kinect, Oculus Rift, playstation 4, ubisoft, Wii U, Xbox One	0
Fan Feedback Key in Gran Turismo's Evolution
Gran Turismo 6, the upcoming addition to the realistic racing game franchise for PlayStation, comes out at the end 2013, but Mashable recently test-drove the game and talked to Sony's Taku Imasaki at E3 to give you some early details about it in the above video.
Gran Turismo 6, developed by Polyphony Digital, is built on a new gaming engine, which will greatly improve the game's graphics and load times, Imasaki said.
If you've played any Sonic the Hedgehog game, you've no doubt experienced the panic when our poor blue hero finds himself underwater for too long.
There are plenty of scary zombies in this post-apocalyptic shooter, but none get the heart racing quite like the Witch. If hearing her cries from far away and shakily trying to sneak past her slumped-over body — which is invariably right where you need to go — without a flashlight weren't enough, waking her is even worse.
But nothing ever beats the fearful, frantic scrambling to find a hiding place from the horrific gatherers — deformed humanoids that wander the halls and will kill you on sight. With no weapon to fight back, just finding a closet or escape route can drive players to tears. Waiting the appropriate length to ensure safety is also harrowing, particularly since hiding in a totally enclosed area is the best way to survive.
By the time you even make it to Satan, the journey has been long. In order to fight him, you must have already separately killed Mom and Mom's Heart 10 different times, which is a feat for any player. Then, it's another nine twisting and turning levels, filled with increasingly more difficult enemies and rarer item drops. Finally, the last part of Sheol, where Satan lives, is essentially a maze full of bosses — not the easiest thing in the world to navigate.
After fighting through the merciless tower of enemies in Mortal of Kombat 3, not to mention multiple endurance levels with more than one combatant and tons of cheap, overpowered AI moves, Kintaro is really a spirit-killer. The sub-boss before Shao Kahn, whether it be Goro, Kintaro or Motoro, is always much more difficult to predict and overpowered than the average enemy — and can sometimes be more difficult that Shao Kahn himself.
in Uncategorized e3 2013, Entertainment, Gaming, Gran Turismo 6, playstation	0
Disney and Harmonix Team Up for Kinect-Based 'Fantasia'
In the trailer released Tuesday morning, young people waved their hands in different directions, presumably influencing the music. Players will participate in different worlds picked by Fantasia's famous sorcerer Yen Sid, according to press release from Harmonix.
The game won't be released until 2014, but is on display at the Disney Interactive booth at E3 next week.
in Uncategorized disney, e3 2013, Entertainment, Gaming, harmonix	0