Gaming's future 'on the network'

The gaming luminaries span the games industry

The future of the games industry lies with the internet and content delivered from central servers, a panel of game luminaries has predicted.

"Everything is moving towards the network," said Neil Young, general manager of EA Los Angeles.

Phil Harrison, Sony's head of worldwide studios, said: "Public utility computing is absolutely the future of the games industry."

The panel was assembled by developer Dave Perry to discuss industry issues.

The panel included online gaming pioneer Raph Koster, Fable creator Peter Molyneux and Dungeon Siege creator Chris Taylor.

"A huge game changer for our industry is for there not to be a requirement for there to be a machine in the home," said Mr Young.

"[Instead] the game is playing as an instance on a Google server farm in Oregon, for it to be rendered, sent down the pipe and shown on a television that you paid an extra five or 10 dollars to your cable company to guarantee you had good enough bandwidth for gaming.

"That to me seems inevitable."

Flash is pointing the way to the future more so than the current generations of hardware Raph Koster

Mr Koster added: "The games will be playing off the same back end, and will be serving different heads of the game on different devices."

Mr Harrison pointed out there would always be an issue with delivering gaming content to players from servers due to the "speed of light".

Data sent over fibre optic networks is subject to the limitations of the speed of light, which means interactivity between the server and gamer will never have a latency below 70 milliseconds.

That could impact the kinds of experiences it was possible to offer people in the future because data could not move back and forth fast enough.

In the short term, Mr Young, said different devices, from consoles to the web and PCs, would co-exist in the home.

"For content creators your canvas just got bigger," he said.

Raph Koster, who was the lead designer on Ultima Online and Star Wars Galaxies, said the console industry was already being beaten by the web.

"Overall if you look at audience reach, quantity of games made and for that matter, although its difficult to measure, creativity, the web is kicking the console industry's ass in a major way."

He said Flash was the next big platform.

Are the days of the console numbered?

"It's pointing the way to the future more so than the current generations of hardware precisely because it is well on its way to becoming completely ubiquitous."

He said advances in the graphic possibilities of Flash in the coming year would further challenge the console business.

But he admitted that no-one was making money from Flash games at the moment.

Mr Harrison, who oversees the software line-up for the PlayStation 3, said: "In our proprietary view of a platform, it is a combination of technology, business model and consumer experience.

"The web, with Flash, is missing the business model aspect and consistency of consumer experience.

"Once it has figured it out then what you [Raph Koster] have said will become absolutely true."

Brain control headset for gamers

Gamers will soon be able to interact with the virtual world using their thoughts and emotions alone.

A neuro-headset which interprets the interaction of neurons in the brain will go on sale later this year.

"It picks up electrical activity from the brain and sends wireless signals to a computer," said Tan Le, president of US/Australian firm Emotiv.

"It allows the user to manipulate a game or virtual environment naturally and intuitively," she added.

The brain is made up of about 100 billion nerve cells, or neurons, which emit an electrical impulse when interacting. The headset implements a technology known as non-invasive electroencephalography (EEG) to read the neural activity.

Ms Le said: "Emotiv is a neuro-engineering company and we've created a brain computer interface that reads electrical impulses in the brain and translates them into commands that a video game can accept and control the game dynamically."

Headsets which read neural activity are not new, but Ms Le said the Epoc was the first consumer device that can be used for gaming.

"This is the first headset that doesn't require a large net of electrodes, or a technician to calibrate or operate it and does require gel on the scalp," she said. "It also doesn't cost tens of thousands of dollars."

The use of Electroencephalography in medical practice dates back almost 100 years but it is only since the 1970s that the procedure has been used to explore brain computer interfaces.

The Epoc technology can be used to give authentic facial expressions to avatars of gamers in virtual worlds. For example, if the player smiles, winks, grimaces the headset can detect the expression and translate it to the avatar in game.

It can also read emotions of players and translate those to the virtual world. "The headset could be used to improve the realism of emotional responses of AI characters in games," said Ms Le.

"If you laughed or felt happy after killing a character in a game then your virtual buddy could admonish you for being callous," she explained.

The $299 headset has a gyroscope to detect movement and has wireless capabilities to communicate with a USB dongle plugged into a computer.

The Emotiv said the headset could detects more than 30 different expressions, emotions and actions.

The headset could be used to improve the realism of emotional responses of AI characters in games Tan Le, Emotiv

They include excitement, meditation, tension and frustration; facial expressions such as smile, laugh, wink, shock (eyebrows raised), anger (eyebrows furrowed); and cognitive actions such as push, pull, lift, drop and rotate (on six different axis).

Gamers are able to move objects in the world just by thinking of the action.

Emotiv is working with IBM to develop the technology for uses in "strategic enterprise business markets and virtual worlds"

Paul Ledak, vice president, IBM Digital Convergence said brain computer interfaces, like the Epoc headset were an important component of the future 3D Internet and the future of virtual communication.

THOUGHT-CONTROLLED GAMING HEADSET Sensors respond to the electrical impulses behind different thoughts; enabling a user's brain to influence gameplay directly Conscious thoughts, facial expressions, and non-conscious emotions can all be detected Gyroscope enables a cursor or camera to be controlled by head movements The headset uses wi-fi to connect to a computer

Xbox to deliver community games

Little Gamers is one of the first community titles

Hobbyist game developers will be able to share their "home brew" titles over Microsoft's Xbox Live online service.

The company has launched a community driven service that will let amateur creators build and distribute games.

"Ten million people will be able to play your games," said Microsoft's Chris Satchell, at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco.

Microsoft also announced a sequel to its four and a half million-selling game Gears of War.

"I think of this as gaming created by the community and managed by the community but enjoyed by everyone," said Mr Satchell of the new game distribution system.

'Democratisation'

Microsoft freely distributes tools, called XNA, which gives amateur developers the chance to build games for the Xbox 360 and for Windows.

But until now the games could not be shared. The tools have been downloaded 800,000 times and more than 400 universities worldwide are using the XNA package.

Mr Satchell said it was the democratisation of development and distribution.

"There are tens of thousands of developers out there chomping at the bit; we need to unlock that potential," said John Schappert, head of Live services.

Microsoft also announced that it was planning a revenue sharing model for the community games distributed over Xbox Live.