Video games are love; for some, it’s their favorite pastime, and for others, it’s a passionate career. With a history that dates back to the early 1950s, now 70 years later, and the technology improvements simply do not stop coming.
The gaming landscape itself has expanded internationally and grown to be a multibillion-dollar industry. People of all ages have become engrossed and addicted to the indulgence that is brought by video games today.
From Lil Poison, a pro gamer at six years of age, and Hamako Mori at age 90 years, video games have touched our lives regardless of age, gender, race, and color. According to a recent study by Statista.com, the revenue from the worldwide PC gaming market alone was estimated to be around $37 billion in 2020.
On the other hand, the mobile-gaming market alone generated an income of over $77 billion. Companies like Apple, Sony, and Tencent each generate billions of dollars while Amazon being the top store.
In light of this information, let’s take a quick look at some of the ways gaming technology is improving and creating an impact all across the globe.
· AR & VR’s Introduction
Augmented reality and virtual reality are not new concepts, and there are various applications around the world that are being deployed in the field of manufacturing, automotive technology, healthcare, and even the military.
However, AR and VR have both been well-received when it comes to gaming. In recent times, the most successful AR game was undoubtedly Pokémon GO, which received more than 500 million downloads worldwide.
When it comes to virtual reality, games like Astro Bot Rescue Mission and Beat Saber easily taking the cake as some of the best VR games out there. With the passage of time and improvements in technology, more VR and AR game titles are being considered for launch in the coming years.
· Bigger and Better RAMs
The gaming industry has continued to evolve over the years, and this meant better graphics and gameplay mechanics with stupendous audio and visual quality. However, the need for high-quality gameplay and output also meant greater strain on computing devices. This is where bigger and better RAMs came into play.
Random Access Memory’s origin dates back to 1965 where IBM introduced its first-ever 8-bit capacity SRAM (static random-access memory).
Today, some fifty years later, we are using SDRAMs (synchronous dynamic random access memory), including the likes of DDR4 (double data rate 4) with a capacity of 64 GiB (gigabytes). The Corsair Dominator Platinum RGB 32GB DDR4-3200MHz is considered one of the best high-end RAMs for PC gamers.
· Enhanced Controllers
Game controllers nowadays also take the spotlight. With demands for interactive features that can make the gameplay more enjoyable and convenient, consoles like the Xbox and Sony PlayStation positioned themselves highly on their game controller technology.
While in the past, where game controllers only served as a means of input by players, today, game controllers have evolved considerably.
Today we have controllers with incredible features, including wireless connectivity, wireless charging, motion sensor, built-in microphone, touchpad, and haptic feedback. Overall the PlayStation 4’s Dual Shock 4 and Xbox Elite Wireless Controller are regarded as one of the best console game controllers of all time.
· Cooling Technology
With more power required to transfer data at lightning-fast speeds to make the game look good and perform well, it naturally means a ton of heat being produced by the main processor.
Plus, with better and more powerful computing components, one can only imagine the kind of heat that goes around them. This has led to favorable developments in computer cooling technology over the years. Without proper cooling mechanics, any machine would become a hazard and create trouble.
This has led to the intervention of heat sinks and computer fans, along with more exotic cooling options such as liquid cooling. One of the best coolers for computing systems today is Noctua NH-D15 that includes a fan and heat sink with a rotation frequency of up to 1500 RPM (revolutions per minute).
· Gaming Community
The gaming community has grown tremendously over the past decade. With online gaming, the environment and the ecosystem considerably changed.
CrossFire, which is a tactical FPS (first-person shooter) game developed by Smilegate Entertainment for Microsoft Windows, was initially released in South Korea back in 2007. Today the game has more than 1 billion registered players.
On the other hand, we also have Dungeon Fighter Online, which has over 700 million players worldwide and grossed over $15 billion as lifetime revenue as of May 2020. We have also seen incredible numbers being generated by online gaming forums and streaming services, including the likes of Twitch and YouTube.
This has also led to crowdfunding projects, with Star Citizen being the highest crowdfunded video game, which has raised over $300 million as of June 2020.
· Improvements in GPUs
Since games are becoming increasingly more intricate and value a tremendous amount of visual quality and diverse gameplay mechanics, hence the use of graphic processing units became a necessity.
GPUs (graphic processing units) accelerate the creation of visuals in a frame buffer intended as an output for display devices and were first introduced during the 1970s for arcade system boards.
Today we find GPUs in game consoles, mobile phones, personal computers, and even for workstations.
With the passage of time, the performance and capabilities of GPUs have also increased. Today one of the best GPUs is the GeForce RTX™ 3090.
It offers improved ray tracing technology with a staggering 24 GB of G6X memory. Inspiring young people looking for literature review help actually get watery mouths just hearing about what this new beast from NVIDIA is capable of doing.
· Next-Gen CPUs
Obviously, when GPUs are mentioned, there has to be a discussion about CPUs because, without them, there is no central processing core to run your games. CPUs have a long history, with Manchester Baby and the Manchester Mark 1 being hailed as the earliest predecessors.
With the passage of time, the power and capacity increased tremendously, including Transistor CPUs, small & large scale integration CPUs, and finally, the microprocessors.
Today we have reached the stage where AMD Ryzen™ 9 5900X is heavily regarded as the best desktop processor.
It features 12 cores with a base clock of 3.7 GHz and a max boost clock of up to 4.8 GHz with a 6MB L2 Cache and 64MB L3 Cache. A lot of students opting for the best dissertation writing services UK are actually saving money to invest in hardware and enjoy next-gen gaming experiences.
· Terrific Range of Accessories
Initially, video game consoles usually deployed a central processing unit, a display output, and a couple of handheld controllers for players to go all crazy while mashing up those buttons. The first generation of gaming consoles includes the likes of 1972’s Magnavox Odyssey and the 1977’s Atari Video Computer System.
However, with the release of each new game console system, we are now living in the era of the 9th generation.
During this time, a range of accessories was introduced, including wireless headsets, gaming mouse and mouse pads, pro-gaming keyboards, custom-built controllers, surround audio sound systems, virtual reality headsets, remotes with motion sensors, and much more.
· Ultra-High Definition (4K) & 8K
We have moved towards high-definition and ultra-high-definition games in recent years from low pixels and pixelated games in the past. PC gamers have always been interested in testing the limits of what technology has to offer, and with the RTX 3090, people like Marques Brownlee are claiming you can.
However, to be truly able to experience 8K or even 4K gaming, the display device comes into play.
The most common gaming display monitors offer you 1080p, which is FHD (Full HD). Though it is impressive on its own, it doesn’t even come close to 4K and 8K.
This is where people have to invest more in their display to get that craving for fine details to be actually satisfied. Right now, best choices include:
- Dell UltraSharp UP3218K 8K LED Display
- LG Z9 88″ 8K OLED
- Samsung QP98R-8K
Conclusion
The future of gaming is quite uncertain as no one knows where the latest technology can take us. Apple, who recently revealed their M1 chip and the Apple A14 Bionic last year, the next-gen hardware is definitely going to blow our minds.
Right now, the majority of the gaming community is focused on how well the latest Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 perform, while we already know that PC gamers have been enjoying 8K gaming for quite some time now.
The competition in the market has also grown intense, and all of this leads to consumers benefiting the most as, obviously, we all want more bang from our bucks. So, for now, let’s keep our fingers crossed and see where the future of gaming technology can take us. BANZAI!
Author Bio
Melissa Calvert currently works as a devoted Lifestyle Counselor at Crowd Writer and Assignment Assistance. She is quite fond of indulging herself in pop culture, including movies, music, anime, TV series, and video games. During her free time, she likes to practice and brush up on her origami skills.
