November 16, 1998
Closer to Reality
Video Games Are Likely to Get a Lot Cooler
-- After All, Players Demand It
By BRIAN R. FITZGERALD
Video games, circa 1988: Players use simple two-button joysticks to
maneuver comic-book-style characters across blandly colored
two-dimensional landscapes in which the only sounds are variations of
"bleep" and "bloop."
Video games today: Players use eight-button, variable-speed joysticks to
maneuver lifelike heroes and villains through extensive 3-D worlds in which
the explosions are big and have sound to match.
Video games, circa 2008: Players, wearing special eyeglasses that beam
images directly onto their retinas, travel across virtual-reality worlds
rendered in detail that's true down to the last paint chip. When players
want to see what's to their right, they don't manipulate a joystick -- they
just turn their head.
For all the advances in video games over the past decade, there's no end in sight. Because no matter how cool the latest technology is, gamers expect something even cooler just ahead. And video-game makers are battling each other to be the one to produce it.
That battle among the industry's three giants -- Nintendo Co., Sega
Enterprises Ltd. and Sony Corp. -- has led to their repeatedly trading spots
atop the industry -- with the only clear winner being the gamers
themselves. New technology -- from high-resolution graphics and sound to
online gaming -- keeps falling into their laps as console makers fight to
outdo their rivals' machines.
Tops in Entertainment
It's clear why companies fight so hard for a slice of the pie. According to
industry estimates, video-game sales are on pace to top $6.6 billion this
year, and the industry is the fastest-expanding segment of the
entertainment world.
The Interactive Digital Software Association says interactive-entertainment
software sales grew 38% in 1997, easily exceeding the 7.7% increase in
movie box-office receipts and 0.2% increase in music sales. And video
games are at last reaching audiences beyond teenage males: 57% of
1997's console users were over 18, and 31% were female.
The latest machines point at the direction games are taking. The
Dreamcast, released this month in Japan and headed for the U.S. sometime
in 1999, is third-ranked Sega's bid to climb the video-game ladder. It
brings together technology from a variety of sources: a customized SH4
processor from Hitachi Ltd. that clocks in at 200 megahertz; a variant of
Microsoft Corp.'s Windows CE operating system; and a Yamaha Corp.
64-channel sound system.
"We are trying to combine the best pieces of the console, PC and online
markets," says Neal Robison, Sega of America's technical-support
developer.
The Dreamcast will offer gamers a number of new devices, including one
called the Visual Memory System: The VMS can be used as a handheld
game on its own, or inserted through the top of a Dreamcast controller and
used as a miniature second viewing screen -- secondary to the television
set to which the Dreamcast is attached. If each player in a game of football
has a VMS, each can choose his plays without being seen by the other. The
VMS can act as a memory card, as well, storing secret codes and
characters for use on another Dreamcast.
The Dreamcast also includes a modem, which allows gamers to surf the
Web from their TV set (if they buy an optional keyboard) or participate in
online multiplayer tournaments on Sega's network.
Nintendo plans to release a combination disk drive and modem for its
Nintendo 64 machine in Japan next year. The disk drive will allow the
machine to play data-intensive cartridge-based games -- and to run
magnetic writable disks, which gamers will be able to use to change the
worlds their characters live in -- while the modem will allow for playing
games over the Internet. And the Net already buzzes with talk of Sony's
PlayStation 2, rumored to be both "backward-compatible" -- able to play
games from the original PlayStation -- and modem-equipped.
The Next Step
"Online gaming is the future," says Julian Rignall, editorial director at
Imagine Media, a Brisbane, Calif., gaming publisher, who foresees a long life
span for the technology. "Despite a short revolution, online gaming will
create a long-term industry standard."
Other industry observers have their own visions. Longtime gamer Sal
Buttiglione expects digital video disks, the successors to CD-ROMs, to
have a "huge impact on the industry." Mr. Buttiglione, a network engineer
and founder of F1 Consulting & Associates in Jersey City, N.J., notes that
double-sided DVDs will hold 40 gigabytes of data, or as much as on 60
CD-ROMs. That's enough to provide game worlds with much richer graphics
and full-motion video -- in effect, interactive movies.
John Romero, who designed the highly influential 3-D titles Doom and Quake
for id Software Inc. and now serves as chairman and co-founder of
Dallas-based ION Storm, sees sensory feedback -- something beyond
sights and sounds -- as an important part of the games of the future. The
video-game industry has already experimented with this: When action in
the game dictates it, gamers using Microsoft's Force Feedback joystick or
Nintendo's Rumble Pack get jolted in the hands -- anything from a little
bump when they, say, shoot a round from a gun, to serious shaking when
their helicopter explodes or they're being pumped full of lead by three
opponents.
With these devices, if there's an enemy fighter on your tail, you'll feel it.
And now a gamers' chair -- able to provide rumbles and tingles as required
-- is close to release.
Of course, it's the players who ultimately determine what new technology is
necessary. "If everyone wants voice[-recognition] technology, then maybe it
will be there in 10 years," Mr. Romero says. "Three-D technology is
advancing fast because that is what gamers want."
Indeed, however divergent their views of the future, industry insiders agree
that vast improvements in video-game graphics are part of it.
"Whatever future technology develops, graphics have to be a huge leap
ahead or no one will feel compelled to buy the product," says Howard
Lincoln, chairman of Nintendo of America, Redmond, Wash.
Mr. Romero sees the games of the future boasting far more realistic
high-resolution images -- perhaps viewed with high-resolution hardware.
"Gamers may be playing on huge, thin LCD screens that can hang on the
wall," he says.
The goal for the game designers of the future, he says, will be
"hyper-realism, with all of the great lens-flaring effects and colored lighting."
Today's graphics techniques -- polygons, curved surfaces, shadows and
lighting effects -- will be blended into one realistic world, he says: "When
you look at a wall in a game from far away, it looks like a wall. But when you
move closer, you can see the actual paint chips. You will feel like you are
there."
Chris Roberts, chief executive of Digital Anvil Inc., Austin, Texas, and
creator of the popular Wing Commander series of games, thinks that
high-definition television, once it becomes affordable for consumers, will
mark a huge step for games. "When games can match movie quality with
gorgeous images and surround sound," he says, "then we can have richer
worlds to wander in."
Delivery Dilemmas
But how will players wander those worlds? A rich visual experience was
supposed to be just around the corner back in the early 1990s, in the form
of virtual reality. The dream was of a free-flowing, immersive 3-D
environment, but the reality turned out to be a big helmet with a screen
covering the eyes. "People weren't comfortable with the helmet on," says
Mr. Rignall. "It drowned your senses -- and gave you a bloody headache."
Jim Merrick, a software-engineering manager with Nintendo of America,
thinks this goal of free-flowing 3-D environments -- which he calls CAVEs, for
computer-aided virtual environments -- remains distant. "CAVEs are still
the stuff of science fiction -- they exist, but gamers are a far way off from
experiencing that."
But some others think the road to virtual reality may be a little shorter.
Microvision Inc., a five-year-old Seattle company, is working on
electro-optics technologies that will rapidly scan a low-power, pinpoint
beam of colored light into the retina. This beam will create a high-resolution,
full-motion image that gamers can see -- without the use of screens or
externally projected images.
This Virtual Retinal Display is being developed for high-end government and
medical uses, but in time is likely to be adapted for consumer applications.
"The key thing is weight," says Ace Erickson, a senior engineering technician
for Microvision. "We are trying to make it extremely small -- to get it close
to the eye. The size of this device could be like a Jolly Rancher."
In the future, Mr. Erickson says, it may be possible to skip bulky helmets
and embed chips into the lenses of a pair of glasses. "We have that
potential, to make bright and capable displays," he says, and there's a
chance that potential could turn into technology in consumers' hands in five
years rather than 10.
The ability to beam images into the retina, Mr. Erickson says, would open
up gaming dramatically -- giving gamers with superior peripheral vision the
same sort of advantage they enjoy in non-virtual sports, and allowing all
players to see other parts of their virtual worlds simply by moving their
eyes or head, rather than by manipulating a joystick. For gamers already
addicted to today's Quake "deathmatches" -- in which a number of players
meet on the Internet and attempt to slaughter one another -- Mr. Erickson's
magic glasses can't arrive too soon.
"Now jump into a real Quake world, run around in all directions and have a
deathmatch -- that will be cool," says Mr. Romero.
But whatever technologies emerge as the keys to the video-game arms
race of the future, the experts agree that they will take a back seat to game
designers' creativity.
"Consumers are buying games to play games, not to have some 64-bit
system or a bunch of hardware specs." says Nintendo's Mr. Merrick.
Adds Mr. Buttiglione: "Gamers are always going to look for an intriguing
game...a challenging game that can draw interest. No one wants to play a
boring game."
-- Mr. Fitzgerald is a staff reporter for The Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition
in New York. |
