One sector which makes great use of technology to innovate is gaming. Since the early days of gaming in the 1980s, a constant flow of new tech and ideas has allowed it to appeal to more people. This has seen it become more and more popular over time and a mainstream form of entertainment. Whether it is hyper-casual games on your mobile phone or playing on the latest console, a lot of people love to relax in their spare time with games. Without the biggest and best tech advances to power it though, this way of staying amused would not be as attractive to many.
The way tech has pushed this sector forward is obvious when you look back at the impact it has made over the years. But which advances have been most fabulous for gaming fans?
Online casinos
When it comes to looking at the biggest and best advances in gaming tech, online casinos have to be mentioned. In the dark days of the past, you had to physically get ready, go out of your house and find the nearest land-based casinos to visit. That was not always convenient, and a lot of people did not actually like the atmosphere at land-based casinos.
The internet boom helped solve this issue by enabling online casino sites to be created. These sites offer more games, more promotions and all from the comfort of your own home. Mobile play is also something that is very popular now in this sector. As shown on the Gambling Metropolis site, big bonuses at mobile casinos make them great places to play games.
Virtual reality
VR is one awesome gaming advance. It was first spoken about in the early 1990s and has been on a long road since then to the present day. The last few years have seen VR in gaming really take off though. This has been down to the technology which powers it giving a better gaming experience and top names like Sony getting more involved with it and the price of VR kit coming down for gamers.
Hardware like the Oculus Quest 2 headset offers a gaming experience like no other and all at an affordable price point. VR takes players into a totally digital world where they can interact with their virtual environment and be totally immersed in the game world. Due to this next-level gaming experience, the future for VR tech looks bright.
Facial recognition
Many games now allow you to create your likeness in the game world. Consoles will also allow you to do this when you set up an account. A major advance in gaming technology has been facial recognition, which enables your likeness to be accurately recreated when doing this. 3D scanning in gaming systems uses face recognition software to make this happen.
There is also the Intel RealSense 3D camera which could be the next big breakthrough in this area for gaming. Already developed, it looks likely to be included in next-gen consoles and constantly scans over 70 points on your face as you play. This will allow the computer or console to tweak game settings, depending on how you are reacting to what is going on.
Cloud and on-demand gaming
Gaming is a sector where tech plays a hugely important role. This is very true when it comes to our next unbelievable advance – Cloud-based gameplay. Instead of having to constantly buy systems with more memory and power, Cloud gaming opens up the whole online world to play on instead. This gives players the chance to head online (via their console, PC or smartphone) to play huge multi-player titles. These titles would be too large in many cases for standard game systems to cope with.
On-demand gaming is a recent offshoot of this which is impressive. This basically allows players to stream games direct from the internet, when they fancy playing them. It is like Netflix for gamers! Streaming games on-demand eliminates the need to buy physical copies and means you always have a huge range of games to play at your fingertips. Google Stadia is a great example of this idea in action.
Gaming tech has come a long way
Looking at the above advances in technology, one thing is clear – how far gaming has come. From playing disk-based games offline on something like a Commodore Amiga, to what modern consoles offer is a different world. Of course, the great thing is that new advances are always on the horizon – gamers only have to sit back and enjoy what comes next.
