Hardcore Gaming 05.08.07: The Future of Gaming
Posted by Mark Cwalinski on 05.08.2007
A look into gaming in the year 2050.
Welcome to Hardcore Gaming, your source for everything hardcore. This week I took a trip in my time machine to 43 years into the future. Luckily for you, I wrote down everything that I learned about gaming. Please take note that I am not responsible for any shattering of the space-time continuum that may occur from reading this article.
In 2050, everyone plays video games. That's right; soon you'll be able to give your grandma the best present in the world by blowing her head off in Call of Duty: War in Iraq. This new CoD game is just one of the hundreds of games focusing on warfare in the Middle East. It's become the most common genre of games since the Word War II shooter. Go figure.
The unfortunate news is that game prices have skyrocketed. They're now up to 2 Earth Dollars, or USD $100 in today's time. Unfortunately, developers have run with the graphics over gameplay mindset, and now games only last one hour. However, during that hour expect to be amazed by the lifelike portrayal of the setting in your game; unless you own a Nintendo Sniif.
In 2048, Nintendo realized that developers were ruining gaming for the true gamers out there. They wanted to release something that would bring the fun back in gaming. They also wanted to create something wildly popular like the Nintendo Wii (which by the way sold 100,000,000 systems), where families could sit down and enjoy the experience together.
Enter Nintendo Sniif, which was released in the summer of 1949. It promised not to revolutionize the industry, but to bring it back to where it was 60 years ago. So they created the amazing plan of re-releasing all of their games from the NES and SNES days with a new controller. It was called the Sniifer. It was essentially the bottom half of the Nintendo DS, but instead of buttons and a D-pad, it just had holes.
The Nintendo Sniif
To make it easier on gamers, Nintendo decided to remove all buttons whatsoever. Instead, you'd just watch the protagonist beat the game, and you could cheer him on while he climbed to the top.
"We believe that gamers don't want hard, complex games anymore," said Reggie Fils-Aime III, "We think they just want to enjoy reliving the memories of their favorite games, as well as finally getting to beat them. Finally, fans get to see what happened at the end of their favorite games that they never got to beat because they were just too complicated."
To help enhance the experience, during various parts of the game a virtual sticker will appear on the touch screen of the controller. When you see it, you're supposed to scratch it off as fast as you can. When this happens, a scent of what's going on during the game will burst out of the controller, filling the room. Don't worry if you can't scratch it off in time though, the controller releases the smell anyways if you fail to scratch it off in ten seconds. Finally you get to smell the sweat flying off Little Mac's face after getting knocked to the floor.
Unfortunately for Nintendo, sales of the Nintendo Sniif failed. Due to the nature of the games, no online mode was included, which killed sales before they even started. Nintendo then released Mario Juggling, Mario Puzzle-Solver, and Mario Mechanic. These also bombed, and Nintendo was forced to leave the video game market after finally realizing that they can't just stick the Mario name on a crappy game and expect it to sell.
With the defeat of Nintendo, Sony thought it was their time to shine. So they released the Power-PlayStation. The PPS was created to be the end-all game console. It had a lightning-fast online mode, came with its own Super HDTV, and even could double as a toaster. The PPS also was the first console to really capture photo-realistic graphics. The only problem was that it retailed for 599 Earth Dollars, or USD $29950.
The Power-PlayStation
From the instant they announced the price tag; the PPS was doomed to fail. Sony became the joke of video games, and they only sold 100 consoles. However, just like Nintendo they tried to pull cheap tricks to catch themselves up. First, they released a cheaper version for ED $499 that got rid of all of the features except for the toaster. Once this idea failed, they went on to come out with a new controller that had normal buttons and could release smells.
"We're certainly not interested in gimmicks," explained Kaz Hirai, the 86 year old president of Sony Computer Entertainment, "which is why we only give our hardcore fans the best hardware available. We were so proud of ourselves when we copied – I mean came up with – the idea for using smells to enhance the video game experience. We hope our fans will see us as innovators of the great video game industry."
Although the new addition sold five more consoles, Sony's sales continued to plummet. The company had to then rely on the sales of their Infrared-Rey disk technology to stay alive. Unfortunately, the IR disks were plagued with Disk Read Errors and had to be recalled. Sony then sold all of it's shares to Microsoft, who then shut down the company and crapped on all of the recalled IR disks.
Before Microsoft bought out Sony, Rory John Gates, the new head of Microsoft, decided to release a system of their own. It was called the Ybox, and was a 3ft wide cube. It also came with a power brick (now known as a power cement box) that was a 2 ft wide cube. Even before the console came out, many gamers questioned why anyone would want to buy this atrocity of a system. They then coined the term "WhyBox". To restore the public image of the company, Rory gave 100,000,000 Earth Dollars to various charities around the globe.
The Ybox sold for ED $6 and was an instant success. However, this success was short lived, as within the first week there were hundreds of viruses that infected systems world-wide. The problems only increased from there, as Microsoft's shoddy manufacturing caused one in every five Ybox's to blow up. This subsequently caused the death of hundreds of innocent people.
Microsoft sent every parent whose kid died a new one in the mail, and peace was restored again. Until more problems showed up when Halo 4, after years of it being delayed, finally hit store shelves. At about 45 minutes into the game, right before the final boss fight, gamers realized their screen turned blue. The screen then told the gamer that it had a critical system error and needed to be restarted.
Your New Replacement Child
Rory John Gates responded with this: "We're not quite sure what happened with the game. We think it may have been a bad coding job, but we highly doubt that's the case since we always make great products. Unfortunately for all the fans who it affected, it's not covered under warranty, so we're not able to return their money or give them a new disk. However, we do plan to give more money to charity, go us!"
Although Microsoft continued to thrive in the computer market, the Ybox faded into oblivion. Fans were angry at Microsoft over Halo 4, especially since many believed Master Chief finally removed his helmet so you could see his face. Many images have since leaked onto the internet, and it was revealed to be Chuck Norris after all.
Soon, all hope was lost in the video game industry. Gamers started to hook up their old consoles and reminisce about the good ol' days. Days when games didn't cost ED $2, and games had more than an hour worth of fun. After a while, they stopped sulking about what was wrong with the video game industry, and just started having fun. They simply enjoyed playing games that offered a challenge and didn't insult their intelligence. They enjoyed playing games that were fun because of the gameplay and because of the graphics. They stopped arguing about which company was better, and just enjoyed playing the games for what they were.
On June 6th, 2050, an unnamed president of an unnamed company released a new console to the public; the GameStation. They had been working on it for years with little money, but a lot of desire. It had graphics that far surpassed those of the PS3, a controller with precision motion sensing technology better than the Wiimote, and an online mode like that of Xbox live. The best part was, it retailed for just ED $3 and games sold for just ED 2$, which equates to USD $150 and USD $50 in today's world.
Whenever anyone asked who the man behind it all was, he'd release a statement saying that it didn't matter because it was about the games, not the publisher behind them. Gamers learned to embrace this philosophy, and actually enjoyed games for the first time in 60 years.
For the first time in a long time, a publisher actually cared more about the systems and games that they made than the money that the systems and games would make them. And in turn, the gamers finally could play games that didn't suck.
After I was assured that all was right in the world of video games, I hopped back in my De Lorean and sped back to our time at precisely 88 mph. When I came back, I was depressed to see games back in the state they are now. Companies are still more worried about making money than making a good game. And of course, there isn't much that will ever change that. However, there are a few guys out there that are trying to make a difference. There are a few who actually care about making good games. If you are one of those developers, then I have two words for you. Thank you.
Either next week or the week after I should have an interview with a developer from Shattered Reality Interactive, the creator of a new MMORPG called Kaos War. Their website is www.kaoswar.com if you're interested. It should be pretty sweet, so make sure to check back.
