The Future: Going Green & Avoiding Idiocracy

No platform has had so much potential to unsettle the status quo of the game industry like the iPlatform. With the whole world going green in the ecological sense, the iPlatform's download-only content delivery system places the iPlatform in the environmentally-friendly crowd.

After watching Wall-E, The 11^th Hour, and most of all Idiocracy, you might think that consumerism (involving physical products, of course) is the enemy. Not to mention the fact that it's difficult to find a living space with enough closets to hold generations of game cartriges, CDs, DVDs, and Blu-ray discs. The iPlatform is way ahead of the game on this front.

The Future: Mobile Competition

The iPhone recently became the top-selling handset in the U.S. With less than two years on the market, this is a grand feat. One potential pitfall, though, is hardware development lag. If there's one industry more volatile than the game industry, it's got to be the mobile phone industry.

New devices are introduced at an alarming rate. The iPhone still has an advantage in terms of hardware over most of its touch screen contemporaries, and the App Store pushes the platform over the top. 

However, due to these spectacular victories, it's easy to see Apple resting on its laurels and not taking the device into the future in terms of hardware. It's even easier to envision a competitor like Google beating them on the software front. Can Apple compete against dedicated hardware and software giants working independently on what they do best?

In terms of hardware, Apple needs to support cutting-edge technologies that can be used for social fun. Remember the example involving five friends, A/V cables, and a Wii Sports style game? Ditch the A/V cables and the TV.

People want to be mobile with all the amenities. Future revisions of iPlatform devices need some form of integrated shared display. They need a projector that can generate a communal image on any surface or at the very least a wireless broadcast feature.

This sort of hardware will enable true impromptu play sessions. Just imagine how much more interesting (or possibly embarrassing) waiting in line for The Dark Knight at midnight would have been with technology like this?

Back on the software front, Google is waiting patiently. The iTunes and App Store interfaces are slightly cumbersome. Currently, iPlatform software is more worthwhile than software for Google's Android mobile platform, but it's still very early. One factor that could determine the race is search.

End users need to be able to find, purchase, consume, and link software quickly. Apple's current implementation is good but not great. Google is known for creating extremely quick, lightweight, and just plain elegant web based software.

It's obvious that hardware represents the milestones of the race, but that the efficiency of the software powering new age mobile devices will be what propels the competitors from one milestone to the next.

Conclusion

Some great developers have created some great games, which have earned great support from players on the iPlatform. Only the future can tell us whether the iPlatform will live up to the developers' New Years Resolutions for which it has potential.

Hardware, software, creativity, mobility, sociability, and most importantly fun will determine the fate of the platform for game development.

In closing, have fun while creating software for this revolutionary new gaming platform no matter which engine, genre, or price point you choose but be weary of the pitfalls and keep an eye on the future, it's constantly evolving. Thanks for reading and have a great new year!