| |
Game Wire
By Bruce Mushial
Since the beginning of electronic games there
have been battles between game platform manufacturers. The
electronic games market began with the likes of Pong, and
Pac Man, from companies such as Atari. These infantile games,
compared to the feats of current games, started the battle
between manufacturers. Monochrome games led to color. Single
player configurations advanced to multiple players connected
via the Internet. More colors, more memory, more features,
faster motion, and more games for each platform have been
the wave of the future for two decades now. Now don't just
brush off gaming as just kid's stuff, because the billions
of dollars spent on gaming is no chump change. The game
manufacturers still strive to out do each other, in almost
a conquer and destroy game-like fashion. Some platforms are
handheld, some are on dedicated console stations, and others
are still played on traditional computers. Those computers
need faster processors, more memory, and the fastest video
cards possible, all good for the companies that manufacture
these products. The 3D video cards that gamers like actually
have their own onboard processors similar to the power of
the main computer processor itself. Some high-end video cards
for gamers use more super high-speed video memory than some
current computers and the total memory on the video card exceeds
the total amount of memory computers had just 1-2 years ago.
Where most business computers will run great with a $30 video
card in them, gamers will often spend close to $200 to capture
the best 3D video graphics cards available. Needless to say
these video cards do great things to the bottom line of the
companies such as ATI (ATYT) and Nvidia (NVDA), who produce
some of the hottest video cards available. In handheld units
the Game Boy extended its features to become Game Boy Color
and now Game Boy Advanced has just come on the scene. Super
Nintendo (16 bit) mutated into Nintendo 64 and created such
a competitive market that Sega stopped making the Dreamcast
platform that had a strong following. Sony's PlayStation and
PlayStation 2 have been formidable competitors to Nintendo
but we now have PlayStation 3 lurking in the wings just as
Microsoft gets ready to usher in its Xbox product line. To
highlight the size of the gaming market, Microsoft plans to
spend $500 million to market the Xbox alone. Nintendo's GameCube
is slated to hit shelves at the same time as the Xbox. And
game consoles wouldn't be much fun without games to play on
them. The game manufacturers may end up making even more money
than the makers of the game consoles. Companies such as Activision
(ATVI), THQ (THQI), and Electronic Arts (ERTS), do little
more than focus on making game software that runs on one of
the popular game platforms. Gaming might be fun, but it's
serious business.
|
