Console-Quality Games Coming to Smartphones, Other Devices

"Fathammer today announced the commercial launch and availability of the X-Forge 3D Game Engine, a development product for mobile devices. It provides game developers with the ability to deliver high-frame-rate, console-quality 3D games on a wide variety of wireless PDAs, smartphones and handheld game devices.

Games developed with X-Forge achieve real-time frame rates and impressive visual quality through optimizations for industry leading mobile technologies....

Two X-Forge Powered games will be included with the retail launch of the Sony Ericsson P800 Smartphone. Stunt Run is an original racing title developed by Vasara Games, the games division of Fathammer. Real physics, compelling track design and a variety of gameplay options provide a unique 3D driving experience for owners of the phone. Sony Pictures Digital Entertainment’s Men in Black II: Alien Pursuit places the player in the role of MIB agent hunting down aliens in a real 3D environment. A compelling story line with multiple levels and a variety of weapons immerses the player into a fun, easy to play game." [PDABuzz.com]

Cell phone trade-ups should kick into high gear next year as video games propel yet another industry forward. Over at MSNBC, Michael Rogers sings the praises of a new 3-D television display, but he thinks it will be years before we see this technology at the mainstream consumer level.

"The third technology that caught my eye in Seville was both the most innovative and least likely to show up in real life anytime soon. HoloVizio is a true 3-D television display from an Hungarian company called Holografika—a technology so cool you just want to see it happen. The 3-D display looks like a normal twenty-five inch television monitor, except the changing images on screen—a human skull, a rib cage, a prototype automobile—appear to be truly 3-D, hanging in space behind the glass. As you move your head in front of the screen, the forward parts of the image block the pieces in the back. And unlike previous 3-D television technologies, you don’t have to wear funny goggles....

Only after years of professional use will the price of such hardware decline enough to be a consumer product. And even then, content providers will have to agree to produce their material in the new format. So when will we have 3-D television in the living room?... In short: as a consumer product, this is far, far in the future. But maybe that’s just as well. After all, most of us are still saving up for high-definition television."

This may be true, but the gaming industry will speed up implementation and adoption. In fact, I think it was one of the technologies I would have liked to have seen more of in the movie Minority Report. Where were the video gamers? I think there was one example at the club, but I don't remember seeing anyone playing on the train. If Tom Cruise could shift and interact with information in thin air, surely there were "holographic decks" where players acted out Doom, Tomb Raider, and The Sims as fully immersive games. And heck, the 3D rendering engine in The Matrix must truly be something to behold!