It seems like there has been a struggle between quality physics and quality graphics in games as of late. Either a game has an incredibly nice physics engine with decent graphics or the opposite. I think this is trending towards gaming PCs and even consoles requiring a physics card in the future. Right now physics are handled by the CPU but with a dedicated physics card the CPU could be freed up to perform more base level engine code with the physics card picking up all of the slack.
There have been some attempts at this in the past but nothing has really stuck. I think this is primarily because no game developer wants to adopt a standard method of physics modeling which a physics card will require. Basically, no one has made OpenGL/DirectX for physics yet. A physics library like that would be incredibly useful though.
Just added a new category “Much Needed” and this is my first post in it. This category will focus on things that the gaming industry needs to create. This installment of Much Needed will focus on additional peripherals in gaming.
It seems like ever since Dunk Hunt came out no gaming peripheral has been able to compete until the guitar of Guitar Hero. What is happening in the gaming industry that no other interesting control schemes can be created? One thing that comes to mind is a “Mech” type game that required a $120 joystick/control system to play. I wonder if this cost barrier is the main reason we don’t see more interesting peripherals.
With a game like Rock Band you can appeal to a huge audience including non gamers. However, with a joystick and “Mech” game you’re still limited to people who play games often. Then in addition to that you’re limited to the gamers who can afford such a setup. This is basically adults or spoiled children which is probably a smaller market (currently) than the casual child/teen gamer.
I could definitely stand to see some new interesting controllers especially when it comes to PC games. I’d like some kind of Wii type aiming system that incorporates movement as well. I have to imagine a title like this would be cheap to produce and sell extremely well considering the PC market has essentially zero peripherals other than the keyboard/mouse/joystick.
