It's difficult to think of a field which is so demonstrates such incredible progress in a short space of time than computer games. Computer games didn't exist at all until some very basic things cobbled together on scientific oscilloscope screens in the 1950s. From that point until today's sprawling, high-definition 3D sandbox landscapes has been quite a journey.
It wasn't until 1972 that the first commercially successful game came about, which was Atari's Pong. Initially, it was only released as a cabinet based arcade game, but subsequently as home gaming systems began to take off in 1975 Atari released it as a dedicated console capable of playing just this one game.
To say Pong was basic would be an understatement. It was black and white, had basic bleep sounds and by virtue of the fact it was plugged into a home TV it was of course standard definition and narrow screen:
Fast forward 40 years to the current crop of games consoles. The recent E3 games expo in Los Angeles saw the announcement of the next crop of games for consoles like Sony's PS4. The PS4 has a CPU with eight 1.6 GHz cores on it and a dedicated graphics processor capable of delivering 1.84 TFLOPS, which basically means it's a bit tidy.
In the hands of today's games designers that means that a PS4 game today looks like this:
Skin textures look increasingly real, water flows realistically and reflects the light perfectly, foliage blows in the breeze and bends as the main character runs through it, the landscape consists of far-off horizons of towering mountains and idyllic towns and ruins.
But that's not all. The video games industry stands on a precipice at the moment, whereby the forthcoming releases of the long-promised technology of virtual reality headsets looks certain to herald a new era of super immersive gaming that will wipe the floor with what's gone before.
Take, for example, the Occulus Rift headset, now owned by web giant Facebook. It has developed to work with games consoles such that the wearer dons the headset and can see the landscape around him in 3D. This is still a pre-release technology at the moment, but it has blown the minds of those doing previews of the technology:
Expect Pong 1975 edition in 3D any time soon. Watch out for that square puck.
It wasn't until 1972 that the first commercially successful game came about, which was Atari's Pong. Initially, it was only released as a cabinet based arcade game, but subsequently as home gaming systems began to take off in 1975 Atari released it as a dedicated console capable of playing just this one game.
To say Pong was basic would be an understatement. It was black and white, had basic bleep sounds and by virtue of the fact it was plugged into a home TV it was of course standard definition and narrow screen:
Fast forward 40 years to the current crop of games consoles. The recent E3 games expo in Los Angeles saw the announcement of the next crop of games for consoles like Sony's PS4. The PS4 has a CPU with eight 1.6 GHz cores on it and a dedicated graphics processor capable of delivering 1.84 TFLOPS, which basically means it's a bit tidy.
In the hands of today's games designers that means that a PS4 game today looks like this:
Skin textures look increasingly real, water flows realistically and reflects the light perfectly, foliage blows in the breeze and bends as the main character runs through it, the landscape consists of far-off horizons of towering mountains and idyllic towns and ruins.
But that's not all. The video games industry stands on a precipice at the moment, whereby the forthcoming releases of the long-promised technology of virtual reality headsets looks certain to herald a new era of super immersive gaming that will wipe the floor with what's gone before.
Take, for example, the Occulus Rift headset, now owned by web giant Facebook. It has developed to work with games consoles such that the wearer dons the headset and can see the landscape around him in 3D. This is still a pre-release technology at the moment, but it has blown the minds of those doing previews of the technology:
Expect Pong 1975 edition in 3D any time soon. Watch out for that square puck.
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