The gaming industry has always been at the forefront of technology. We’ve seen countless examples of this, including the creation of early consoles like the Atari 2600 which helped to provide it was possible to game at home. Similarly, the Nintendo Game Boy revolutionised gaming by cramming console games into a handheld device.
Today, that same spirit can be seen in the iGaming space where online casinos continue to push the boundaries of what is possible. With fierce competition between brands, many use tactics like bonuses for new players to attract new customers, while others develop innovative game types like the live dealer titles that have become so popular in recent years.
Over the last 50 or so years, the gaming companies that have made the industry possible have continually innovated, sometimes successfully, sometimes not. Regardless, they’ve not been afraid to try new ideas so that gamers have always got something new to try.
2023 is unlikely to be any different, with trending technologies, new ideas making it to market, and some being withdrawn. Excited to learn what this year has in store? Strap in.
Video Game Streaming
The term “streaming” can mean several things in the video game space and two key types of it have risen to prominence in the last few years. The first involves broadcasting a video feed of a person and the game that they’re playing to a group of viewers.
Sites like Twitch, YouTube, and Facebook have all helped to popularise this activity and some streamers have built up huge business empires as a result. As of January 2023, the most followed Twitch streamer is Ninja who has wracked up over 18 million followers on his channel.
While he doesn’t publicly publish his earnings, estimates on the internet suggest that he rakes in around $500,000 a month, though he has said he once earned $5 million in a single 30-day period.
The best streamers, including Ninja and others like Auronplay, Rubius, and Ludwig attract their followers by being entertaining as well as talented at whichever game they’re choosing to play at the time.
They’ll commentate on their actions in an exaggerated and animated way, engage with the audience, and even run giveaways and competitions. It is, therefore, as much about entertainment as it is about gaming.
This type of streaming is likely to just keep growing in 2023 as more and more people get involved both as broadcasters and viewers. Technology in this area is unlikely to be revolutionised this year, though incremental improvements in video and sound quality, as well as devices that provide conveniences, such as stream decks.
However, there’s also another type of streaming that involves just one person at a time. This streaming broadcasts the entire game over the internet, allowing someone to play it from any device, regardless of how powerful it is.
Google Stadia is the service that shot to fame in this space following its eventual launch in November 2019. However, after a problematic launch that was plagued with bugs, the platform has now been shut down.
In January 2023, Google followed through on an earlier decision to switch off its servers and refund players for the money they’d shelled out on Stadia. The company’s rationale behind the move was that it wasn’t getting enough interest from the public so it plans to use the technology in different ways.
That’s not the end of video game streaming, though. Google may have shuttered Stadia but Microsoft, Sony, and NVIDIA all have their own services, although they all operate a little differently to Stadia.
For example, Microsoft and Sony allow subscribers to their gaming services to play games in their libraries on devices other than their consoles. For example, if you own a PlayStation 5 and want to keep playing a game while away from home, you can fire up your laptop and connect to PlayStation Now.
These services are likely to continue to mature throughout 2023 as these companies keep developing the technologies that they rely on.
Virtual Reality
Speaking of Sony, the Japanese giant is a key player in another area of gaming technology that’s set to make a big leap forward in 2023.
The company has been one of the leading manufacturers of virtual reality headsets since it launched the PlayStation VR in October 2016. Three years later, it had shifted more than 5 million devices to PlayStation owners that wanted to extend their playing experience into a new dimension. Since then, estimates suggest that Sony has managed to sell roughly double that.
That would make it the second-best-selling VR headset released to consumers behind the market-leading Meta Quest 2.
Meta is expected to launch a follow-up to the Quest 2 in late 2023 or early 2024, following the release of the Quest Pro late last year. However, little is currently know about this new model.
On the other hand, a lot is known about the PlayStation VR 2 which is due to launch in February. It has been in development for a long time and includes many new features, including head vibration, haptic feedback, eye-tracking, and 4K resolutions.
All in, this new kit will create the most immersive and realistic gaming experience available to the consumer when it hits the market in a few weeks’ time. If it’s a success, we can expect other VR-focused companies to follow suit with their hardware.
Accessibility
There have been many attempts over the years to move away from the traditional games controller. Nintendo succeeded, for a while, with the Wii console and Microsoft pushed hard with the Kinect device.
However, both ultimately saw players return to the more traditional input devices when the novelty wore off.
Unfortunately, the two-handed boomerang controllers that most gamers are accustomed to are not overly suitable for players with disabilities. That’s why Sony is working on a highly customisable input device that is aimed at making gaming more accessible.
Codenamed Project Leonardo, the controller looks more like a flower with a set of buttons shaped like petals protruding from the centre and a stem stretching downwards. According to the company, this allows it to stand up on a flat surface like a wheelchair stray and for the buttons to be rotated around the centre for easy access.
Sony isn’t alone in this though. Microsoft has already released its own solution to this problem while many small businesses, and even some individuals, have created devices to attach to existing controllers to make them more accessible. We are, therefore, likely to see even more of it in the coming year.