Smart TV, Video Games, Interactivity: A Look Ahead

Five years ago it was quite hard to fathom the idea of walking into a Best Buy and leaving with a 42" Plasma television for under $500. In fact, if we look a little harder we could have probably scored a better deal, but nothing like we might see another five years from now. Right now LED television is hitting the mainstream and even bigger models (up to 65" I believe) are in stores soon to be under the $2,000 mark. How big will they get? How cheap will they become?

It's hard to predict a "hard" ceiling. For projection TV's, they topped out at around the 62" range, but they had their own set of limitations. The picture became fuzzy because of the (by today's standards) absolutely dismal resolution and the sheer weight and bulk. Now that those limitations have been blown to pieces, we can get as big as manufacturers will allow. Programming in 1080p on a 104-in diagonal projector screen is crystal clear, and the even largest LED displays don't come even close to the 100-pound mark. The only real hard limitation will be doorway clearance requirements, which allow for just about anything the size of a large sofa. While a perfect solution for computers, multi-panel displays probably won't see much action for a number of reasons, unless a way to integrate multiple viewpoints from multiple cameras can be made to work.

The latest marketing trend for high-end television is the new 3D technology. While being absolutely fascinating when perfected, it's something that still has a very limited application at this point in time. We have a small number of movies and video games that utilize the technology, but the development cost and complexity of this media is still very prohibitive. 3D in all it's iterations has been a luxury and not a necessity, and that will be it's most limiting factor. But alas, it might take only one really amazing title to tip the scales, but I don't see it happening anytime in the next few years.

So I hear that some new TV's have become smart! They have built-in internet connectivity and so now they've morphed into a sort of computer. The newest generation of video game consoles also have similar abilities, and these have a number of possible implications. First, some content is now becoming available on the internet via sites such as Netflix which makes drops the necessity of having cable/satellite service down a notch. There's some folks like me who only subscribe to satellite for sports, and once that feature is fully functional on the net, I'm probably dropping the dish. Video-on-demand is still a concept foreign to older generations, but will likely be the rule within the next ten years. Unfortunately, there are some really big losers in the big game and you can bet they'll be holding on for dear life.

Video game development continues to progress, yet we haven't seen a new game console released for almost 4 years with relatively little talk about the next generation. Is it possible that processing power has jumped that far ahead of game complexity? Have some games become so realistic that any additional elements require a quantum leap in programming technology? Are the features which drive new game sales less about graphical bells and whistles and more about precision and improved AI?