Since 1958 when William Higinbotham released ’Tennis for two’, gaming machines have been around for us to lose ourselves in for hours upon hours. Ok, the first proper video games would not be released until years later but since 1958 has gaming changed that much?

Many would argue it has, and certainly in some respects that is true, after all ‘Tennis for two’ was effectively an early example of what would become ‘pong’ and we have come a long way since those days.

In terms of graphics and what can be achieved with hardware there is no doubt the future is bright and has been getting brighter since those caveman days of 1958. You only have to play a game on Intellivision then an Atari 2600 then on a NES then on a Playstaion and finally on an Xbox 360 and you will see how far we have come. Who knows we may be playing fully holographic games by the year 3000. That’s something I would like to see but does that even count as ‘graphics’? I guess that’s a whole other ‘One for the road’.

Aside from how good graphics can actually get in the future, the other aspect of gaming is ‘innovation’, a mantra that Nintendo pedals in today’s market. Have games and gaming become more innovative? If hardware has leapt and bounded into the 21st Century like Bambi on steroids, we would suggest that ‘innovation’ has come into the 21st Century like a tortoise with bronchitis, coughing and spluttering with not much to look forward to. In terms of games, you could argue that they are all the same. One FPS after another, one RPG after another and so on and so on. Gaming really has not changed that much. Is today’s Call Of Duty 4 any different to the ‘Doom’ of old? In many ways, it is, but only in terms of who your enemy is, your objectives and graphic capability. Its still shooting at enemies with guns on a screen with graphics. The same goes for any game type. Games will always evolve in terms of the graphics and what your enemy is but real ‘innovation’ has not come around for a long time. Innovation has come in the form of ‘light guns’ for example, who would have thought in the 60’s that we would be shooting weapons at a real time responsive screen for example.

Nintendo has recently claimed that their DS and Wii are innovation incarnate. With their touch screens and motion sensor bars etc..

Few people though have failed to notice that none of this is innovative. The motion sensing has been done before with the NES accessory the ‘Power Glove’. The touch screen has been done before with everyday PDA’s and also the Gameboy pretender the Tiger Electronic ‘Game.com’. The DS has a ‘blow hole’ in it. This has been done before with another home console favourite. You also may think the Wii’s ability to let you download games like the 360 and PS3 is also quite innovative for its time…the Intellivision in 1980 was the first console to have this ability. Technically.

Its all been done before. So what is actually new? Nothing is new. If anything Nintendo have just re-invented the wheel. They have polished what was already there. That’s not a bad thing, just that it proves that innovation is non-existent in today’s gaming world.

So what exactly are we after? For that answer you have to look at TV programmes like ‘Tomorrows world’ and the ‘Gadget Show’, Fancy playing ‘Pac man’ with you as ‘Pac man’ in a virtual street layout? Perhaps you want to have rumble pads attached to different areas on your body, one hit to the groin area and ooooh that’s gotta hurt! Maybe future gaming should involve true holographic arena’s. Some of these things have been trying to break onto the market since I can remember, so maybe even they could not be classed as innovative…but the difference is, these ideas have never made it to mainstream gaming. Is that due to cost? Most probably.

So what about 30 years from now….will we playing on a Nintendo ‘Puu’ with them claiming that ‘rumble pads’ are innovative? What road will gaming go down? Will we still be sat in front of our TV screens playing Call of Duty 3001? Is this all gaming has to offer, better graphics? How real could graphics get? If they got too real would the censors put a stop to gaming? At that point would gaming not have to evolve again and become genuinely innovative? Gamers have not complained about innovation..ever!, since the height of gaming in the late seventies and through to the late eighties gamers have accepted that TV screen based gaming is all there is. Whilst graphics get better and better every 5 years why should people complain. If it ever gets to a point where graphics really cant get that much better without actually being true-to-life what will happen then? That’s when true innovation for gaming will have to take effect and then we will see a whole world of innovation because for the companies that don’t innovate, I would suggest they wont be around for long and we may even enter a dark age of gaming.