3 ms·

I saw something recently, a skeleton laptop that would act as a terminal for your android phone. My money is on the mobile phone being a mobile personal cpu/st

by xd 14y ago

I saw something recently, a skeleton laptop that would act as a terminal for your android phone. My money is on the mobile phone being a mobile personal cpu/storage that can be tethered to skeleton interfaces like tablets and laptops. But the PC as we know it will be kept around for a long long time by gamers alone.

watmough 14y ago
Ahhh, the complex, expensive solution, to a problem that nobody has. See also, another shining success, the Palm Folio. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palm_Foleo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palm_Foleo And on an even lamer note, the BlackBerry PlayBook requiring a paired handset to do email. The problem with this thinking, is that consumers won't tolerate difficulty or inconvenience. The iPhone simply becomes an application now, and apps have shrunk to fit this metaphor. It is fast, it is convenient, and for many people, their needs can be entirely satisfied by these small handheld apps.
mrkmcknz 14y ago
I think the desktop market is here to stay maybe not for consumers (who are aggressively changing from desktop to laptops/tablets and mobile only) but certainly in the business and specialized markets. Gaming will stay on desktops for some time, until at least it's effective from a pricing point to go mobile. Here in the UK at least I can't remember the last office I went into where desktops weren't dominant.
- pvidler 14y ago
  Mobile gaming is already huge. They are mostly casual games, certainly, but they are selling quite well. Also, I have been to a steadily increasing number of offices in recent years where everyone had laptops (typically Dell, I think) with docking stations and monitors. This is usually to make it easier for presentations, attending conferences/training days and working from home.
  - SCdF 14y ago
    I have yet to find someone who thought themselves a gamer before mobile gaming became a thing, who actually likes more than a couple of mobile games. They are mostly utter garbage, more in the Zynga 'social' angle than anything else. The majority of what's left have incredibly simple gameplay mechanics, because the control schemes open to you just don't allow any more complexity. apart from the gyroscope, which I'm not convinced anyone will ever use well, all your input methods involve you obscuring the screen with your fingers!? And can never provide feedback to the user!? Madness. Mobile gaming is huge, and it makes money, but mobile gaming is a bit like 'social' gaming: it is not actually 'gaming', as gaming is on other platforms. These things exist side by side, one does not replace the other.
    - pvidler 14y ago
      True enough, but there are also the mobile ports of older games -- notably the touch-friendly ones like monkey island, but more serious 'gamer' games are also coming, such as the Baldur's Gate rerelease. There are variations on C&C and Starcraft (official for the former, less so the latter). There are board games like monopoly and card games like poker and even magic the gathering. On the social gaming side, I agree that very little of what you do in things like FarmVille actually seems like gaming, but then that was also my experience with much of World of Warcraft… I think you just have to give it time -- gaming on mobile devices will probably grow up with the users, who seem to be predominately younger folk and teenagers from what I've seen (referring to mobile gamers here, not smartphone users in general). Also, I have high hopes for the low initial cost and easy in-app purchases finally leading to some decent story-driven episodic games.
      - SCdF 14y ago
        I agree, there is certainly potential there. However, much in the same way playing street fighter is crap on a keyboard compared to a joystick/pad and any FPS is crap on a controller compared to a mouse + keyboard, a huge portion of game types just aren't suited to the 'slate of immovable glass' form factor. Imo, mobile gaming is good at: - The tiny subset of games where the controls are naturally dragging your finger over glass (Fruit Ninja, those airplane landing games, not much else) - Turn-based games where the primary form of interaction is suited to a one-click mouse / finger. Turn-based because there is not enough feedback for accuracy in real-time games, and because it means you pick them up and put them down really easily (as long as state is remembered) which suits on the go play. So stuff like Civilisation, turn-based 4x games, final fantasy style RPGs and XCOM style games are all good deep game genres that will hopefully make a competent jump to mobile. I see that Frozen Synapse (XCOM style-ish) is coming to iOS, which is particularly awesome (more awesome if it was on tablet android, but that's just my selfishness talking)

by xd 14y ago

watmough 14y ago

Ahhh, the complex, expensive solution, to a problem that nobody has. See also, another shining success, the Palm Folio. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palm_Foleo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palm_Foleo And on an even lamer note, the BlackBerry PlayBook requiring a paired handset to do email. The problem with this thinking, is that consumers won't tolerate difficulty or inconvenience. The iPhone simply becomes an application now, and apps have shrunk to fit this metaphor. It is fast, it is convenient, and for many people, their needs can be entirely satisfied by these small handheld apps.

mrkmcknz 14y ago

I think the desktop market is here to stay maybe not for consumers (who are aggressively changing from desktop to laptops/tablets and mobile only) but certainly in the business and specialized markets. Gaming will stay on desktops for some time, until at least it's effective from a pricing point to go mobile. Here in the UK at least I can't remember the last office I went into where desktops weren't dominant.

pvidler 14y ago
Mobile gaming is already huge. They are mostly casual games, certainly, but they are selling quite well. Also, I have been to a steadily increasing number of offices in recent years where everyone had laptops (typically Dell, I think) with docking stations and monitors. This is usually to make it easier for presentations, attending conferences/training days and working from home.
- SCdF 14y ago
  I have yet to find someone who thought themselves a gamer before mobile gaming became a thing, who actually likes more than a couple of mobile games. They are mostly utter garbage, more in the Zynga 'social' angle than anything else. The majority of what's left have incredibly simple gameplay mechanics, because the control schemes open to you just don't allow any more complexity. apart from the gyroscope, which I'm not convinced anyone will ever use well, all your input methods involve you obscuring the screen with your fingers!? And can never provide feedback to the user!? Madness. Mobile gaming is huge, and it makes money, but mobile gaming is a bit like 'social' gaming: it is not actually 'gaming', as gaming is on other platforms. These things exist side by side, one does not replace the other.
  - pvidler 14y ago
    True enough, but there are also the mobile ports of older games -- notably the touch-friendly ones like monkey island, but more serious 'gamer' games are also coming, such as the Baldur's Gate rerelease. There are variations on C&C and Starcraft (official for the former, less so the latter). There are board games like monopoly and card games like poker and even magic the gathering. On the social gaming side, I agree that very little of what you do in things like FarmVille actually seems like gaming, but then that was also my experience with much of World of Warcraft… I think you just have to give it time -- gaming on mobile devices will probably grow up with the users, who seem to be predominately younger folk and teenagers from what I've seen (referring to mobile gamers here, not smartphone users in general). Also, I have high hopes for the low initial cost and easy in-app purchases finally leading to some decent story-driven episodic games.
    - SCdF 14y ago
      I agree, there is certainly potential there. However, much in the same way playing street fighter is crap on a keyboard compared to a joystick/pad and any FPS is crap on a controller compared to a mouse + keyboard, a huge portion of game types just aren't suited to the 'slate of immovable glass' form factor. Imo, mobile gaming is good at: - The tiny subset of games where the controls are naturally dragging your finger over glass (Fruit Ninja, those airplane landing games, not much else) - Turn-based games where the primary form of interaction is suited to a one-click mouse / finger. Turn-based because there is not enough feedback for accuracy in real-time games, and because it means you pick them up and put them down really easily (as long as state is remembered) which suits on the go play. So stuff like Civilisation, turn-based 4x games, final fantasy style RPGs and XCOM style games are all good deep game genres that will hopefully make a competent jump to mobile. I see that Frozen Synapse (XCOM style-ish) is coming to iOS, which is particularly awesome (more awesome if it was on tablet android, but that's just my selfishness talking)