For many months now, as the world has been edging ever closer to the release of the next-gen consoles from Microsoft and Sony, the notion of a ‘new era of gaming’ has been floating around the gaming community. These latest consoles promise to unleash untold power within our homes, and enable a level of gameplay – the likes of which we have never seen before.
Of course, the question on many people’s minds is this: will the games live up to the hardware? It’s all very well and good bringing our consoles into a new generation, but that change will not be felt until the entire industry can keep up with the raw power they now hold in their hands.
So, in spite of the better hardware, will gaming really undergo all that many changes? Yes, we will experience crystal clear graphics and minimal loading screens, but each new generation of consoles offers improvements on the last – and we get used to those pretty quickly.
If you’re wondering whether the ‘new era’ of gaming is really on its way, then read more below.
Change Has Been Brewing for a While
Sony and Microsoft have been working on this new generation of consoles for a long time, and many of us are used to the idea already – even if we have yet to try the new devices for ourselves. This is not, however, the only factor which has been in development behind the scenes – plenty more promises to transform every facet of the gaming world.
Take, for instance, Aspire Global – an indomitable force within the iGaming industry – who acquired yet another strong force, Pariplay, just over a year ago. For those not operating within the world of iGaming, this news may have passed by relatively unseen, but the results certainly won’t have.
Aspire Global stand as one of the most popular online casino platforms in the world, while Pariplay stand at the forefront of the development of the games themselves. Together, they have created a veritable powerhouse that seeks to drive the world of iGaming further forward, and to consistently improve the experiences of every player who logs into their site.
Yet another example is the rise of SaaS – or Streaming as a Service. In tandem with the latest hardware, a more fluid, versatile approach to gaming has been facilitated by the introduction of new streaming services from the likes of Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Facebook. With these services to hand, we will all be able to carry our games around with us wherever we go, and to dip in and out of hot new titles with much greater flexibility than we have enjoyed before.
With these factors in mind, it is clear that the software has long been preparing to evolve alongside the hardware itself, and that change has been bubbling behind the scenes for many months already.
Gaming Holds More Influence than Ever Before
Just under a year ago, in December of 2019, Netflix first released the initial series of The Witcher, inspired by the video game of the same name. The show came so highly anticipated that the production company elected to sign a second season even before the first was released, and a spin-off is already in the works, too.
Alone, this may not seem like big news, but the streaming service has also announced plans to turn plenty of other franchises into their own series, too. A wide range of video game titles are preparing to enter onto the streaming circuit over the next few years – even as Netflix moves to chop a number of other shows that proved popular among their userbase.
It would appear that, as the promise of a new era of gaming edges closer, the entire video game industry is impacting popular culture more than ever before.
Of course, it could be the case that, after losing their access to a number of other popular series, Netflix is simply looking for another genre to replace it. There are, however, plenty of movies already in varying stages of development from some of Hollywood’s biggest production companies – also inspired by games – and preparing to make their way onto the silver screen over the coming years, which just proves quite how lucrative the world of gaming has become for the entire entertainment industry.
The new era of gaming is built largely upon the latest round of big name consoles, but that only tells us half the story. Throughout the 2020s, we can anticipate the video gaming industry’s hold over the wider world of entertainment to continue to strengthen, and for gaming to undergo some serious changes that impact almost every area of our lives.
