Sports
We have almost reached the state when the simulation of sports will practically seem as real as what is being simulated – maybe one or two generations of hardware to go, then we’re there. If you stand a couple meters away from the screens of current consoles, it’s already almost indistinguishable.
I’m asking myself whether this will have an actual effect on the various sports themselves, the weekly spectacles. Will they be strong enough to stay interesting when their consumers (the ones that usually watch them televised) can actually participate? Or is is more the unpredictability and debating an individual player’s performance over a beer that makes it so interesting? What about interactions between real and virtual as they already happen in heavily GCI-enhanced replays of penalty shots, would that also work inversely? What happened if real and virtual would perfectly blend in the future?
(PS. Yes, I do prefer Nintendo’s current approach as well, but then again I’m a real sucker for hyper-realism sometimes)
April 3rd, 2007 at 1:23
Also interesting here is the whole e-sport movement, where playing video games is presented as big sport events. And for the hyper-realism sucker there is a lot of sweet candy out there.