The Inevitable Death of Dedicated Smart PhonesSeptember 18, 2011 by

Hey all,

I'm just here to offer up a counter point to the "as technology progresses, smart phones will eventually eliminate dedicated gaming handhelds" argument.

First off, I guess I should say that it's an interesting argument and one that has some merit. Companies can pack a lot of expensive hardware into a smart phone relative to gaming devices because A) people are willing to pay more for a device that they will use functionally, not just as a luxury, and B) service providers will often subsidize these devices for a new or renewed contract, giving them an attractive price point that is usually comparable to, if not less than, that of a dedicated gaming handheld.

So you've got more power for a lower price (you were going to have a cell phone plan anyway, right?) plus the added advantage that in today's world a cell phone is considered a necessity, and smart phones are becoming the new baseline model of the cell phone. For those who have already taken the plunge (heedless of their contribution to Skynet's imminent uprising) there's no apparent gateway price standing between them and their games. And, not only are the games cheaper (the actual value of said games is something else entirely) they are immediately available without the owner ever having to set foot in a store. Then there's the eternal problem of pocket space. No one would call it more convenient to carry around multiple devices to satisfy both your gaming and, um, smart-phoning needs. In the battle for survival gaming hardware losing on both the hardware-to-price front and on the front of convenience.

And yet I believe, as the title indicates, that it is dedicated smart phone hardware that is on its way out. It may not happen in the next five years, though the technology that I believe will replace it exists today, but before a decade has passed I think the majority of consumers will be calling, texting, tweeting, liking, and surfing using a device other than a dedicated smartphone.

Today many of us own multiple mobile devices with built in 3G (or 4G, or 5G, etc.) capabilities, which is entirely unnecessary and a little wasteful. Think about it, you have your 4G cell phone, your 3G PSVita, your iPad, your Kindle (I have actually have none of those at the moment, but you get the point), each of which has its own hardware to connect to a wireless network. Wouldn't it be far cheaper to pull the 3G/4G hardware out of each of these and instead wear a 4G enabled wireless tether as its own separate device? We've already seen android phones become portable wifi hubs for your other electronic devices. Why not cut out the "middle man" device altogether?

I see this personal portable wireless hub taking the form of a watch with a multitouch screen as its face, sort of like a current gen iPod Nano on a wrist strap. This device would have no real computing power of its own, but would serve, in combination with a bluetooth headset, as a basic cell phone, able to send and receive texts as well as make phone calls. If you want smartphone-like performance just synch up a wifi enabled mini tablet, which you can use to browse the web, video chat, and make calls, just like an iPhone. What's more, you wouldn't have to haul this "phone" out of your pocket every time you get a call or text because you still have the hub in the mix. If you want to see who is calling, just glance at your wrist to see if it's worth replying to immediately. This hub would also be truly silent and take less energy in vibrate  mode, as you're going to feel a watch pressed right up against your skin with much less movement than a phone in your pocket.

But you aren't limited to using a smartphone-esque tablet to monitor and make calls, chat, websurf, etc. you could use any sufficiently powerful bluetooth device, from a full-sized tablet, to a web-capable e-reader, to a laptop, to--and here's my point--your gaming handheld. No longer will you have to be "weighed down"  by both a gaming handheld and a phone. With a simple app, your gaming device can become your smart phone without manufacturers like Nintendo or Sony having to make a handheld/cell phone hybrid (something Nintendo has pretty much sworn never to do). That's why I see dedicated smart phones fading long before gaming handhelds do.

Of course this wouldn't solve all of Nintendo and Sony's woes. They're still going to face competition from tablets, iPod touches, etc. in the portable gaming space. Now, however, all devices will be on equal footing, with any and all of them being capable of serving as your "cell phone," as needed. There's also the younger gamers market, which Nintendo and Sony will be hard pressed to keep (though, with the popularity of the Mario Nintendo certainly has an edge).

If this does indeed come to pass, then Iwata's strict stance of making games only for Nintendo hardware is not so short sighted as some of his critics seem to think. Indeed, those who see smart phones as the only possible future of portable gaming may be the ones lacking vision.

That's what I think anyway. How about you?

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E3 2011: In B4 I'm Proven Wrong...June 4, 2011 by

Hey guys, E3 is fast approaching which means that all (or at least most) of our questions are going to be answered. What exclusive games does Microsoft have coming for the second half of 2011? What will the launch lineup and price be for the NGP? And what will Project Café really be like? Questions of system power, what the controller looks like, what games are coming, and many more should be answered during Nintendo's Press Conference next Tuesday morning. But the question I most want and fear to have answered is this: will the controller will employ haptic technology in its touch screen?

Haptic technology simulates the experience of feeling, touching, or using a virtual object. Force feedback, also known as "rumble," is a crude form of haptic technology that we've been playing with on our gaming consoles since the N64/PS1 generation. When it comes to touch screens there are, more or less, two competing technologies, both of which aim to give you the same thing, the ability to feel textured surfaces that aren't really there.

The first uses one or more mechanical actuators to vibrate the screen in such a way that you feel, or think you feel, a certain textured surface beneath your fingers. This technology is being championed by a company fittingly named Immersion. I'd go on explaining, but the video below does such a good job of both showing you what this tech is and how it works that you should probably just watch that instead:

Consumer electronic devices using this technology are coming to market soon. The first device to use it will be Toshiba's dual screen netbook, the Libretto w100 ( It will be used in cell phones, tablets, GPS units, and even slot machines in the near future.

Another example of actuator-driven haptic feedback.

The second technology is a little less straightforward. This tech is being pioneered by Swedish company, Senseg. It uses no actuators or vibration of any kind. Instead devices are everlayed with a clear, thin film which creates an electrical field that stimulates the skin to give the impression of a vibration, a "click," or a textured surface, among other things. Those who want the a full breakdown of the technology should follow this link. I warn you though, it's a little dry. What's more exciting is their description of the two Senseg demo units. One shows how the tech might be used on a portable device, simulating buttons, and feeling the dividing borders between different sections of the screen. The second lays the film over a track pad and lets users feel different textures on different regions of the screen. It shows how, in the future, surfing online might be "enhanced" by feeling different textures in the images you view. To see it in action, watch this video:

It's important to note that this feel film is both flexible and transparent, so it can be applied to a video screen, or a curved surface, such as the back of a cell phone or the grips of a controller.

Now you may have wondered about the title of this post. As I mentioned earlier, E3 is almost here, which means Project Café is about to be revealed. Ever since I heard the rumor that Project Café might employ a haptics in its 6" touch screen, I've been enthralled, okay, obsessed by the gameplay possibilities the technology offers. Pretty much every Café post I've written since then has dealt with these possibilities in some form. I'm a little worried that after all my excitement over this feature Nintendo may march on stage and show me a device that lacks it. So, before I can be proven wrong and my posts rendered moot, I thought I'd get one more word in on the subject.

Now, we all know how the technologies work, and if you really want to know how I think it should be used in the controller you've got lots of my old posts that you can read. At the moment, however, I want to make a case for why this seemingly incredible rumor actually makes a lot of sense. First of all, it's cheap, so price should be no barrier for Nintendo. In Slashgear's very readable writeup on the tech (which I highly recommend) they note that Senseg's technology adds only 10 to 20 cents to the cost of a device when mass produced. Affordability is one of the key pillars of Nintendo's design philosophy, much to the chagrin of graphics-philes over the years. However, another key pillar is innovation. This technology is both novel and inexpensive, so it makes sense that Nintendo would make use of it. Secondly, the rumor's source, while little-known to English-speaking readers, is actually the logical magazine from which such a rumor might leak. The "Nintendo Feel" story was originally reported by I wouldn't be surprised if most of you have never heard of the site (I know I hadn't before this story broke), but it's actually a big gaming news site in Sweden. Now, why does it make sense for to break this news? Because Senseg's (noticing a pattern here?) headquarters are located in Helsinki, Sweden. They also have offices in Tokyo. So, if Nintendo were interested in the technology, it would be very easy for Senseg to send demo units to Nintendo's R&D center in Kyoto. If Nintendo did, in fact, decide to put this technology into their next console, then the news would travel back to home base in, you guessed it, Helsinki. Now, if you work for Senseg in Helsinki, where are you going to leak the news that a major videogame company will be using your technology in their next console? That's right, Even taken together, these two facts are by no means a confirmation (sadly), but it does make sense. I just wanted to show that this rumor, while it seems unbelievable at first glance, is actually quite credible. And that's all I can do.

Whatever Nintendo decides to do, I hope that this post has been informative and helped prepare you for the next wave of touch screen devices. Thanks for reading.

Sources and Links:;;;;;;;;;

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Electrowetting (not as kinky as it sounds) and How it Will Change Your Gaming Portables ForeverApril 29, 2011 by

So it seems I've finally worked the marrow of possible speculation from the bare-bones details that we have on Nintendo's Project Café. Yes, even I, I who will try to predict next year's hurricane season based on a gust of wind (not, strictly speaking, true, but an accurate analogy, I think), have run out of things to say on the subject. As the internet at large breathes an audible sigh of relief, I must add the caveat of "for now" to that, because once the next wave of rumors hits I'll probably get right back on that dead horse.

For now, however, I think our discussion should move on to greener pastures, and to a subject with a little more hard info to go on. Allow me to introduce you, those of you who are not already acquainted that is, to Liquavista's upcoming electrowetting displays.

I've already posted this video in an earlier blog, but if you missed it the first time, you really should take a look.

The video is a demo of Liquavista's prototype screens running under direct sunlight followed by a quick overview and explanation of the technology. I'm not sure where the cameraman/interviewer learned his trades, but he's a master of neither. Despite the amateur styling, the video really is fascinating to watch.

Now, if you've owned a portable system in the last twenty-five years, you'll know that one of on-the-go gaming's greatest weaknesses is, ironically, the great outdoors. See, portable LCD devices tend to be nigh-unplayable in the outside because they just aren't bright enough to compete with direct sunlight. Sometimes this issue can be warded off by holding the system at a specific angle so as to reduce glare, but this is inconvenient, mostly infective, and (as in the case of Nintendo's 3DS, which requires the player to keep the system front and center in order to view the 3D effect) can kind of defeat the purpose of gaming on the go.

That's one of the main reasons Liquavista's screens have me so excited. They actually take the sun's light and bounce it right back out through the image so that the brighter the sun shines, the brighter the image becomes with no additional drain on the battery. The end result is something like viewing an image on paper or e-ink, only with the color and clarity of an LCD image and a frame rate capable of playing full color video (up to 60FPS on current iterations). The image can also be back-lit.

These screens also save on power in other ways. The Liquavista rep in the video claims that if you were to put one of their electrowetting screens in an iPad instead of its LCD, then the tablet could go for days without charging instead of hours. Imagine what would have happened if these screens had been available to Nintendo prior to the launch of the 3DS. Their new handheld would have had greatly increased battery life and brightness with no loss of frame rate (because the screens are locked at or below 60 FPS anyway). Sony's NGP is rumored to have only 4-6 hours of battery life. Wouldn't it be nice if they could more than double that number just by dropping one of these screens into the machine? In the case of Sony's upcoming handheld, however, the biggest drain on battery life may actually be the powerful game-processing hardware the system is rocking rather than the screen (especially considering that the screen is no mere LCD, but a more energy efficient OLED). So, while Liquavista screens aren't necessarily a cure-all for battery life, they certainly can help.

For developers the most appealing aspect of electrowetting screens may not be their brightness or low power consumption, but their price. The Luquavista rep in the video claims that it is fairly simple and inexpensive to convert existing LCD manufacturing plants into electrowetting screen plants. The components that go into Liquavista's screens are also cheaper and more widely available than those used in LCD manufacture. On top of all that, the rep also stated that his company will be aggressively marketing these screens against LCD which means that (while he wouldn't name a specific price) upgrading to a Liquavista screen could actually cost the same or only slightly more than current LCD screens.

Now, in the real world nothing's ever perfect. The only issue I can see so far based on the demo video is that the screen has got a sort of oily sheen to it. This is probably due to the oils the Liquavista rep mentions are used in the screen's construction and more likely than not, is only apparent in intense sunlight (much like the rainbow sheen seen on the oil-and-water puddles you see in parking lots after a good rain). Provided that this is the case, it's safe to say that a somewhat shimmery picture is still superior to one so dim it renders the game unplayable.

True, this technology may be more targeted toward e-readers and tablets than gaming devices at this point (rumor has it Amazon is going to unveil a new Kindle Color some time in the latter half of this year and that the device may indeed use a Liquavista color screen), but I still feel that this technology greatly benefit handheld gaming systems. But enough about what I think, what do you think? Are these screens the solution to all of our on-the-go gaming woes, or is there some deal-breaking issue I've overlooked? Let me know in the comments below.

I leave you with this brief video which shows a prototype flexible version of the screen being bent to hell and back without breaking by someone in Liquavista's R&D department. No, it's not as impressive as that invincible flexible OLED demo vid that Samsung has up, and I'm not sure what gaming applications flexible screens would have anyway, but it's neat to see all the same.

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