Carrying on a separate conversation on the GAME thread, are mobile games where we are headed, where 'Gaming' is a feature of devices as opposed to their primary function and the platform is software rather than hardware based?

I only ask because as a Teacher I tend to talk to young people about gaming more than most and when I ask them whether or not a lack of buttons on a phone compared to a traditional console is an issue none of them care.

We (and the media) talk up buttons as an integral part of classic games design but there is a whole generation of children and young adults growing up where touchscreen and tilt controls are the norm. Go even younger and Freemium and Free-to-Play titles are the norm beyond the purchase of 3-4 games for the console per year.

And what should we do as the older generation of gamers? As devs squeeze more out of portable platforms and enable them to stream to a TV (as the PS4 is rumoured to be doing) do we risk getting left behind if we do not adapt?

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I hope not.

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Prime Directives : Prosecute those who steal memes from other forums.

I see no reason why button control, motion control and touch control can't coexist.

Aren't PS Vita and the Wii U controller the first devices to combine all three input methods?

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I think they will be a big part of it. I think traditional gaming is set to struggle more as it's core audience ages.

I really like touchscreen, more than waving my body parts around in the vain hope that the Kinect thingy will recognise what the strawberry float I want to do!!!

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1 > 2 > 3 >>>>>>> 4 >>>>> 5

Touchscreen tech has reached maturity though, motion tech hasn't. At least wait for Kinect 2 before completely writing off the control method.

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Buttons are archaic.

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Buttons are no more archaic than keys on a keyboard.
A touch sensitive keyboard is infinitely more configurable than a keyboard but I'm willing to bet that almost everyone prefers a keyboard when typing than a touch panel. I have a vita and I use the keys way more than the touch screen as keys are more precise and I just prefer the feel of a button that has tactile feedback.

So far the Vita has shown me that games need to move away from Touchscreen controls as soon as possible. Uncharted in particular is only hurt by the Touchscreen/Touchpanel controls. Everytime a 'swipe your finger' prompt appears on the screen I feel it takes me out of the game.

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Horses for coarses really, Uncharted was never going to work well with touchscreen controls.

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Ok I'll test it in two years.

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1 > 2 > 3 >>>>>>> 4 >>>>> 5

I kind of hope not, too, but I think they are. Will take a bit of mental rewiring in some cases, but eventually tablets/phones will comfortably host pretty much all genres. Most of them work well enough on tablets these days with a bit of tweaking.

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My 4yr old struggles to reach the thumb stick of the Wii nunchuk and finds it hard to control. My daughter initially moved the nunchuk around with her arm to try and control the character - I had to keep telling her to just use her thumb on the stick.

The point is, to new users thumb sticks are not actually very user friendly or intuitive at all. With practice they work great as we know, but they ARE an obstacle to "getting into gaming". Touch screens are 100% more accessible, both my kids have no problem from the get go on the iPad. That's the problem, touch is not that great for many game types (platformers, certain types of shooters etc) but it is easy to pick up. Thumb sticks have the exact opposite problem.

Maybe the longer term answer will be some merging of touch screen and haptic feedback on the screen???

Let's wait and see what touchscreens with haptic feedback are like first. Eye tracking technology could also be pretty cool on tablet devices.

Games like Draw Race, Flight Control and Where's My Water? are all good examples of touch-screen games that would be hard to emulate with traditional controls.

For the time being I mostly prefer sticks and buttons.

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ARBEITSLOS UND SPASS DABEI

Step back in time 25 years to the first time you played Sonic the Hedgehog; I can't be the only person here who used to move the pad upwards whenever I jumped! I'm just amazed it took the industry this long to see how it could be built into consoles.

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Considering my train journeys everyday is chocker full of people playing games on touch screen smart phones I would say yes.

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It's cocktail time!. Then again when isn't it.

I still do this subconsciously

I still remember my dad getting his hair off with me on Christmas day playing Mario 3 because I kept pressing up and running into the first Goomba

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