Big 5 – Week 1: CES Edition

16 January 2020 Leave a comment

1. CES roundup

January in Las Vegas marks the return of the Consumer Electronics Show, where electronics manufacturers unveil the latest advancements in TVs and Computers, immediately making your recent holiday gifts obsolete. The game industry does not have a large of a presence here – our industry looks to E3, GDC, and Gamescom for most of the big announcements from game publishers – but console and PC manufacturers and their suppliers have a significant presence.

News outlets reported that there was extra emphasis placed on the strength and relevance of gaming laptops and desktop PCs, and their recent advancements in hardware specs and monitor refresh rates. Much of this is meant as a counterargument against streaming (cloud-rendered) services which obviously loom large for these players as a potential disruptor. And as e-sports and game streaming continues to grow in popularity we see a lot of the device manufacturers specifically targeting these markets.

Often cited highlights included Origin’s Big O PC (a PC/console combo designed for live-streamers to capture and broadcast their games) as well as Alienware’s UFO concept, a Switch-inspired console-like device. However, my favorite is the GE Kitchen Hub Microwave, which turns the door of a microwave into an Android Tablet, complete with front and down facing cameras if you want to stream your dinner prep. How long before we see games on this? I’m looking for the Cooking Mama AR game here.

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2. SONY announces PS5 logo

Sony took advantage of their CES Keynote to release the logo for the Playstation 5 and it looks…. exactly like what you would expect it would. Sony is sticking with the same font and branding as the two previous generations of console, so no surprises here.

Two other important pieces of information from the keynote:

  1. PSVR Sales have passed the 5 million unit mark, making it the best selling VR headset by far. (Google Cardboard and Samsung Gear boast better numbers, but as those were viewers for mobile devices, I don’t count them here. This is device dedicated explicitly to VR applications.)
  2. Playstation 4 has now sold over 104 million units, making it the 2nd best selling console of all time. The Playstation 2 holds the top honors with 158 million sold. With the PS5 due later this year, it seems unlikely that the PS2 needs to worry about losing the top slot anytime soon.

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3. AMD announces SmartSwitch

AMD (Advanced Micro Devices) announced their new SmartSwitch technology, which allows for AMD GPUs (Graphics Processing Unit) and CPUs (Central Processing Units) to accelerate performance by dynamically allocating power and focus to the chips based upon the load.

Tech reporters are speculating that this may be how Sony and Microsoft are promising that their upcoming consoles will be capable of supporting 8K resolution, as both feature AMD chips under the hood.

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4. Mexico school shooting, game connection probed

An 11 year old boy in northern Mexico brought two guns into a classroom, killing one teacher injuring another, as well as a number of his classmates, before killing himself. While the gun death rate is disturbingly high in Mexico, school shootings are very uncommon and so this has shocked the country.

During the shooting, the boy wore a shirt featuring the words “Natural Selection”, which is also the name of a FPS game that the boy was reported to have played often. This has led authorities to probe whether or not he was influenced by the game, reigniting the debate over whether there is a connection between violent video games and aggressive behavior.

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5. Texas gamer saves life of UK teammate

A young woman in Texas saved the life of a teammate in England after she heard him having a seizure and was able to contact authorities in the UK. The parents of the young man were downstairs, unaware that he was having a medical issue until the police knocked on the door. He was rushed to the hospital and stabilized.

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