The Smart TV companies are coming for the regular gaming market fan-base. Philips is teaming up with another company to release their serious offering. This has already impacted the market and will do so into the future.
The Philips Prophecy
For quite some time now many of us have been talking about the fact that smart televisions are on the rise. It was all over E3 that the console companies wanted to integrate TV. Now it is finally happening.
The Philips uWand Product
The system itself is a simple combination of a wand controller with a camera that tracks the movement. It uses this to keep track of the cursor on the screen. The games themselves are being labeled as same-screen games. The uWand is fairly similar to many other wand controllers on the market now.
Gamious Teams with Philips
In a strange move for an electronics company they decided to not develop the games themselves. Take that, Sony. Instead Gamious will be handling their games including finding developers among other duties.
Single Screen Multiplayer Games
They appear to incorporate a split screen that you flip. We aren’t sure how this will work in gameplay yet and they will probably release more details later. The first game coming out will be called Dark Day LA where one player is a vampire and another is a police sniper set up to stop them. We’re probably as lost as you are as to why single screen multiplayer is new.
The Gaming Impact
Whether this system is a huge success or dismal failure all the major companies will react. Even if it’s not a threat it will be seen as one due to the sheer size of the casual market. Even with the growth of tablets and other casual platforms a great piece of it remains untapped. Regardless of how it goes it looks like a push for more casual games and devices is on the horizon in a big way.
