For the past months, the Big 3 (Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony) have been issuing statements regarding their upcoming next generation consoles. With the X-Box 2 to be scheduled to appear as close as next year, it seems that the race for the next console war has begun. But with the advanced technological infrastructure of the current consoles, is it even necessary to issue a new version of any console this soon?
Videogame consoles get upgraded due to new opportunities brought on by technological advancements. With more memory, faster processors, and new graphics cards, the consumer needs to be wowed again, inciting him or her to make a purchase. The matter of better graphics is, due to the inherent visibility, the most important. But it remains to be seen whether better graphic capability should be the way forward. The current standards of graphic display are such, that photo-realism seems to be the next logical step. The question is whether society would accept games which portray diegetic (or in-game) worlds and avatars with realistic imagery. For one, I do not believe that photo-realistic graphics should be a goal. The famous Liebermann committee hearings in the early nineties were triggered due to society’s reaction towards the videogames Mortal Kombat and Nighttrap. Although there is still no scientific evidence linking videogame violence with violent behavior, this was not really the issue. What mattered was that for the first time, videogame violence transgressed from a cartoon-like portrayal (like in the game Streetfighter) to a realistic display of controlled violence. Nighttrap used filmed cut-scenes of real actors to show the player the consequences of his decisions. Mortal Kombat used digitized images of actors to portray the combatants. In both cases, society was first confronted with controlled motion picture-like violence.
If we look at the videogame landscape today, we can see that photorealistic portrayal is not commonly used. Advanced graphical capabilities are mostly used to enhance detail in a symbolic virtual environment. Still, photo-realism is something the industry aims for. Consumers seem to be eager to adopt this new portrayal of imagery. It can be assumed that due to ever advancing technological progress and the manufacturers’ willingness to incorporate this technology in new consumer offerings, the goal of photo-realistic imagery will be attained. I predict that when we have passed the boundary of being unable to see the difference between a motion picture and a videogame, society will turn against the videogame industry again. Although the general public is used to the realistic portrayal of violence through motion pictures and television shows, the ability to control and direct that violence might be too much to accept. I do not think it would be morally possible to actually have games like Grand Theft Auto and Hitman with photo-realistic imagery. As Steven Poole already pointed out in a previous column in Edge magazine, Hitman is essentially a murder simulator. At this moment, this might be acceptable to a point, since the imagery makes it clear that the violence is not real. But will this distinction still be made when the person the player kills looks, talks, and behaves like a real person on film? The same argument could be made regarding the GTA series. It has to be seen whether society will accept a realistic videogame in which innocent bystanders get gruesomely killed by a person with a baseball bat. In this regard, the game Manhunt already tried to cross that boundary. While the violent activities themselves can still be attributed to videogame violence, the replay of these activities comes very close to a photo-realistic portrayal of a snuff-movie. It is surprising that this game has not gained more negative attention from the mainstream press than it did.
The drive for an eventual photo-realistic graphical capability might be a huge setback for the videogames industry. When videogames, with the current level of violence, will be portrayed in a photo-realistic manner, a negative backlash will undoubtedly follow. With that in mind, it seems that Nintendo’s strategy of “pure gaming” might be the unlikely wining formula for the next console wars.
