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Design Materials – Outcome 1 Computer Games: Design Outcome 1 F915 10/11/12 Computer Games: Design - Outcome 1 F915 10/11/12 Page 1 Design Materials – Outcome 1 Contents Contents .............................................................................................................. 2 The History of Gaming Consoles ........................................................................ 5 Consoles Today .................................................................................................. 6 Portable Media Players ....................................................................................... 7 Control and Input Devices ...................................................................................... 9 Joysticks ............................................................................................................. 9 Mouse ................................................................................................................. 9 Keyboard ............................................................................................................. 9 Steering Wheel.................................................................................................. 10 Gamepads ........................................................................................................ 10 Paddle ............................................................................................................... 10 Trackball ........................................................................................................... 10 Pedals ............................................................................................................... 11 Touch Screen .................................................................................................... 11 Motion Sensing ................................................................................................. 11 Light Gun .......................................................................................................... 11 Mind-Control Headsets ..................................................................................... 11 Output Devices ..................................................................................................... 12 Hard Disks ........................................................................................................ 14 IDE Drives ......................................................................................................... 14 SATA Drives...................................................................................................... 15 Solid State Drive (SSD) ..................................................................................... 15 Nintendo DS Storage Devices .............................................................................. 17 First Generation Devices ................................................................................... 17 Second Generation Devices ............................................................................. 17 Wii Internal Storage ........................................................................................... 19 Xbox 360 Internal storage ................................................................................. 20 Sound Cards ......................................................................................................... 24 Motherboard ...................................................................................................... 26 Processor and Cooling ...................................................................................... 26 Computer Games: Design - Outcome 1 F915 10/11/12 Page 2 Design Materials – Outcome 1 Advanced Video Graphics ................................................................................. 27 Random Access Memory (RAM) ....................................................................... 27 Persistent Storage ............................................................................................. 27 Power Supply .................................................................................................... 27 Optical Disks ..................................................................................................... 27 Don’t Forget the Case ....................................................................................... 28 Xbox Specification ............................................................................................. 29 Xbox 360 Variants ............................................................................................. 29 Wii specification ................................................................................................ 31 Wii Controller (Wii Remote) ............................................................................... 32 Wii MotionPlus .................................................................................................. 32 Wii Vitality Sensor ............................................................................................. 33 PSP ................................................................................................................... 34 NDS Lite, D Si and D Si XL ............................................................................... 35 Gp2X ................................................................................................................. 39 GP2X Wiz ......................................................................................................... 41 Symbian ............................................................................................................ 42 RIM Blackberry.................................................................................................. 44 Windows Phone 7 ............................................................................................. 44 Apple iPhone ..................................................................................................... 47 Google Android ................................................................................................. 49 Other (Palm/Linux) ............................................................................................ 50 Flash ................................................................................................................. 58 Alternatives to Flash .......................................................................................... 61 Emerging Technologies ........................................................................................ 62 Recent Advances in 3D Graphics ..................................................................... 62 Location-Based Gaming .................................................................................... 63 Eye-controlled Gaming ...................................................................................... 64 Augmented Reality ............................................................................................ 64 The Future of Mobile Game Development ........................................................ 65 Capital (Investment) Layer ................................................................................ 67 Product and Talent (Design and Creative) Layer .............................................. 68 Computer Games: Design - Outcome 1 F915 10/11/12 Page 3 Design Materials – Outcome 1 Production and Tools Layer .............................................................................. 68 Hardware Layer ................................................................................................. 69 End User Layer ................................................................................................. 69 Computer Games: Design - Outcome 1 F915 10/11/12 Page 4 Design Materials – Outcome 1 Introduction (L4, L5, L6) This document contains the on-line content for Learning Outcome One of Design Materials. The brackets at the right-hand-side of each section title you will see the level for which the material is written. However, don’t be constrained. If you are studying at a lower level, level 4 or 5, and what to enhance your knowledge by also reading material written for a higher level, please feel free to do so. There is nothing wrong with aiming for excellence. Gaming Platforms and Manufacturers (L4, L5, L6) Gaming platforms are the means by which you play computer games – xBox, PC, mobile phone – the list is almost endless. Wikipedia defines a video games console as “an interactive entertainment computer or modified computer system that produces a video display signal which can be used with a display device (a television, monitor, etc.) to display a video game.” The History of Gaming Consoles (Optional reading) The historical development of video games started with the introduction of Arcade machines. These were coin operated PC emulations. The first home video console was released by Magnavox in 1972. These could be connected to the TV and were not hugely successful. However, Atari followed closely with Pong and the interest in video games had begun. In the Christmas of 1975 over 150,000 Pong units were sold. This was a massive achievement in its day. Atari continued to develop the Pong range with Super Pong and Super Pong 10 following closely. Super Pong 10 introduced us to hand held external Paddle controllers and this is the basis for many of the controllers we use today. The industry went quiet after the introduction of Pong and it wasn’t until Atari