Best Gaming Tech from CES 2015
Last week’s CES 2015 was the biggest ever - attracting more than 3,500 exhibitors and 200,000+ attendees. The show had everything from curved HDTVs, to the latest wearables, to drones and quadcopters.
The gaming industry also had a big presence at the event - from brand new startups to juggernauts like Oculus and Sony making headlines. Here are a few gaming highlights from CES 2015:
- Well-known gaming accessory company Razer made its virtual reality debut with a head-mounted platform called the OSVR - aimed at being affordable ($199) and open sourcel.
- The Motix wants to replace your mouse with finger pointing. A motion-tracking sensor is placed behind your keyboard, and a tactile-feedback strip attaches right below your spacebar (for mouse buttons), so that your hands never have to leave the keyboard. Games that make use of shortcuts might be a great fit for this (like real time strategy).
- Sony announced a Google Glass competitor, called the Sony SmartEyeglass Attach. The difference is that Sony’s product can be clipped on to any pair of glasses via a single optical display. Is the future of casual virtual reality gaming near?
Minecraft Beats Several Guinness Records
Minecraft is by far the most successful indie game - it was started in 2008 by just a few guys, and just last year, was bought by Microsoft for $2.5 billion in cash. To put its current popularity into perspective, 1.4 million people were playing the game at the same time just last Saturday.
As Minecraft continues to make headlines, it’s also dominating the Guinness World Records Gamer’s Edition. Check out a few interesting stats below:
- Best-selling indie game: Number of total PC/Mac sales have totaled over 16 million
- Most popular beta game: 10 million participants from December 2010 to November 2011 (pre version 1.0)
- Most played Xbox Live game: 1.75 billion hours as of May 2014
Predictive Analytics in Gaming
The ability to track customer metrics has become easier than ever, thanks to the advancement of big data technology. We can now track statistics accurately and in real time, to help predict behavior and adjust our businesses accordingly.
The predictive analytics model is particularly great for video game developers who want to improve revenue, engagement and growth, since events/user behavior can be easily tracked. Our CEO, Dmitri Williams, recently wrote an article about prediction in the gaming industry. You can read it on Gamasutra here.