The Lecture entitled “Press Start to Continue: The Recent History and Near Future in Video Games”, attracted a sell-out rush for tickets.
The Lecture was given by Mike Froggatt, Cambridge based Principal Programmer for Sony Computer Entertainment Europe. Mike took us on a fascinating tour of the topic. Early on in the talk he mentioned the first known true Computer game, called “Spacewar”, devised in 1962 – a very basic game involving the navigation of simple “Spaceships” through a “Galactic starfield”, avoiding a gravity well.
He moved onto look at early games machines such as the Commodore 64, the Sinclair ZX81 Spectrum and the BBC Micro. Next to evolve were machines such as the Super Nintendo, and The Sega Megadrive…. The Megadrive actually used Motorola 68K chipsets – that had been around for about 11 years. This fact emphasised the point that the earlier machines just used “off the shelf components, whereas modern machines are custom built machines which reflect the most up to date devices available at the time of design…. Producing machines such as the PlayStation 3 so much in demand this year.
Mike metaphorically prised off the lid of the machines and look at how technology has moved. The Megadrive processor used about 70,000 transistors… this has increased to 10.5million transistors in the PlayStation 3. He used screen shots to explain how the graphics of machines have evolved from the 2 dimension “Sprite” figures employed in the Megadrive programmes such as “Sonic The Hedgehog” to the Programmable Geometry display list and Embedded Display Memory used today.
Every new design of machine generally increases available system memory 10 fold. The cost of developing each new machine is now significant. The Playstation 3 cost $2bn and took 5 years to develop…. This fact increases the perception that the whole industry has a multi-million turnover each year… a turnover larger than other entertainment industry.
Turning to the Games Software he showed more examples including the early “shoot-em-up” games. As he mentioned of the games there were whoops of recognition from members of the audience.He let us behind the scenes of the creation of some of the latest Computer Games being produced by Sony – giving a sneak preview of some using video clips.He emphasised how complex the creation of some games were becoming. Cars used in a new Car Racing game each took around 3 months to create.
Mike finished the Lecture with an idea of how Games and Consoles were developing to keep up with “The Frontiers of Computation”, the increasing realism seen by the players, and how players will increasingly interact across the Internet… Playing games like one he gave us a sneak preview of – where players interact using video-linked “Play boards” in their own homes.
He finished by promising us that Games Consoles and Programmes will continue to stay at the Forefront of consumer Electronics.
Following the Lecture he was bombarded by questions from the enthusiastic audience.
