Best Tech of 2010: Gamers Gaming Games

2010 has been a great year for technology in general affecting various sectors and cultural groups around the world. Here is As I See Tech's rundown of the best technologies for gamers that made remarkable achievements in 2010...

Game Consoles
There are basically three major players: Nintendo Wii, Sony PS3 and Microsoft Xbox 360.

Nintendo Wii
Nintendo Wii did not change much since launch. In 2010, Nintendo did bundle the Wii Motion Plus with no price increase. Wii Motion Plus allowed Wii to capture more complex motions as sampled in the Wii Sports Resort game.

Originally available only in white, Nintendo released the Black Wii in the spring of 2010. For the holidays of 2010, they released the Red Wii which was launched specially bundled with the new Super Mario Brothers game. So officially, Nintendo Wii now comes in 3 colors: white, black and red.

As of December 2010, Wii leads the generation over the PS3 and XBox 360 in sales.

Sony PS3
PS3's major upgrade this year is with the Playstation Move, which is Sony's answer to Nintendo Wii. The basic bundle includes the Playstation Eye and the Playstation Move controller. Optionally, there is also the Playstation Move Navigation controller which is basically a wireless controller for PS3 with a "Move"-themed form factor. Compared to Wii, the Playstation Move system is a better experience -- more likely because of the quality of the games developed aiming to take full advantage of the Move's enhanced and sensitive motion detection capabilities.

Microsoft XBox 360
XBox 360 got a major upgrade with a peripheral that made waves in the gaming and in the computing industry alike. First announced at the E3 2009 event, the long wait is over for Project Natal, now known as Kinect.

Experience with Kinect is downright awesome! The games are tiring but promise a lot of fun for all ages. If Nintendo Wii was a game changer in 2006, XBox 360 with Kinect is the game changer of 2010. Kinect allows players to play games without using any controllers. Rather, the player's entire body becomes the controller!

By design or by accident, Microsoft failed to close Kinect for XBox 360. Kinect hacks abound in just a few weeks after Kinect was released to stores in November 2010. For example, Kinect enjoys great fancy in MIT as the cheapest implementation of the "Minority Report" user-interface.

Be it for gamers or for hackers or for researchers/enthusiasts, Kinect sales makes history as the fastest selling electronic device surpassing Apple's iPad by the double. Microsoft expects that Kinect would hit the projected sale of 5 million units by the end of 2010.

Mobile Game Consoles
There's not much new with Nintendo DS and Sony PSP this year. However, it is notable to mention Apple's iPhone 4, Android-based phones and Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 as the latest trend setters in mobile gaming.

For mobile phones, specifically iPhone, Android-based phones and some high-end Nokia phones, the biggest hit is the low-budgeted game Angry Birds by Rovio which, 1 year since it was launched in December 2009, has been downloaded over 50 million times. This is actually far more remarkable than the success of Plants vs. Zombies by PopCap Games.

Windows Phone 7, besides being a super smartphone, is a gaming platform as well. Its Games hub has built-in integration support for Xbox Live. A line up has been reviewed early this year as discussed in this article. For XBox 360 fans, Windows Phone 7 is an attractive extension to officially bring XBox games to the mobile platform.

Great Must Have Games
The best way for me to list the winning games of 2010 is to let the experts do it. These are some websites to check out: GamespotX Playhttp://www.bestgamesof2010.com1Up.comIGN and Wired GameLife. Of course, your favorite website for games information and news could be your best resource depending on your favorite game genre.

I think that the most exciting releases for the holidays of 2010 include Disney's Epic Mickey for Wii, Call of Duty: Black Ops, Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, Medal of Honor and Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit.

For the Guitar Hero, Rock Band, DJ whatchamacallit games... rock on! You can skip the awesome looking but badly executed PowerGig. The best this year in this genre just got to be DJ Hero 2 which offered significant improvements from the first version.

Of course, be sure to check out the PS3 Move and XBox 360 Kinect adventure, sports and party oriented games. Most of the bundled games for these gaming systems are the best way to experience them. Check out my reviews of PS3 Move and XBox 360 Kinect.

Got anything to add to this list that's worth mentioning? Leave a comment and keep the discussion going...

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