Full-HD Gaming: The market has reached the tipping point

Valerie | 17 Jul 2009, 20:22


The c&binet interview: Takeshi “Jumbo” Sato, Mitsubishi Electric

HD technology continues to be at the forefront of the battle in the gaming market as it becomes an increasingly essential part of the entertainment experience. Discussion at the recent Developer Conference in Brighton however illustrates that there is further to go to encourage take up of the format.

Takeshi Sato is one of the world’s leading experts on High Definition projectors. Since the launch of the XBox 360 in 2005, HD technology has been touted as a key differentiator for the latest generation of games consoles. But Sato San believes that demand for Full-HD gaming is only now entering the mainstream thanks to the rapidly falling prices of Full-HD display technology. But Full-HD alone won’t deliver true immersion – in gaming, he explains, size matters.

“It took time for the display systems manufacturers to catch up with the console manufacturers, who always have to price their products for the mass market. Even though games consoles offered HD gaming in 2005, it wasn’t until the following year when the technology became a mainstream proposition,” he says. “Top of the range Full-HD projectors and large size flat screens cost around 10,000 Euros at that time, where the main consumer for Full-HD projectors were not really the Movie enthusiastic or game freaks, but simply people who wanted to have a `Rolls-Royce’ display. Therefore. Full-HD gaming was really only available to a very limited number of people – very affluent early adopters. This demographic wasn’t enough to drive serious demand for Full-HD displays.”

“But by the second half of 2008, retail prices had fallen drastically to around 1,200 Euros, bringing the Full-HD experience to within reach of a much wider market. Gamers now take HD seriously and developers have begun to explore the potential of the format to its fullest.”

“With games developers and manufacturers now in alignment, gaming is at last really driving demand for Full-HD products, particularly as there are still relatively few programmes broadcast in HD and Blu-ray sales are still in their infancy.” 

Sato points to research which shows that for HD to really enhance the gaming experience, the image has to be big enough to fill your field of vision:

“The magic number is 50 degrees. As the viewing angle gets beyond 35 degrees, people begin to experience a feeling of real presence – a cinematic experience. A sense of true immersion comes when you reach a viewing angle of 50 degrees – that’s when your field of vision is filled by the game. It’s a very different sensation for the player than just ‘watching’. If displays can deliver that for the gamer, Full-HD really will become the killer application for new games.

”However, to create that kind of experience, a gamer sitting one and half metres from the screen would need a 100 inch screen.  Even with the advances that TV manufacturers have made bringing down costs, a screen that size is beyond the reach of most consumers, but projectors can deliver massive displays at much lower cost. That’s why Mitsubishi Electric is keen to work with games companies to educate the developers and the players about the true potential of Full HD and the role that Full-HD projectors can play in delivering true immersion. At trade fairs now, video games – rather than movies- are often used to demonstrate the potential of projection systems. We want to send the message that if you haven’t played Full-HD games at this scale, you haven’t really experienced Full-HD.  Some consumers will always want a screen, but in markets such as Germany (which accounted for 23% of the EMEA market in 2008), projectors take a large and growing slice of the HD market

“The games industry has been able to grow the size of the market whilst sustaining their margins through a process of continuous innovation. Immersion through 50 degree HD images will be an important part of the evolution of gaming. The manufacturers and the developers have now created a virtuous circle, which will open up a new frontier for gaming – truly immersive gaming for the mass-market.”