Analyst Predicts Mouse Extinction In Five Years

[shatnershaman]

This guy obviously doesn't know a lot about gaming. Touch screen gaming? Yeah it works, of course we don't have 4 grand lying around to pay for a touch screen.

There is the DS... but its not running crysis anytime soon.

Neither is it(or the wii for that matter) running any kind of fps antime soon because touchscreens/gesture sensors can't aim and sidescroll at the same time.

Never played Metroid?

 

[Anton P. Nym]

Furthermore, if the advent of a GUI made mice the must have peripheral what comparable innovation do you think will drive a shift to touch screen technology? I hear what you are saying, and not suggesting that change won't come but in five years? On what basis, where's the catalyst? Touch screens have been around for decades and yet they've not caught on in PC computing, something needs to happen before that changes.

What has me sniffing the breeze is Apple's patents filed for a GUI device with capacitance touchscreen capabilities. Touchscreens these days are resistive touchscreens; touching the screen increases the electric resisistivity of the point touched, so the screen can only detect direct physical contact. Capacitance touchscreens, though can detect proximity and pressure as well as the xy coordinate touched... much as the electromagnetic system can on WACOM-type drawing tablets and their magnetic stylus tips.

Combine that with multitouch capability (iPod Touch, iPhone, Surface) and you might see some very different control schemes arising soon, especially in the portable market but I don't think restricted to it.

-- Steve

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Combine that with multitouch capability (iPod Touch, iPhone, Surface) and you might see some very different control schemes arising soon, especially in the portable market but I don't think restricted to it.

-- Steve

Without wanting to poo-poo your dreams, I hear electric flying cars are in the future as well.

 

[AmrasCalmacil]

At least it's better than the 'Control stuff with your mind' idea, or as I like to call it the 'Spreadsheet, Spreadsheet, Spreadsheet, BOOBS!' idea.

Still, I like controlling with my mouse (or touch pad, they're practically the same now).

Regarding something someone said earlier about the Wiimote (I'm such a sell-out) and FPS gaming, I'd say that, at least in theory, it's damn better than an analogue stick as long as you have the ability to point at something.

 

[Anton P. Nym]

Combine that with multitouch capability (iPod Touch, iPhone, Surface) and you might see some very different control schemes arising soon, especially in the portable market but I don't think restricted to it.

Without wanting to poo-poo your dreams, I hear electric flying cars are in the future as well.

Tee-hee-hee... [http://www.moller.com/], though personally I don't see it working out either.

Seriously, though, five years ago who predicted the Wii-mote? Most people "poo-poo"ing the idea that the mouse could be fading in five years are thinking the same way the Big Three thought with SUV sales (and I called that one five years ago, myself, though alas I called it fpr three years then...) and the aforementioned keyboard/command-line junkies did in the 70s; it's the way we did it, it's the way we do it, it'll be the way we do it ferEVAR.

-- Steve

 

[Giftmacher]

What has me sniffing the breeze is Apple's patents filed for a GUI device with capacitance touchscreen capabilities.

Hmm, yes, I suppose that might be enough to cause something of a shift I'm still sceptical though. Even the would be control revolution that is the Wii has yet to establish itself firmly on other systems and that's been out a while now.

Gift.