Tech eyes were focused on Las Vegas this week for the annual gadget extravaganza that is CES. We’ve seen plenty of new smartphones, tablets and apps; an official style guide for Android; some bone conduction headphones (they sit on your cheekbones and not in your ears!); a WiFi-enabled camera running Android, and even some washing machines that could be controlled via smartphone.
One of the most interesting things I’ve seen is Razer’s Project Fiona concept tablet. This rather unique hybrid gaming tablet will feature an Intel Core i7 processer and a joystick, complete with vibration feedback, on each side of the 10.1-inch screen. Razer say that the tablet will be able to run many PC games natively but haven’t released details about battery life.
What I find particularly interesting about the Project Fiona tablet is that this is clearly aimed at hardcore PC gamers rather than the bird-flinging casual gamers who currently make up most of the mobile gaming audience. It’s also an effort at getting moving PC games into the mobile space without having to port to a new operating system – it is likely that this tablet will run some version of Windows.
Whether this device will make it to market remains to be seen but it should come as no surprise that companies want to get into the mobile games industry – after all, Juniper estimated that sales of in-game purchases alone reached $2.1 billion last year. Tablets are set to be the next big thing in mobile games; their large screen size means that people can see more of the game they’re playing. They typically have higher powered processors than their smartphone cousins, so not only can the user see more of the action, but what’s on the screen can be far more detailed.
More about the mobile games industry and the in-game purchase market can be found in our free whitepaper Mobile Games ~ The Next Level.
Tags: games, Intel, mobile games, Tablet, Windows
