The big discussion over the last few weeks here in the office has been whether or not the new smart phones are good gaming platforms or not. The general opinion tends to be various degrees of “they’re OK”. The range seems to run from Al, who seems to prefer playing games on his iPhone to any of the consoles to Stan, who we all suspect has an old Atari 2600 hidden in his garage that he plays most nights.
Personally I like to play games on my Android handset, even when compared to the offerings from the iPhone. Smart phones and tablets are just so darned versatile, with thousands of great and cheap games available and more coming out every day. What could be better than a device that fits in your pocket, allows you to call your girlfriend, take pictures of your buddies, work out an auto loan calculator, and throw birds at green pigs?
It just isn’t as good as playing on a console with a control pad filled with buttons! (Although I suspect that is Stan’s attraction to the 2600, just a joystick and a fire button!) The missing buttons aren’t that big of a problem on a game where you can see the screen and your fingers at the same time. To be sure, game developers are going to come up with more ways to take advantage of the properties of the touch screen, and I have a feeling that more and more games will be developed specifically for the larger tablet screens rather than the smaller phones that basically max out at 4 inches.
Buttons are great for a lot of things. Basically, you know that if you push one it is going to do what it is supposed to do. You can feel it under your finger, so you know where it is. Al was reading online earlier about the car stereo and navigation systems coming out that are touch-screen based. Man, those are going to be litigation magnets! You just can’t operate a touch screen or a touch screen menu without looking at it, and to look at the stereo, you have to take your eyes off the road. Not good.
Touch screens are thought to be an intuitive interface, and for some applications they are. I got a new fridge a couple years ago that has push button digital controls on the door. The only problem I see is that if I don’t keep an eye on my daughter, my ice cream will melt and the lettuce will freeze after she plays with the pretty lights. And I saw a ‘fridge the other day with a touchscreen! I’m sorry, what kind of menu could we possibly need on a refrigerator besides colder and not so cold?