You're still not over Xbox One or PS4? Chances are you haven't gotten your longed-for console until now, even though the two of the hottest gaming gadgets have been in the market for more than 2 months. Blame Microsoft and Sony for not being able to keep up with the massive demand. Or your financial cache for running out of juice.
But that's not what this piece is all about. After all, Xbox One and PS4 is last year's phenomenon. Instead, we'll talk about what to expect for this year, according to the experts in the gaming industry as interviewed by CNN.
More Mobile Gaming
"I anticipate the trends in 2013 -- increased time spent playing games on mobile devices and a shift to 'freemium' pricing in games -- will continue to grow in 2014," Ubisoft Mobile's Jean-Michel Detoc revealed.
He also pointed out that as many as "2 billion smart devices" are currently in use and may even increase in number. As such, "gaming has expanded to represent around a third of time spent on connected devices, and I am confident gaming will confirm its position as one of the core uses on those devices in 2014," he said.
eSports Ascending
Chris Dring, in a piece featured on The Guardian, noted that "32 million people watched The League of Legends gaming finals online (peaking with 8.5 million at the same time) on 4 October last year." With this growing audience for professional gaming, big brands have joined in the fray and engaged in sponsorship arrangements, which will only spur more attention to eSports from other audiences, as well as commercial bigwigs. Spike TV's Geoff Keighley also said that he foresees "continued growth" for eSports.
Improved Gaming Experience
Maingear's founder and CEO Wallace Santos said that there will be "a lot of new and exciting technologies" for gamers in 2014.
"The big story this year is the advances that AMD and NVIDIA are making with GPUs (faster processors for graphics) that make 4K gaming a reality. Next year we'll see those 4K panels come down in price," he said.
"With exciting technologies like AMD's Mantle API, designed to max out the performance capabilities of your graphics card, and NVIDIA's G-SYNC, designed to deliver silky smooth gaming, there's a whole lot to get excited about."
Did their predictions rev your gaming engine? Tell us what you think will be trending in gaming this year!