The next round of Game-platform redesigns may nevertheless be four to five years out, but processor and software designers in the fields of wireless, microeletromechanical systems, displays, mini cameras, sensors, actuators and storage have a chance to be part of these multi-100-million shipments as platforms react quicker to consumer requirements by focusing on interactivity, connectivity and data display.

Indeed, this may push Gaming platforms from peripheral to the middle of this home-entertainment system and replace the set-top box with broadband and cable/satellite capacity, complemented by fully optical or digital audio and video inputs and outputs and PVR storage. Ever since the latest Crop of game platforms started rolling out late last year, improvements and updates were already in the works. The Xbox 360 Elite’s big improvements over the Xbox 360 were a larger hard disk along with a HDMI connection.

Sony also is about to Launch a PS3 with an 80-Gbyte hard disk, up from 60 Gbytes–and will kill the 20-Gbyte alternative. The move to online gaming and the ability to download content has been a big driver of storage. Nintendo’s With WI-Fi capacity out-of-the-box and while others support Wi-Fi as a peripheral, SI expects them to get it out of the box shortly. With the runaway success of Wii’s 6-axis controller technologies, MEMS Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems is expected to become an increasing part of control design, in addition to for PDAs and other handsets. For wireless, 802.11n is sexy.

Features that will be Common in the next generation of video games include force feedback and rumble capacity, motion sensing, vision feedback and high-definition using either Blu-ray or HD-DVD. Also in the long run, Storage size or hard disk size increases from Gigabytes to Terabytes. When the discussion on Blu Ray and HD-DVD melts down, How to View Friends Wishlist on Steam video games will be released on one of those mediums rather than the current DVD technology. The quality of video Game images will also improve as more powerful graphic processors and game engines come out and will allow 100 percent realism in gaming experience.

For displays, Super-high-definition systems which are now emerging will come down in time for next-generation boxes, while at exactly the exact same time gambling and entertainment will converge on a single box with DVD, Internet/broadband, storage, set-top box capacity and video/audio. Video gaming is helping push technology and will continue to do so in the future. Log into my blog after 4 decades and see how lots of my next gen console forecasts come out to be true.