HOW VIDEO GAMES ARE POSITVELY AFFECTING AMERICA'S YOUTH - Research Paper Example

Cartridge based consoles were introduced by Atari during this period which will pave way to the second generation video gaming. The early eighties were called the golden age of gaming industry as space invaders developed by Taito set new benchmark in gaming industry in terms of revenue. At the same period the home gaming console industry was also blooming with the advent of personal computing. Other major highlight of this decade is the release of Super Mario by Nintendo. During nineties arcade games saw a decline and paved way for home game consoles.

Also at this point of time handhelds were becoming popular because of its ease to carry around and play but declined before the end of nineties. From mid nineties saw major transition in several aspects such as the games became three dimensional from two dimensional and also CD ROM’s started to replace the traditional cartridges. Popular and powerful gaming consoles like PlayStation were released by Sony.2010 saw Nintendo emerging as leaders based upon software revenues followed by Activision Blizzard, Electronic arts, Sony and Microsoft respectively.

On the other side in gaming consoles arena Sony with its Playstation series and Microsoft with its Xbox series of consoles are competing each other fiercely for leadership. A separate genre of games which were less in complexity flourished during this period after associating it with social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace. Also with the advancement of mobile phone technology several gaming applications were developed for advanced gaming and multimedia phones. Nokia introduced N-gage series mobiles with an in-house built gaming platform which did not take of as expected.

At present days with the introduction of motion sensing mobile phones, more motion sensing games are becoming popular. Will the invention of new motion sensor technology games help against the fight of childhood obesity? The new motion sensor technology detects the entire body movement and provides it as inputs for the game. Using these technology users can engage themselves in virtual games physically as in real life. There lies a potential for users to use virtual gaming as a way to reduce obesity and diabetes.

There exists a mass that prefer video games over real games. Motion sensor technology can benefit these people who can enjoy video games at the same time engage in various kinds of physical activities. The real challenge lies in developing games that is interesting for users and also burns enough energy from body to serve the purpose. In future, game developers can develop less complex but more physically engaging games solely for daily exercising purpose, so that users can replace current exercising instruments such as treadmills with motion sensor gaming cum exercises.

Therefore scientific research need to be conducted which will lead to better games, better consoles aimed at reducing obesity. Is there a direct link between violent video games and violent behavior in children? Establishing a direct link between violent video games and behavior of children require very comprehensive studies. Looking at simple statistics it’s evident that at the same period of time when video game sale have undergone a boom, there has been decline in juvenile crime in US. Similarly there are critics who suggest that by playing violent video game it acts as substitute to actual world aggression thus