This Year In Gaming

gaming. The technological advancements, specifically for virtual reality have been absolutely astounding. Sony and Microsoft both continued to improve their current next-gen consoles, HTC had their release of a virtual reality headset, and of course the massive release of Facebook's recent purchase: the Oculus Rift.

However it was not only hardware releases that brought a massive amount of attention to the gaming industry. The games themselves have been quite spectacular, and have broken many records.

Game Releases of The Year

Many fantastic games were released in 2016, and as stated above, they have broken many records with releases this year. Uncharted 4, the ever-popular Playstation exclusive, became the fastest selling

Playstation 4 title of all-time - in just the first week of its release. The hugely popular action-shooter franchise Battlefield has a new release titled 'Battlefield 1' (which at the time of writing this article is due to be released in just over a week), has already broken a record. The open beta was played by just over 13/2 million people, making it EA's biggest ever beta to be played. FIFA also broke their own personal record of the biggest initial sales week for the franchise with their newest release, FIFA 17.

The Return of Pokemon

Steering away from gaming giants Xbox and Playstation, we now take a look at one of Niantic's record-breaking Pokemon Go. This game was so huge that it needs its own heading. If you haven't heard of this game by now - well actually, there's no way you haven't heard of this game. Released for both Android and iOS devices, this game took the world by storm in July. This game broke an insane amount of records, and it may very well continue to break more as it is currently updated with more features. It is played by all age groups, from small children to fully grown adults.

You may have seen people walking around town with their phones out walking aimlessly as they tried to find a rare Charizard or Snorlax near the local gym. This innovative creation allowed for many aspiring Pokemon trainers to actually feel as though they were in the Pokeverse. Long gone are the days of using a Nintendo as your virtual character searches for Pokemon to catch, as you can now do it in real life! This game now has over 550 MILLION downloads and generates around 2 million dollars a day. Not bad for a comeback huh?

Virtual Reality

Now, where do we start with virtual reality? This amazing technological advancement allows for players not just to play the game, but to be in the game. There are now several virtual reality devices available for purchase, and they are doing seriously well on the shelves. Going back to the start of the year, we saw many people receiving work-in-progress versions of the Oculus Rift. You may have watched some videos on Youtube from Pewdiepie and similar channels. The Oculus Rift is a huge headset that you wear. It includes a screen and motion trackers so that when you move your head in real life, your field of view and visual positioning changes on-screen. There are many videos online of people playing horror games and falling over, so if you plan on buying one of these be sure to be cautious.

Apart from the Oculus Rift, we also have several other virtual reality devices available for purchase. There is the HTC Vive, and the brand-new release by Sony: Playstation VR. You may have previously heard Playstation VR referred to as Project Morpheous during development stages.

Conclusion

So this year was a pretty big deal for gaming. With many hardware and game releases breaking certain records, it really makes you wonder what is out there for us in the future. We already have the new slim versions of the Xbox One and Playstation 4. Playstation also have another release in November called the 'Playstation 4 Pro', which will be able to handle an outstanding amount of power. So whether you are a gamer or not, gaming in 2016 should still get you excited as gaming is shaping the way of technology. Who knows what the future holds.