Moore's Law boosts gaming

Improvements in processing power, network bandwidth and storage capacity will propel the installed base of electronic game devices (excluding PCs) five-fold, from 415 million this year to 2.6 billion by 2010.

The latest global report by Deloitte & Touche's Technology, Media and Telecommunications Group and Deloitte Research said that the principles of Moore's Law will mean that gaming functionality will be built into a variety of devices, including exercise bikes.

Moore's Law states that the transistor density of a silicon chip will double every two years.

"As technology continues to improve, new opportunities will arise for industries outside the traditional electronic games arena, such as movie studios, record companies, advertisers, mobile phone producers, communications operators, toy manufacturers and electronics manufacturers," said Scott Singer, managing director of Deloitte's media and entertainment corporate finance group, in a statement.

He added that the number and range of platforms on which paid-for electronic games can exist will expand significantly to include mobile phones, MP3 players, PDAs, set-top boxes, children's toys and even exercise machines.

According to the study, Moore's Law and Electronic Games, 450 million homes worldwide will have broadband connections by 2010, with one billion individuals having access to multimedia mobile phones that could support game downloads and some form of mobile game playing.

Storage capacity is expected to increase to 1,000 gigabytes of disk storage in a typical home PC by 2010, enabling games to be longer and more complex with enhanced visual details, sound effects and music.

The report suggested that games publishers will have more platforms to target but will also face escalating production costs as demand for more sophisticated games increases.