Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick said:

What we’ve announced at Blizzard is that we have Starcraft II coming, Diablo has been in production… and a new, unannounced MMORPG that has a little more broad appeal

So the new title will NOT be a competitor to World of Warcraft, they will try to find an additional audience. To make sure this happens, Jeff Kaplan, the World of Warcraft game director, has been moved towards this brand-new property.

The upcoming changes to Battle.net; Battle.net 2.0, will also be incorporated in the new MMO, so the upcoming and current Blizzard titles; Diablo 3, Starcraft 2, World of Warcraft and now the unnamed new title, will all be woven together on one platform. Adding cash play and more rewards and recognition systems will likely expand their audience even more, if they manage to integrate it all, it will make for one hell of a platform!

“Originally, we weren’t exactly sure how to market the Touch,” Jobs told the New York Times. “Was it an iPhone without the phone? Was it a pocket computer? What happened was, what customers told us was, they started to see it as a game machine.

“We started to market it that way, and it just took off. And now what we really see is it’s the lowest-cost way to the App Store, and that’s the big draw. So what we were focused on is just reducing the price to USD 199. We don’t need to add new stuff. We need to get the price down where everyone can afford it.”

There you have it, huge sales numbers; iPhone sold 30 million units, Touch sold 20 million; both in the past 2 years, combined with its enormous amount of games looks to be Apple’s ticket in the big league of gaming. The new technology; iPhone 3GS and new iPod Touch, allows for even more impressive graphics and gameplay allowing designers to push the envelope even furthur.

Next stage? More processing power, augmented reality, and fully integrated social networking features. I believe the future has no monthly play in terms of call time in it, we just lease the phone of our choice and pay a flat fee for data.

- To start gaming, someone only needs a computer in his house, something that’s seen as a requirement to function in this society
- The availability of games is only growing (iPhone, wireless internet, etc.)
- A greater variety of games is released every year
-  Game interface is ever changing; who could’ve imagined the Wii a few years back? or the Natal?
- Integration of gaming in our daily lives; friends meeting on WoW or for a game of FIFA is not strange or uncommon anymore

Sure, you’ll say, gaming will be big. But what will this mean;
1. Gaming will be basic.
2. The question will not be whether you play or not, it will be what you play and when.
3. The top gaming titles, IP’s, will have turnovers much larger than any other form of entertainment.

It is hard to say where professional gaming (e-sports) will be, what a game will look like or even how a game will be operated in 10 years time. But what I do know is that gaming will be growing for all the years to come. Which is why I personally want to be involved. Do you?