Augmented Reality Games Need More Power

GhostWire is a mobile gaming environment that uses the computer science field of augmented reality. Basically what this means is that it creates digital impressions on a field while looking at real life through a lens. I had a chance to play with this type of technology back in the late 1990s in college and this was actually extremely fascinating since the usefulness of this was taking some sort of spectacles and applying a thin layer that could give more information. This is usually applicable in fighter pilot and helicopter pilot helmets but the technology itself is started to make its way to other mediums.

And thus, GhostWire is coming to the mobile realm and today I find out that Crash Corp, created by the Chief Architect of Digg and founder of SocialThing, is also going into that same realm.

The problem I can see with this already is that you’re lucky to have a phone that runs all day for just audio services. Smart phones currently have the worst battery life and if you run both a LCD and camera at the same time along with a process intensive game, you’re likely to chew up your battery in a matter of minutes. The first is that phones were not really created for gaming like this since they were not developed to handle that sort of stress in power. Years of telecommunications have taught me that audio comes first, everything else second. So while the technology of augmented reality is great fun, I don’t think it’s as sustainable. Unless these gaming companies are going to do something to help with low-power consumption chipset design.

Is the AR realm to play in? Sure, if you have a good power source. But currently augmented reality isn’t quite ready for mobile game play and it might be an uphill battle for anyone that’s jumping in for business revenue sake. Now if someone can guarantee LCD and lens to be on all day and still take mobile calls? Then we’ll talk.