The Future of Sports Titles

As we approach 2012, everyone continues to look forward to the various NFL, NBA, FIFA and other sporting titles that will emerge as the months pass, each one hopefully bringing enough new features to the table to justify an annual release schedule. But where do they go once everything is so nuanced and graphically impressive that games design within sporting titles reaches something of a plateau?

We’re constantly bombarded with new ways to control our characters in videogames, and Kinect, Move and the Wiimote are ways in which we could really take sports titles to the next level. No, not the endless production line of tennis games, but an NFL title in which you’re really punting the pigskin around.

It’d work as well as you want it to, and if you’re big into your athletics, or you’re an armchair football, hockey, basketball or partypoker; pro with dreams of making it in the big leagues, then it’s always an exciting prospect to get into something with a little more realism.

Imagine making the play yourself, or hitting that home run with a real bat. It’s a genre with a lot of potential when it comes to controllers that are effectively just as much your own body as they are the hardware. For those who want to get fit while enjoying playing games, it seems like a logical merging of two ideas.

But there should always be the traditional option for those who don’t want to use Kinect or a similar controller, or for those who don’t own one or don’t have the space to move around like that. Not everyone has their console in the living room, and doing a touchdown on a wooden-frame bed may result in a fortnight of sleeping on the floor.

It’ll be interesting to see where the tech goes, but in the meantime, where’s my armchair?