Samsung brought out all of the stops with the launch of its latest smartphone, the Samsung Galaxy S III. Being touted as “The Next Big Thing,” the Galaxy S III is gunning for the top of the charts and the biggest piece of the smartphone pie. I was lucky enough to attend Samsung’s launch event in New York City, hoping to see what it can do as a mobile gaming device for VGW. I experienced all the phone has to offer and even came away with a few ideas of my own.
Samsung’s NYC Galaxy S III launch event | Image credit: Jake Baldino
Samsung’s Galaxy S III is a powerhouse. With a dual-core 1.5 Ghz processor and a whopping 2GB of RAM (previously unheard of in a smartphone), this thing reaches the speed of sound. Even through the hustle and bustle of the show floor, it was immediately apparent how responsive everything on the screen is to your fingertips. The device also has a 4.8 inch AMOLED screen, expandable memory, and a super sleek and lightweight form.
Sure, it’s a super powerful, feature-laden iPhone killer (Samsung made it very clear just who they believed was superior during the event’s presentation), but what does the Galaxy S III really do differently?
The Galaxy S III currently has a slew of exclusive features that really excite, with a big emphasis on sharing. ‘S-Beam’, a one touch data/document transfer from one S III to another was demonstrated at the event by ordering drinks. I selected a drink on an app on the phone in front of me, held it up to the bartender, and “beamed” the drink order onto her phone. It was instantaneous and simple. Other features included instant, automatic photo-sharing with nearby friends, a pop-up, moveable video player, most importantly, NFC tech.
The Galaxy S III is one of the first phones to feature NFC — or near field communication — allowing mobile payments on the go through Google wallets. While this is one of the only uses for it as of yet, Samsung has different ideas for NFC tech. While not prominently displayed at the event, press members were able to take home a package of NFC “TecTiles” to play with. TecTiles are tiny, programmable stickers which you can program (through a Samsung app) to be used to activate certain applications on your phone. For example, placing a sticker in your car allows you to simply hold your phone close to the sticker to switch on Bluetooth on your S III and sync with your stereo. Simple and easy. And brilliant. The possibilities for this seemed abundant, and it was surprising Samsung didn’t boast this more.
Samsung will also be harnessing the Galaxy S III’s NFC capability through its Share-to-Go Stations: large, vending-machine like touch screen kiosks that can push free content to users in need of a quick fix. Be it movie clips, songs, promotions, apps, games: anything. The kiosk at the event was very slick, and scored points for making me feel like I was in the future. It’ll be interesting to see how far and how many cities Samsung takes this to, and just what content these kiosks will provide.
This is where things get exciting for gamers.
Mobile gaming can be more than just tiny console games
If you’ve read this far (and hopefully you have) you’re probably asking yourself “what does this have to do with video games?” That was the big question I was trying to answer at the Samsung launch event, and although I initially came up empty, my brain started buzzing on the train ride home.
While Samsung is happy their device is being supported and promoted along with iOS from the likes of Rockstar, Rovio, and more, it’s their hardware innovations that could really shake things up. Imagine the possibilities if game companies could get control of content being pushed to the Samsung Share-to-Go kiosks, or harnessed the NFC capability to usher in a new wave of social mobile games.
NFC stickers could be used to trigger in-game events, or used as a distribution tool in a new wave of intuitive viral marketing. Samsung has something here, and while others will gain these features eventually in some form or another, it’s important that Samsung has it first. A killer-app could come along with a Galaxy S III exclusive feature allowing players with the same phone to S-Beam and trade game content with one another. The possibilities are endless, and game developers have impressive imaginations.
Samsung has put it out there, and now it’s up to mobile game developers to decide whether to take the plunge on these innovations. Besides being a solid device that can keep up with the latest graphic intensive mobile games (it runs ShadowGun like a champ), its hardware innovations could be a crucial standout point.
While the Galaxy S III won’t exactly change the way we play Angry Birds, its innovations could usher in a new genre of mobile games entirely. We’re going to be talking to developers in the coming weeks to find out what innovations they’d want to take advantage of and how, so be sure to check back!
The post Searching for gaming in Samsung’s smartphone world appeared first on Video Game Writers.