Gaming

More than 12 million Fortnite players watched an avatar of rapper Travis Scott perform an unprecedented 10-minute virtual concert on 23 April. The show demonstrated the power of digital platforms to convene amid a pandemic—and opened new doors for the live-concert business. Epic Games’ developers teased the show in preceding days, allowing players to spy on stage construction, then unleashed mind-bending concert visuals, including a segment where the crowd was submerged underwater.

Resembling something straight out of an ’80s sci-fi flick, Dell’s supercharged gaming laptop boasts a powerhouse desktop-class processor and full-power mobile graphics processing unit. Launched last year, the device lets users level up its primary components when better, faster chips hit—allowing the laptop to grow at the same warp speed of the gaming market.

The first-person shooter videogame earned over US$600 million within the first three days of its release in August 2019, making it the highest-selling game in the franchise during the current console generation. But the team wasn’t content to stop there. In October, it launched Twitch drops: Players who tune into curated streaming content unlock new rewards.

Nearly 20 years after the original game hit shelves, the newest version provided much-needed community and companionship when it arrived amid the isolation and loneliness of The Great Lockdown. Created for Nintendo’s handheld Switch console, Animal Crossing: New Horizons became an instant sensation, selling an unexpected 11 million copies within the first month. By mid-May the game’s sales had surpassed its lifetime target.

How does a company make the VR experience more immersive and realistic? The team at Teslasuit amped up its two-piece haptic bodysuit—which enhances virtual and augmented reality experiences through motion tracking and biometry—with the introduction of a VR-powered glove that can detect hand movements, provide tactile feedback and gather real-time data.

Microsoft developers weren’t playing around when it came to creating the next-gen Xbox. The company’s latest home videogame console is a force. It supports 8K gaming, frame rates of up to 120 frames per second in games, ray tracing, variable refresh rate support and boasts four times the processing power of its predecessor. Unveiled in December 2019, it’s expected to hit the market later this year.

Nintendo’s best-selling franchise, Mario Kart, made the leap to smart devices last September. The team adapted everything gamers loved about the title and distilled it into a mobile app that simplifies the user experience. With more than 20 million downloads within 24 hours of its release, Mario Kart Tour broke the one-day download record for mobile games.

Akili Interactive Labs’ prescription-only title is the first videogame approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as a medicine. Released in June, EndeavorRx uses in-game algorithms to treat children aged 8 to 12 with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. First though, the company had to go through seven years of clinical trials involving more than 600 children. Game on.

Global users spend a reported 1 billion hours on the platform Roblox each month, playing big-name games but also creating their own. Last year, developers outside the company raked in roughly US$100 million by selling virtual goods and other in-game upgrades. To boost that creative community (and revenue potential) even further, last year Roblox unveiled an extensive suite of new developer tools, including a translation feature to publish game titles in multiple languages and an automated matching feature for competitive gameplay.