More and more of tomorrow's technology appears to be focused at the mobile market. Presumably Windows 8, a cross-platform OS, will either end GOG as we know it or will allow support for the classics distributed here. Now if the latter is true, GOG.com can possibly have the work done for them, as Win8 on netbooks/UMPCs and desktops/laptops will be highly the same as what you find on tablets and phones. But in the world of mobile, microsoft is not king.

Tegra 3 is very nearly here. It will sport the graphical capability to play any game on GOG. Not a single one, including witcher 2, will be outside it's realm of capability. Except there is a problem! In the forseeable future Tegra 3 will be running Android ICS. The future of mobile will likely... no CERTAINLY be a place GOG will struggle to be able to support fully..

Will GOG make their library work on a variety of mobile platforms in the future (iOS, Android, and win8 if necessary)? More importantly.. can GOG survive the 2010 decade if they don't?

Something to consider... considering one of the main appeals of GOG is how netbook friendly their library is, a huge costumer base is netbook gamers. And the netbook market is getting more and more absorbed into the tablet/mobile market.

I imagine GOG will go where the users are.

Classic pc games are a poor fit for mobile devices. The input devices and typical game session length are totally different . I have Quake 1 on my Android. It's awesome but sucks at the same time (dancing bear syndrome). In a mobile dominant world, perhaps the good old games GOG would offer wouldn't PC games.

Interesting topic.

Windows 8 on ARM is only going to be a problem for the Windows-based games; a large part of GOG's catalogue runs through DOSBox or ScummVM, which are inherently architecture-independent, so GOG will be able to release ARM-compatible installers for these games as soon as these projects have added ARM support.

ARM's sacrifices raw performance for better battery life; desktops, all-in-ones and other systems where performance is more important will continue to use x86 for a very long time, so the inability to use older Windows-based games on ARM isn't going to be a big problem for GOG in the foreseeable future.

Android and iOS are nice enough as mobile operating systems, but Microsoft is taking the completely opposite approach of treating the tablet as just another PC form factor, capable of running not only those cute little mobile apps but also full-power desktop applications like Microsoft Office and games that require more than just your fingers. If OEMs can deliver the hardware it needs and market it correctly it should sell very well on tablets as well as more traditional form factors.

ah, true.. but is there a way to sell games in the future for a profit that today sell for 1-5 dollars? as far as how it's played, there are micro usb extensions and tablets like the EEE transformer have that idea built in.

I don't actually know how costly/simple it is for developers to port their software to multiple platforms. In my mind, if the OS doesn't provide some sort of incentive (for example, apple paying developers to port popular windows applications to OSX), they wouldn't do it on their own. Combine that with the end of the microsoft OS monopoly and I think the recipe is the loss of incentives and ultimately the bad choice of smaller market or higher developing cost.

I'm no tech prophet, but the hardware trends are favouring the mobile platforms. the performance divide is, in my view, is shrinking very quickly. I think there is a place for x86 in the future, but not in the mainstream. it's not where the competition is.

edit: and by competition, i mean the kind of market competition that drives technology, not specific competing companies or philosophies (ARM vs. x86)

Sure is. When a friend of mine was demonstrating IPad2 gaming capabilities over the weekend, I was quite impressed by the gaming graphics capabilities of IPad2 (like certain HD car racing game), but very unimpressed by the game content. The games seemed to be mostly very simple arcade action games that I wouldn't buy even from GoG. But maybe it was just showing my friend's gaming tastes, I wouldn't know for sure. I understand IPad and even Android has quite a few adventure games which remind old PC point and click adventure games.

That certain drumkit program (where you have a whole drumkit under your fingers) was very impressive, though, even if it was not a game. I think my friend was able to get one IPad2 sold to another friend of mine with that music app.

Could the DosBox team create an Android/IPhone version of DosBox?

Well, there are and [url=http://androiddosbox.appspot.com/]this, but I have not tried them so I cannot comment on whether they are good.

If I had fallout 1 on my phone I don't care who the hell is calling, that sucker is going to message bank.

Seriously though, as above has mentioned games on platforms they are not designed for tend to.. suck.

No.

Edit: for fuck's sake, NO.

playing a game on a small screen with small keys (especially handy if you have big hands) or just sit relaxed behind your pc running windows xp or 7 with a nice big screen.
hmm difficult choice. not.

not everyone is into mobile nor they care for it. i still have a noka mobile with just basic functions. windows 8 might just as well gonna fail and they will go back to basics in 9.
7 is not that old and it will be a long way till they stop supporting that, so until then there is no threat for gog.

Any online retailer that wants to stay afloat over the next 10 years will need at least partial presence in the mobile market. GOG isn't ready to take the plunge yet, however. I applied to the GOG affiliate program to provide ad space in the iOS App Store and... well, they are the opposite of interested at this juncture.

Do you have a point? Nvidia already has a stake in the Android market so... you lose, actually.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKdcjJoXeEY

RPGs like Baldur's Gate and Planescape Torment would be perfect for the iPad and Android tablets. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like GOG is looking to expand into that space.

Apparently GemRB already allows you to play Infinity Engine games on Android devices and (jailbroken) iOS devices. Cool.