Game Play

The Smiths want to be able to play games

• The Smiths want to play games with each other and with friends outside the house.

• What are your own game playing experiences?• Who has played a full 3D game using controllers

that follow a player’s gestures?• What type of games do they like?• Is this the same for boys and girls? If not, why

not?

In this lesson students are learning about:

• features of games consoles

• peripheral devices that can be used with game consoles

• the impact of bandwidth and latency on the user experience when playing games online

At the end of this lesson students will be able to:

• describe features of games consoles and relate them to user needs

• describe peripheral devices that can be used with games consoles

• describe the impact of bandwidth and latency on the user experience when playing games online

Which games console?

• In this lesson you will be focusing on games consoles (ones to use at home rather than on the move).

• What connectivity do games consoles need to have to allow the Smiths to play games with each other in the house?

• Bluetooth

• WiFi network connection

• Wired network connection

Network Performance

• Download speeds for consumers using WiFi are on average 30% slower than fixed lines

• Why?

• http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-20041640-94.html

Answers summary…

• interference with neighboring networks

• physical items, such as walls and furniture, and bump into interference from other wireless devices using the same frequency, such as cordless phones, TV remotes, and even baby monitors.

• Test your own network speed:

• http://www.speedtest.net/

Bandwidth and Latency•Bandwidth commonly measured in bits/second is the maximum rate that information can be transferred

•Latency the delay between the sender and the receiver decoding it

together they impact on network performance and game play therefore a wired connection to the router might be better than a wireless one for game playing purposes.

Identify other online activities which might suffer from the higher latency and greater loss of data associated with a WiFi connection

e.g. video streaming

online telephony

Compare Consoles Task• Get into groups. Each group is to carry out a product

review of one console (Xbox One, Playstation 4, Nintendo Wii U) by completing the relevant column in “Features of Games Consoles.doc”

• Which one would they recommend and why?

• What other options for game playing are there

• PC• smart phone

• How do they compare?

Homework

• Homework task…. “Playing Computer Games.doc”