We’ve come a long way since Pong and Space Invaders, but video and computer games are still striving to be both interactive and realistic. On Monday, chip maker Advanced Micro Devices, which already supplies the graphics power for the Nintendo Wii and the Xbox 360, gave a taste of what it says a game maker can do with its new microprocessor: a 30-second clip of what appeared to be a real scorpion skittering around a terrarium. The scorpion demo was made by film director David Fincher on a computer. Was it a video game? An interactive movie? AMD wouldn’t say.

AMD’s new graphics card will go on sale in a few weeks for 200 dollars, and will also be built into some new computers and possibly video game consoles. It will be able to show special effects in games that many of today’s graphics cards don’t. AMD is hoping that it can appeal to developers who want to create games that are of movie quality. It also hopes that moviemakers will use the extra horsepower so they can render film faster and, if they want, make movies more interactive. AMD calls this strategy Cinema 2.0.

Source: LA Times