While analysts insist the future for 5G remains bright despite the near-term delays, the much-awaited positive impact on the gaming industry could be far from reality.
KUALA LUMPUR – While the impact of the current global crisis and economic uncertainty is undeniable, industry experts believe that global adoption of the next-gen network remains strong with more than a billion global 5G connections by 2025, according to the updated global forecast report by the GSMA Intelligence.
In addition to faster data speeds and low latency, the advancement of 5G lays the foundation for more advanced uses which allows faster downloads for videos, games, and music. One of the largest industries that are going to be positively impacted is gaming which is projected to exceed US$1 billion in revenue this year. With the use of 5G technology, gaming should be seamless, allowing users to play on any devices with no latency issues.
Despite the beliefs that 5G will revolutionize technology with faster downloads, faster uploads, and low latency, Forest Interactive CEO Johary Mustapha noted that game enthusiast should also consider its practicality which could pose a few potential challenges to the industry.
“Gamers are now putting high hopes in the advancement of this new technology. But it could be a misleading hype in terms of its practical use,” said Johary. “The demand is there, but the real question here is whether or not the supply is ready to support the demand. For example, even if 5G operates a bigger bandwidth and can accommodate a higher capacity than that of 4G, the network speed would be a major issue as speeds might be degraded to that of 4G if there’s an influx in the number of users at the same area at the same time.”
“In my honest opinion, a true 4G experience should already be sufficient to give gamers a seamless gaming experience. The most important question we have to ponder on is how 5G can provide what we want and truly solve the current problems, like playing Mobile Games without hiccups in an enclosed area,” he added.
On the other hand, the CEO inferred that 5G would unlock the future reality of Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) in the gaming industry. The speed and latency of 5G enables the game graphic to be seamless, allowing fully immersive gaming experience with higher resolutions than ever before.
“5G works as an enabler or a gateway to a better AR/VR gaming experience. Once widely available, it will take graphic-intensive games to new heights. In the esports arena, this particularly might appeal to both casual and professional AR/VR gamers as 5G enables an immersive gaming experience. Keeping that in mind, having 5G technology that significantly improves latency problems will keep away gamers from the last thing they would want, which is lag.”
Meanwhile, Malaysia is expecting a delay in the country’s 5G deployment, which was initially scheduled to be ready by the third quarter of this year. Commenting on 5G-readiness, Communications and Multimedia Minister Datuk Saifuddin Abdullah said in a statement: “the spectrum allocation strategy will be improved to ensure optimum usage.”
Earlier this year, the government has allocated RM50 million in grants for 5G ecosystem development which was announced during the Budget 2020 presentation. The grant aims to stimulate adoption of 5G use cases across various industries including automotive, manufacturing, public safety, education, agriculture, tourism, entertainment and media.
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About Forest Interactive (as of June 2020)
Forest Interactive is an award-winning telecommunications platform provider with a global presence across 14 regional offices in 33 countries. Since its founding in 2006, Forest Interactive has been providing innovative and revenue-generating solutions for 50 mobile operators and is connected to more than 1 billion subscribers worldwide. The company enables enriched mobile experiences through highly-customizable platforms such as Digital Service Delivery Platform (DSDP), Mobile Games Publishing, and eVouchers. Forest Interactive is also the organizer for numerous Mobile Esports events in partnership with Moonton and Tencent.
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Website: forest-interactive.com
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