Anybody who would like to regard themselves as well informed on the internet these days has undoubtedly heard of HTML5 being used in context of bringing a more interactive experience to the user. (For those who are itching at using HTML5 as a colloquialism, keep your boots on. I understand your pain and am only using the term for convenience)

Well, I have had an idea for a nice little HTML5/JavaScript project that I think could gain some traction. The video game market at the moment is completely fragmented and very platform isolated. Consumers are often forced into buying multiple consoles if they wish to play a broad amount of games and even then they are locked to the hardware quite dramatically (I am looking at you Microsoft and Sony). With recent innovations in the direction of WebGL and canvas, I think there is a real argument to be made in a browser based video game platform.

Am I being ambitious? Certainly. Am I asking the impossible? Who knows?

The concept, however, I still like. The idea to have a completely integrated social environment written in HTML5 in the browser (like Playstation home and the xBox dashboard) that is then a launching point for games written in HTML5 is very attractive. All you need to play your games or access platform apps is a standards compliant web browser and minimum hardware specs.

Of course, this method will never be a complete replacement for native games. Despite the speed increases in JavaScript engines such as V8 and JaegerMonkey, JavaScript is getting increasingly faster but still not fast enough to beat a natively compiled application. For casual games though it would serve as an admirable platform.

This is a random text blurt out of my idea. I am going to make some concept mock-ups shortly (tomorrow, if I have time).

Have fun!