Kingston University, which serves 22,000 students in South West London, opened its new games lab for students studying game development. The lab is equipped with state-of-the-art hardware and software provided by Sony and Microsoft and focuses on console development. Three pairs of large projector screens in the laboratory allow students to study code and graphics at the same time. Dr Greenhill said: “This solves one of the major problems we had with teaching games code. Before, when we only had one screen, we had to show the code we had written first and then switch to a view of the graphic,” he said. “Now we have the two screens side by side so we can display the code and the corresponding image together.” The screens are also linked to computers so that the students’ work can be displayed for discussion with their colleagues and lecturers.

In 2010 students will be able to study games development at a post-graduate level at Kingston.