Former Vice President of Xbox Europe Sandy Duncan has cast his doubts on the long term future of the console market, claiming consoles as we know them will die out with a decade.
Speaking in an interview, he said: "There is a definite convergence of other devices, such as set top boxes. There's hardly any technology difference between some hard disc video recorders and an Xbox 360, for example.
"In fact in 5 to 10 years I don't think you'll have any box at all under your TV, most of this stuff will be virtualized as web services by your content provider."
We think he means you'll stream data from a server or PC straight to your telly, so technically they'll still be a box involved somewhere - it just won't be a console as we know it.
Whilst Duncan has a vested interest seeing digital distribution channels open up (he now runs a casual games company), his comments match those of Analyst Billy Pidgeon, who earlier on in the week debated whether the PlayStation 3 would be the last console we'd ever see.
Which, if nothing else, would validate Sony's claim that the PlayStation 3 would have a lifecycle of at least ten years.
Rubbish. A console will still be a console but with far more incorporated features, even then most people won't use some aspect of it. Just look at the Ps3 as a blu-ray player... many people buy it just for that!
I think this is possible, but not as soon as he says. There are still many gamers with no internet connection and who are not interested in playing online, they still need to be catered for. Anyway, i like my console and having boxed games. I don't want this to change and i am sure that there are many people who feel the same.
No I dont mean PC's. I mean a console with closed architecture & no need for Virus scans & upgrades etc. Where everyone is on the same level regardless of how much money they have.
There's hardly any technology difference between some hard disc video recorders and an Xbox 360, for example.
I beg to differ....... I am pretty sure My virgin V+ box has not got a high powered graphics card inside. Plus I can't seem to get it to recognize my 360 controllers. I have also looked for the DVD slot but can't find it anywhere. It does however have a larger hard drive than my 360.
And now for a view of someone who can buy alcohol legally:
Probably. Or rather, the way in which we access video game entertainment will change over time.
Much like the way we watch films. Before it was tapes, read by a head, all very mechanical and analogue.
Now, we have chips that decode the information read from a disc and perhaps more importantly, decode the information from a hard drive and run through a digital player.
Even at home we have sky. TV boxes are coming with hard drives and internet connections are steadily getting faster and faster.
Soon, solid state discs will become cheaper and the amount we can store will go through the roof.
Chip sets may become horrendously powerful as standard as resolutions rise and rise, so the lines may be blurred between what the CPU will be running.
Operating systems, games, films and music.
In years to come it'll be a boon to have a box that could do it all, and do it all well. If that is progress, then fine.
I'd be more than happy to walk into a store, buy a game downloaded onto my 50gig stick (oo-er) and come home, plug it in and play. Take a few minutes out to see if that film I bought, before I left the house, had downloaded and then slip on my silver jump suit to take the dog for a hover.
50 years, maybe, MAYBE. I seriously doubt it in the next 5 to 10 years though. And besides, who wants to have the games built into the TV when you have the share it with the other half?
I'm with Bosker. Downloads ARE going to be the way to go like it or not. You should like it by the way, as it makes you sound like the grumpy old farts who spent the dying years of the nineties moaning about these pesky new DVD pernickities, or the generation before whinging about CDs. Play the likes of Halo, Mario and Gods of War on the same device? Count me in. Vive la revolution.
No I dont mean PC's. I mean a console with closed architecture & no need for Virus scans & upgrades etc. Where everyone is on the same level regardless of how much money they have.
This was tried some time ago with the 3DO. It flopped big time. Console manufacturers make their money from licencing the games etc so they naturally want their own hardware. Also Although there are many good reasons to have a unified architecture there is also one giant weak point, Innovation. Wii would never have made it out of the door if there was a unified console and there is also not as much incentive for the increase of power (although this could also be seen as a good thing as gameplay may be the winner). Ultimately it comes down to the big players wanting all of the Pie not just one third (or less depending on how many companies joined the consortium). Can you also see Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo agreeing on a single way forward for gaming?
I think we are almost there in a way though. IMO there is no reason to own both a PS3 & a 360 now anyway. 99% of games are released on both nowadays. The amount of brilliant exclusives that push the strengths of their console is getting smaller every gen.
I'm with Bosker. Downloads ARE going to be the way to go like it or not. You should like it by the way, as it makes you sound like the grumpy old farts who spent the dying years of the nineties moaning about these pesky new DVD pernickities, or the generation before whinging about CDs. Play the likes of Halo, Mario and Gods of War on the same device? Count me in. Vive la revolution.
Even if it means having to find a new job....
There is only one BIG problem with going download only. BANDWIDTH! In a market that sees traffic shaping and bandwidth throttling as standard it is close to impossible to download a 5 gig of data in any sort of quick time let alone 50gigs worth of blueray data! I can go to the shop and buy my copy of the game in a tenth of the time it takes to download it. Also there are many that are saying that the Internet can't cope with the traffic that this will cause. I currently stream my films via my virgin box but even though this is a great way of getting the films instantly the high def films are only 720p and even the standard def ones are compressed to save on bandwidth which all has an impact on the picture and sound quality. It will be a very long time before we get 1080p streamed down these services as standard.
While he might have a point about everything coming from one place, it will be in the form of a box under the TV. You can't have textures, geometry, physics and audio streamed together at a fast enough rate that you could play it in that form - you do need a box to bring it all together.
But I do agree that PCs and consoles are slowly coming together. But that's not new - this generation already does it.
I kinda like the idea, tho I still want a "box" Just imagine if sony didn't replace the ps 3 for another 5/6 years. The power of the PS 4 would be unreal, terabyte harddisk would be cheap as chips, 64gig flash memory cards would cost nothing, internet speeds should ( I bloody well hope) average at least 16mb and exclusive titles are a distant memory. Do we need to go any further? cant this tech just be downscaled and made cheaper as technology progress's? I agree with the post suggesting innovation might suffer but if who's to stop people from developing new controllers?
I just think that what we have now is fast approaching enough, and im a PC graphics whore! 5/6 years will be 4-5 graphics card generations! Nuff said
I'm with Bosker. Downloads ARE going to be the way to go like it or not. You should like it by the way, as it makes you sound like the grumpy old farts who spent the dying years of the nineties moaning about these pesky new DVD pernickities, or the generation before whinging about CDs. Play the likes of Halo, Mario and Gods of War on the same device? Count me in. Vive la revolution.
Even if it means having to find a new job....
Call me an old fart then (im only 23) but I like to have a boxed copy of a game rather than a download. I like to have a collection of games and enjoy walking into town and buying a new game with a box and a disc. A hell of a lot of people feel the same way as me. Downloads are not the way to go.
People keep banging on about bandwidth like it's some impregnable end-of-the-world barrier - like the speed of light.
Guess what? In ten years time bandwith will be f**king huge. The UK is lagging behind (we were 12th last year after Japan, France, Korea, Sweden etc), but fibre optic cables are being laid all over the place - it's only going to get faster and faster.
Japan leads with the world with the fastest/cheapest system with an average of 100Mbits/s! That's nearly three times faster than Blu Ray stream speed 36Mbits/s).
http://www.websiteoptimization.com/bw/0711/
It's going to happen, just give it time. Personally I'll be happy to see the back of disc-based media gathering dust in a cupboard. Yes, I know I'm in the minority, but after years of collecting LD, VHS and DVD (all of which are now redundant), I just can't be bottomd any more.
And now for a view of someone who can buy alcohol legally:
Probably. Or rather, the way in which we access video game entertainment will change over time.
Much like the way we watch films. Before it was tapes, read by a head, all very mechanical and analogue.
Now, we have chips that decode the information read from a disc and perhaps more importantly, decode the information from a hard drive and run through a digital player.
Even at home we have sky. TV boxes are coming with hard drives and internet connections are steadily getting faster and faster.
Soon, solid state discs will become cheaper and the amount we can store will go through the roof.
Chip sets may become horrendously powerful as standard as resolutions rise and rise, so the lines may be blurred between what the CPU will be running.
Operating systems, games, films and music.
In years to come it'll be a boon to have a box that could do it all, and do it all well. If that is progress, then fine.
I'd be more than happy to walk into a store, buy a game downloaded onto my 50gig stick (oo-er) and come home, plug it in and play. Take a few minutes out to see if that film I bought, before I left the house, had downloaded and then slip on my silver jump suit to take the dog for a hover.
this is purely speculation and as i said who cares? why dont we concentrate on the now or at least the near future.
There is only one BIG problem with going download only. BANDWIDTH!.
*assembles cat... I mean, posse*
I picked that bit, Leefy cos whats to say games shops, or such, won't still have hard copies of the games on the shelves as well as a service to download a game onto a memory stick to take home and install in your consoles hard drive? I'm sure when systems change they'll not burn any bridges but things will change eventually and that process will be gradual.
I think actually hard copy media and download games can run side by side. A lot of people like to hard a disc of a game and a lot of people like to spend less money and download it.
Yes Internet speeds will get larger, but so will game size's. Im sure in the future we will be able to download 50gig of information in a few hours but by the time that happens full retail games will probably end up being 500gig.
Do you really think that 1080p is the best quailty films are ever going to be. No they will get better and by the time we can all download something like Planet Earth which is 4 Blu-Rays worth of film, chance's are resolutions will be 2160p.
Technology never stops getting better, remember that.
I'm sure an EA exec said something like this a few months ago. I can actually see it happening, the current gen architecture of the consoles is getting closer and closer to the PC, and let's be honest the PC is moving into the living room as media centers. There is already a unification of devices even in the 360 (I can't speak for the PS3 as I don't have one and don't actually know all it's features). You can watch movies (HD-DVD / BluRay), play music, play games and watch TV all through media centers (and to a degree the 360, but again not sure about the PS3).
I think Microsoft have been advocating something like this for a while, they are pushing more and more for online technologies and direct media streaming rather than physical media. But until every country (including the UK) has better connectivity it's still just a pipe dream.
I'm sure it will happen, but I'm not entirely convinced about it happening in the next 5 years, although streaming media to my 360 on my 1/2 meg connection at the moment is pretty good (little to no stopping happens).
Well if the PS3 was to be the last console then how come Acer are releasing an open standards PC 'console'?
Actually i think the Acer idea is brilliant because Ninty/M$ and $ony have far too much power in dictating what they can charge for/bringing in ads in games centrally controlled via PSN or Live. Console with Linux and based on open standards would allow anyone to use the console in any way they felt and all the software exists already e.g. for video streaming/recording/music mixing/converting downloaded movies to DVD etc.
Hes right in a way though because as consoles are evolving theyre becoming PC's and the PC is becoming more like a console so effectively neither PC's nor consoles will be the same in 10-15 years time
why would microsoft cut their own throat? haven't they got a new 360 in the pipeline ?? And what about Sony & Nintendo won't they have something to say about it!! I personally think if the tec is their it should be used! But we should still have a choice as to either console or pc.
2008: Anne Diamond commences videogames reviews in a small column. Deemed suitable advice for parents everywhere, Anne Diamond becomes editor (2009) and eventually (2012) CEO of Future Publishing.
2013: Gordon Brown appoints Anne Diamond minister of entertainment.
2016: Following failed attempts at reform, Anne Diamond vetos video games and games consoles (201.
2019: Following Diamond advice, EU President Tony Blair bans video games across Europe.
2021: The EU gets fit. With more free time, personal relationships improve and marriages increase. Families with 8 small screaming children become the norm. Divorces also increase, due to overcrowding and people spending too much time together.
2026: Food, water and oil are in short supply. Mass-suicide amongst men is commonplace due to loneliness and sheer boredom. Women can't find anyone to fix their leaking taps and water supplies fail. Global panic ensues.
2026: Without any other buttons left to push the latest US president J.F.Diamond Jr presses the USA's last big red button. Global thermonuclear war commences. The worlds leaders unite in hammering their big red buttons repeatedly, just like the good old days when auto-fire and online gaming never existed. An era long since forgotten is remembered, a sense of nostaliga rekindled. In the blinding flash before their eyes, the world's leaders cry out - "Tiger uppercut".
So you tell me... Who the hell let Anne Diamond review video games? There's no damn merit in it.
People keep banging on about bandwidth like it's some impregnable end-of-the-world barrier - like the speed of light.
Guess what? In ten years time bandwith will be f**king huge. The UK is lagging behind (we were 12th last year after Japan, France, Korea, Sweden etc), but fibre optic cables are being laid all over the place - it's only going to get faster and faster.
Japan leads with the world with the fastest/cheapest system with an average of 100Mbits/s! That's nearly three times faster than Blu Ray stream speed 36Mbits/s).
http://www.websiteoptimization.com/bw/0711/
It's going to happen, just give it time. Personally I'll be happy to see the back of disc-based media gathering dust in a cupboard. Yes, I know I'm in the minority, but after years of collecting LD, VHS and DVD (all of which are now redundant), I just can't be bottomd any more.
Downloads: bring it on!
You clearly have missed the point that the Internet itself will not cope unless a radical redesign and overhaul is carried out (which will be mighty expensive) The ability of fibre running to your house carrying a bandwidth of 300mbps is no use if the internet is chugging under the strain. Then what happens when Super High def arrives (possibly out in japan in around 2 or 3 years)? Again this will increase the data size enourmously (you may well be looking at 400MB - 500MB for a film!). You will then need even higher bandwidth to cope. Bearing in mind if you pay for 8mbps broadband you are most likely getting closer to 4 or 5mbps at the moment (even less if you go over your small quota at peak times) and you can see that a lot of vry expensive changes need to happen for this to even come close to being a reality. The amount of copper wires that need to be changed to fibre is enormous and many new housing developments are not connected to cable due to the cost.
I'm with Bosker.
There is only one BIG problem with going download only. BANDWIDTH!.
*assembles cat... I mean, posse*
I picked that bit, Leefy cos whats to say games shops, or such, won't still have hard copies of the games on the shelves as well as a service to download a game onto a memory stick to take home and install in your consoles hard drive? I'm sure when systems change they'll not burn any bridges but things will change eventually and that process will be gradual.
I agree, but the story was about how we would see a total change. I think in 10 years we will still be able to go to a store and purchase a physical copy.
I also think that blueray will loose the format war to streaming (after all I have not rented a dvd for over a year as I choose to stream via my V+ box). But again I do not see 1080p with full truehd audio being streamed for quite a while yet and obviously not everyone can get cable and Sky can't stream movies via your satellite dish.
None of the companies are brave enough to move away from the console business model.
I dont want to insult anyone here, but it is a fact that the 'lower classes' buy things people can see rather than stuff 'under the hood'
Basically (and very generally), lower classes would rather invest in Sky than Broadband, as people can see a sky dish and box, and can't 'see' broadband. the same would apply to consoles. You can see the box under the TV, its a physical thing to show people.
Also, the death of consoles points to a death of buying physical disks, something that wont happen. People want a pre-owned market, and grandparents want something they can wrap up for christmas.
Sweeping statements like 'consoles are going to die' are just idiotic and mis-informed.
Edit: By mention of 'lower classes', im not trying to insult anyone. Its just a study proven fact. (cant get a link) Don't anyone think I'm having a dig at anyone here, im not.
And now for a view of someone who can buy alcohol legally:
Probably. Or rather, the way in which we access video game entertainment will change over time.
Much like the way we watch films. Before it was tapes, read by a head, all very mechanical and analogue.
Now, we have chips that decode the information read from a disc and perhaps more importantly, decode the information from a hard drive and run through a digital player.
Even at home we have sky. TV boxes are coming with hard drives and internet connections are steadily getting faster and faster.
Soon, solid state discs will become cheaper and the amount we can store will go through the roof.
Chip sets may become horrendously powerful as standard as resolutions rise and rise, so the lines may be blurred between what the CPU will be running.
Operating systems, games, films and music.
In years to come it'll be a boon to have a box that could do it all, and do it all well. If that is progress, then fine.
I'd be more than happy to walk into a store, buy a game downloaded onto my 50gig stick (oo-er) and come home, plug it in and play. Take a few minutes out to see if that film I bought, before I left the house, had downloaded and then slip on my silver jump suit to take the dog for a hover.
At least someone here has some inteligence. The future of video gaming is all tied into how we interact with each other over a shared network, and when we get super fast fiber-optic(or whatever else tech might be used) connections, what will be the point of having a console in each home running the games off disc, when you can have a super fast/powerfull central computer that you can connect into and play? But I guess the "Luddites" out there will never get that.
Hope consoles will still be around. How would I mess with fanboys if they no longer exist
Oh wait they're a fan of brand. As long as different brands make these "standard" products they'll still be around.
Let's just hope this doesn't happen for a while, if it does happen let's hope it means cheaper games for everybody. That's all I care about really, more cost-effective gaming.
Hope consoles will still be around. How would I mess with fanboys if they no longer exist
Oh wait they're a fan of brand. As long as different brands make these "standard" products they'll still be around.
Let's just hope this doesn't happen for a while, if it does happen let's hope it means cheaper games for everybody. That's all I care about really, more cost-effective gaming.
The fanboys will still be arguing about one having better graphics than the other even if they were identical machines.............
What makes me laugh is the complete lack of understanding of some of you people about the gaming industry, while you are hard core gamers who will be early adopters for new technology, you are the smallest market. The biggest market is the occasional gamers, the console owners who certainly will not be interested in downloading everything on to one box. Once a week they will want to get there 360 out with their mates, have some beers and play some fifa or shake their wiimotes around like idiots. If the gaming industry only attracted hardcore gamers then it would not have progressed anyway near the amount it has. It is the consoles that have given you the industry as you know it, take them away and well who knows..
The fanboys will still be arguing about one having better graphics than the other even if they were identical machines.............
You're right, I can still see it happening. Fanboys swearing that their favourite company is giving them a little extra somehow in the visual department despite the identical specs.
One day we'll get our games the same way we get our TV, via a set top box, you'll be able to switch from station to station to select which game to play. It's just a matter of waiting for the Infrastructure to catch up.
One day we'll get our games the same way we get our TV, via a set top box, you'll be able to switch from station to station to select which game to play. It's just a matter of waiting for the Infrastructure to catch up.
Darn it!! I'll never smell a fresh floppy again, or open a huge cardboard box with manual, code wheel, maps and promotional stuff
What makes me laugh is the complete lack of understanding of some of you people about the gaming industry, while you are hard core gamers who will be early adopters for new technology, you are the smallest market. The biggest market is the occasional gamers, the console owners who certainly will not be interested in downloading everything on to one box. Once a week they will want to get there 360 out with their mates, have some beers and play some fifa or shake their wiimotes around like idiots. If the gaming industry only attracted hardcore gamers then it would not have progressed anyway near the amount it has. It is the consoles that have given you the industry as you know it, take them away and well who knows..
Please don't make this your last comment - it is one of the more thought out posts in this thread.
It is very true that the non-casual gamer (for want of a better term) has already become the smaller market, but I certainly wouldn't say the videogame industry has "progressed". It has become more commercial, more profitable, more cut-throat and more accessible than it used to, sure.
However, creativity and ingenuity are stifled, and the market is saturated with samey high-profit releases. Games which do show a hint of old school creativity (The Movies, Katamari etc.) don't sell particularly well, and are getting fewer and far between. The smaller independant studios who excelled at making these kinds of games shut up shop long ago, or were bought up to churn out whatever sells well.
These days, big budget sequels seem to be the way.
That certainly doesn't sound like progress to me.
Were consoles responsible for this decline, by introducing the Fifa loving beer drinkers? That is a really good question for which I don't think there is a definite answer.
Luddite here. Although downloadable content is a nice extra to have, it can't beat a box and an instruction manual. It would be like replacing books with downloadable texts.
As for the actual article? 'EX-Microsoft' anyone? I can almost taste the bitterness.
None of the companies are brave enough to move away from the console business model.
I dont want to insult anyone here, but it is a fact that the 'lower classes' buy things people can see rather than stuff 'under the hood'
Basically (and very generally), lower classes would rather invest in Sky than Broadband, as people can see a sky dish and box, and can't 'see' broadband. the same would apply to consoles. You can see the box under the TV, its a physical thing to show people.
Also, the death of consoles points to a death of buying physical disks, something that wont happen. People want a pre-owned market, and grandparents want something they can wrap up for christmas.
Sweeping statements like 'consoles are going to die' are just idiotic and mis-informed.
Edit: By mention of 'lower classes', im not trying to insult anyone. Its just a study proven fact. (cant get a link) Don't anyone think I'm having a dig at anyone here, im not.
good post, in a thought provoking sense, I know it exists but i wouldnt consider the 'keeping up with the Jones's' guys a large portion of the gaming community, maybe parents boasting about their new Wii, but it would be the kids that are the gamers. I dunno, your basing the separation on class base whereas i think it ought to be education based. If i had kids i would most definitely choose broadband over sky, whereas i know my brother( who has no interest in tech stuff ) would choose sky simply because its a switch on and thats it service, which is effectively what consoles are. What worries me is( and im a big console fan( well generally i just like games ), i just spent my PS3 money upgrading my PC cos there were no games out that i wanted to play badly on the PS3,theres still no games id like, but ill pick one up sometime ) the fact that consoles are adopting all the crap that PC gamers deal with, all this patching before you play, installing to harddrive before you play, Live subscriptions, PSN releasing old games that you have to buy because they removed backwards compatibility etc etc.
Like it or not but consoles are becoming more like PC's and its total crap, no longer will you buy a game, go to the pub, bring your mates back, have a few beers and stick on the game for some serious fun, no you must install it, download patches and all that crap. I still think the PS2 will be the last of the best consoles, although i have faith in Nintendo, i just hate the way they aim their systems at non hardcore gamers
Enough of the rant though and back to your points, i completely disagree with your thoughts on physical discs, without a doubt thats gonna die, hell theres hundreds of articles on the web on why blu ray movies will die simply because its far easier to just download them.
Of course your point is based on the fact that if you have a physical disc youl be able to use it whenever you like( unlike EA's crappy download service which only allows X downloads and they eventually run out ), but look at steam, they only did it in the past six months but any steam game you buy in a shop automatically adds it to your steam account and you can install it forever on your current PC and future new PC's whenever you like, its pretty cool actually as i have Lost Planet installed on Vista but HL2 EP2 installed on XP and i can click and install it anytime via download on XP
EA has also stated it would much prefer( obviously ) 1 single console, it will definately happen unless $ony or M$ can keep ahead of PC performance on console release indefinately. tsting times indead
In the end there probably will only be one console, i wouldnt like to place any bets, as i may be seriously wrong.
it seems after all the competition there has to be a winner, sure companies will try and release bigger and better consoles, but in the end itll come down to one.
this would sort out all arguements definately, everyone would have the same console, more money would be put into it as a result and no one would miss out on exclusives or game that are only on one format. it sounds like a great thing, even though people would no longer have the choice
to be honest i doubt nintendo would take over, it has never been a serious console, i mean face it, if you just have a wii you are not a hardcore gamer, most people buy it along with another console and use it occasionally for fun. (feel free to prove me wrong)
playstation would seem the most obvious choice as sony have been making playstations for 13 years now, they know how to do it right.
As good as xbox is i doubt it would make it in the long run, especially when people from its own company ,albeit one thats left, is makin comments like these. i assume THEY will last 5-10 years not console gaming in general.
i may be wrong. there may never be a ps4 and xbox will continue, but i really cant see that happening.
Luddite here. Although downloadable content is a nice extra to have, it can't beat a box and an instruction manual. It would be like replacing books with downloadable texts.
As for the actual article? 'EX-Microsoft' anyone? I can almost taste the bitterness.
In the end there probably will only be one console, i wouldnt like to place any bets, as i may be seriously wrong.
it seems after all the competition there has to be a winner, sure companies will try and release bigger and better consoles, but in the end itll come down to one.
this would sort out all arguements definately, everyone would have the same console, more money would be put into it as a result and no one would miss out on exclusives or game that are only on one format. it sounds like a great thing, even though people would no longer have the choice
to be honest i doubt nintendo would take over, it has never been a serious console, i mean face it, if you just have a wii you are not a hardcore gamer, most people buy it along with another console and use it occasionally for fun. (feel free to prove me wrong)
playstation would seem the most obvious choice as sony have been making playstations for 13 years now, they know how to do it right.
As good as xbox is i doubt it would make it in the long run, especially when people from its own company ,albeit one thats left, is makin comments like these. i assume THEY will last 5-10 years not console gaming in general.
i may be wrong. there may never be a ps4 and xbox will continue, but i really cant see that happening.
I think it'll be more like TVs, lots of different makes, but all working the same.
No I dont mean PC's. I mean a console with closed architecture & no need for Virus scans & upgrades etc. Where everyone is on the same level regardless of how much money they have.
My thoughts exactly. The only real problem would be how to make technological advances when there's no hardware competition. I think the idea is good on paper but I'm not sure how it'd ever come about in reality.
Definitely would be best for consumers and developers in the end though; not buying into a dead duck console for the public and no cross-platform conversions for the developers.
Has anyone ever stopped to think that a unified architecture would be a pirate's dream?
Only one cracking session needed and there you go, all formats unlocked, in one sitting.
From that perspective it would be even worse for the industry.
The positive though would be worldwide releases and you wouldn't be limited to format exclusives any more.
Another negative aspect would be how far could they push the hardware market. Without the competition and the exclusives it would be even harder to push bleeding edge hardware and a suitable middle ground would have to be found for all the companies involved.
so there will be tvs with capable of downloading games???and no box????bulls**t.you wud still need serious hardware to run these.ok it could work like this,the next gen all three companys,will release these boxes,but with different hardware specs.you still need gpu's and cpus,so you need space to keep them cool hence a box shell.putting it all into a tv wud be to expensive and pointless.so there will be boxes with hardware specs,but with massive ram.no disc slot you just download your games on your massive memory and your so called box(console)runs them with its hardware.sounds very like a console to me without discs.nothing to worry bout.however smaller unknown companys will try the built in tv game thing,it wud be somthing like the rip off vii console,nothing like the wii,and have ps1 graphics on your tv.just cant see three large console companys making tvs ha ha.
This guy is a dick, I am a pc gamer and what evidence is there that pc gaming is dying, they thought that when ps2 was hyped and the ps1 and ps3 and none of ever have. There will always be consoles and there will always be pc but at least pc (aka Microsoft) dont say ooh the pc will kill this new console! And besides what does anyone get out of there being a fight over it
I don't just play games, I collect them. There's nothing quite like a physical stack of games on the shelf, in their original cases with the instructions. I wouldn't want to give that up over something you simply download.
Don't get me wrong, I download the odd Xbla/Psn arcade game, but for proper games I'd rather have the box, booklet and a physical copy of the game so not only does it look good in my collection, but I have a hard backup should my game save/install get corrupted.
Footnote - Oh and please explain to me how a digital set top box has the same hardware as a cutting edge console.
I agree with a lot of people on how there are still going to be a good amount of people who will prefer to have hard copies of things. I am one of them. If something happens and your hard drive gets wiped, you're s.o.l. for games and music (on pc). If you have a hard copy of those things then all you have to do is put them back on the hard drive. Downloadable content is awesome as far as extra levels, weapons and such is concerned. Full games on the other hand would just take too damn long, b/c there is not guarantee that everyone will have a fast enough connection speed. Hell, there are still people out there with dial-up. Besides nothing beats opening up a game, smelling that new game smell and inserting it into your console and thumbing through the instruction manual while it loads.
Nintendo has way to many fans worldwide for there to be no consoles for 5-10 i can't see why nintendo can't go on another 20-30, untill all the nintendo fans have got to old to play, this guys is angry coz he got blown out, not surprising with comments like that, can u see mario dieing no can u see mario going on another console no. the day that happens is the day gaming dies, as for microsoft and sony, they will still try to outpower each other for the next decade
Simply because every hardware manufacturer on the planet will want to make the one everybody buys!
So we would end up with 20 or so unified consoles...
Besides, the closest thing available to a unified console is actually the PC.
This whole argument by the way is based on technological assumptions. No one seems to be thinking about consumer needs!!!!! A consumer is willing to pay for the simple fact that a pre-selection has already been made for a console. They pay for easiness...
The mere fact abundant technology and games are available will only dazzle consumers. That alone already gives consoles a birthright.
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