Future of console gaming

[borowki]

Most PCs sold aren't sold for gaming, and having the PC standardized to the point where every PC is game-ready requires game-related hardware to become so cheap and so sophisticated that the latest $400 graphics boards don't offer a noticeable improvement over integrated video. There's also the simple fact that most people don't connect their PCs to their TVs and likely don't keep their PCs in their living rooms to begin with.

This was never meant as an advocacy thread. It's fun to speculate about the future. The timeframe, I guess, would be like seven, eight years from now, at the end of the current gen--or a couple iterations of Windows. Will we still have graphic cards then, will we be plugging GPUs into the motherboard? I expect they will have become more standardized by then, as it'd otherwise be hard to utilize them for tasks other than 3D graphics.

I'm assuming that high-speed wireless network will be fairly common and that there is a box to stream the audio-visual data into. From the computer a game would need: certain number of CPU cores, GPU cores, RAM, access to storage, and networking. The problems with basic usability are solvable in my view.

Finally, there's marketing. There are too many PC vendors to communicate a unified vision to the market of the PC as ultimate gaming platform in order to have a large-scale hardware launch, and the ones that are big enough aren't dependent on gaming for their core business.

That's a fair point, but the PC are pretty much indispensable. People will just buy them. Gaming is not the main selling point now, but it's a high margin area. We'll see greater effort in the future.

 

[Diamond.G]

EA could always develop for the Mac... Oh wait...


Hehe, it is a closed PC platform. Of course there isn't a whole lot of em, but EA could make that change. Right guys? Right? *crickets*

 

[standing ovation]

I doubt it will ever happen. The transition would be killer.

A market-collapsing recession might do the trick.

 

[AlphaWolf]

A market-collapsing recession might do the trick.

sure we can start with the abacus as the center of home entertainment and work up from there.

 

[AzBat]

I still think the possibility of EA goin at it alone is more probable. EA would be more likely to make their own platform or buy somebody else's. Then they'd go exclusive to their own platform(except maybe they would still develop for the PC and mobile devices). Wouldn't surprise me if Microsoft uses this as an excuse to get out of the hardware business. Maybe they spin-off the Xbox platform and sell it to EA?

Tommy McClain

 

[PARANOiA]

I doubt MS would do this, since this would effectively throw out the plan for "control of the living room". I also think an EA console would be bad for the industry as a whole.

 

[AzBat]

I doubt MS would do this, since this would effectively throw out the plan for "control of the living room". I also think an EA console would be bad for the industry as a whole.

Nobody thought MS would sell Bungie either. MS could keep a minority stake in the new venture with EA. Could possibly explain the recent development with the 3 B's. Anyway, just depends on how bad EA wants one platform to develop for. We already know the likelyhood of Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony converging on one platform is even more unlikely than EA goin at it alone.

Tommy McClain

 

[borowki]

I still think the possibility of EA goin at it alone is more probable. EA would be more likely to make their own platform or buy somebody else's. Then they'd go exclusive to their own platform(except maybe they would still develop for the PC and mobile devices). Wouldn't surprise me if Microsoft uses this as an excuse to get out of the hardware business. Maybe they spin-off the Xbox platform and sell it to EA?

Tommy McClain

It's tricky for a large publisher to own the platform. There's too much conflict of interest. Other publishers won't help out a competitor. That's at least one of the reasons why Microsoft was willing to let Bungie go.

The Xbox platform wouldn't be an attractive acquisition, as such a spin-off doesn't mean Microsoft is out of the gaming business. It will just put its full weight behind gaming on Windows. The march of the PC into the living-room--I wouldn't want to be one trying to halt it.

 

[standing ovation]

sure we can start with the abacus as the center of home entertainment and work up from there.

You joke about it, but a recession isn't far-fetched. The convergence of "new" (i.e., unproven) technologies seems to be nudging the industry in this direction. So the market is being pushed to the point of diminishing returns, where producers can ill afford to make games and consumers can ill afford to buy them.

 

[AlphaWolf]

You joke about it, but a recession isn't far-fetched. The convergence of "new" (i.e., unproven) technologies seems to be nudging the industry in this direction. So the market is being pushed to the point of diminishing returns, where producers can ill afford to make games and consumers can ill afford to buy them.

This is why game sales are up something like 30-40% year over year?

 

[liolio]

I think MS need a "landslide" victory to leave the market nextgen, they will need to tighten theirs hold on the market (if they come on top this gen).

I still think MS will try to convince Intel or AMD/ATI (but a far second I guess Gates will pimp itself to convince Intel ) if the market opportunity for a closed box are strong.

 

[wco81]

We're not going to see pipes in the US which will permit full DD.

Even then, you still need some kind of local storage to keep stuff you buy so large-capacity hard disks (say in the 300 GB range) isn't going to be cheap to put in consoles or any hardware which has to hit mass-market price points.

Someone will talk about future consoles without some kind of cheap-to-distribute, high-storage drive but the telecom infrastructure won't support it, unless the Wii effect regresses gaming back to simpler, less graphically rich genres.

If gaming goes back to simple arcade/parlor games, then we could do DD right now.

DD has become successful in music but we've traded lossy content for the convenience and instant gratification of DD.

It could happen with video too, if we dumb down our standards. So it may happen to gaming as well.

 

[borowki]

We're not going to see pipes in the US which will permit full DD.

Even then, you still need some kind of local storage to keep stuff you buy so large-capacity hard disks (say in the 300 GB range) isn't going to be cheap to put in consoles or any hardware which has to hit mass-market price points.

If you can IPTV, you can do gaming. It's just a matter of compressing the audio-visual information and sending it down the same fiber link. One point I was trying to make. No equirpment to buy and no waiting for a game to download. The set-top box wouldn't need storage. I think it provides a viable business model.

 

[RobertR1]

If you can IPTV, you can do gaming. It's just a matter of compressing the audio-visual information and sending it down the same fiber link. One point I was trying to make. No equirpment to buy and no waiting for a game to download. The set-top box wouldn't need storage. I think it provides a viable business model.

Streaming would be a crapshoot to be honest. You'd really limit your install base. Downloads to HDD are more than possible such as Valve's Steam model. The effects on retail relations is the biggest hurdle I see.

 

[wco81]

Yeah retailers aren't going to be enthusiastic about selling consoles if they can't sell the games, which is where the profits are.

Right now, the main IPTV provider is AT&T with their FTTN U-Verse service. We'll see what the adoption rate for that is. They're giving away free movie channels for the first year but otherwise the price isn't better.

The total bandwidth with FTTN isn't that great, with many predicting AT&T would eventually have to go FTTP like Verizon's FIOS to stay competitive. The bitrates for video are low and the bandwidth for data isn't going to permit easy downloads of even say DVD-9 amount of content, let alone more high-density formats.

US telecom infrastructure doesn't show the promise of doing away with packaged media altogether, apart from the distribution problems with hardware if software is taken away from retail channels.

 

[borowki]

Streaming would be a crapshoot to be honest. You'd really limit your install base. Downloads to HDD are more than possible such as Valve's Steam model. The effects on retail relations is the biggest hurdle I see.

Of course it's possible. But at the end of the day, you're selling the same games to the same audience. Those who wait for a large download would have bought the game at retail.

Streaming offers the possibility of expanding the market--i.e. reaching those who would never buy a console. I can see it being tied into the regular IPTV offerings. For example, after watching a film, you're offer a chance to play the game based on that film.

 

[AlphaWolf]

Of course it's possible. But at the end of the day, you're selling the same games to the same audience. Those who wait for a large download would have bought the game at retail.

Streaming offers the possibility of expanding the market--i.e. reaching those who would never buy a console. I can see it being tied into the regular IPTV offerings. For example, after watching a film, you're offer a chance to play the game based on that film.

As soon as you get credit cards in the hands of 10 year olds that will be a huge success.

 

[Arwin]

As soon as you get credit cards in the hands of 10 year olds that will be a huge success.

Irrespective of whethetr I think any of the above a good idea or not, the PS3 has a day one allowance system for non-master account online purchases that I think is quite well thought out and easy to use ...

 

[AlphaWolf]

Irrespective of whethetr I think any of the above a good idea or not, the PS3 has a day one allowance system for non-master account online purchases that I think is quite well thought out and easy to use ...

For 10 year olds? Kids would buy lots of things, because they often have little concept of money. Their parents might not be so happy when they spend a bunch of money on something they will only play for 5 minutes.

That said the online content delivery is not the biggest problem with trying to make an open PC work replacing consoles and dvd players in the home.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

That's the purpose of an allowance though! They have a finite amount of money and its for them to make their own choices on what to spend it on. If they buy junk they only play for five minutes and then tire of, they hopefully learn that money needs to spent on wiser purchases in future.