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Koko Ricky

Gaming prediction: The end of consoles

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So this one, as usual, is a bit audacious, if not downright absurd, so of course I'm attracted to it as a possible outcome. This, of course, is pure mind experimentation, and not some 100% guarantee. I would say I believe certain aspects of this prediction have a good chance of coming to fruition.

Between 10 and 30 years from now, Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo will essentially leave the console branch of the industry, owing to the development of ubiquitous, multifunctional quantum computers. These computers, composed partly of stretchy metamaterials, will be foldable, resizable and able to transform in a number of ways, including being shrunken to fit in one's pocket like a smartphone, propped up like a computer or tablet, slapped on a wall like a TV or curved around the user's face to serve as visors. There will be no need for gaming consoles to be manufactured, because these devices (likely to appear in a variety of forms from major corporations) will serve all relevant hardware and input needs. Games will be streamed from the cloud and played on the devices, with the visor function allowing for full VR immersion; in addition, control inputs will be in the form of speech command, thought command, pupil tracking and gesturing.

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Steam has Steamboxes that can be called consoles. Ouya is out. China now has a new console. Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo pour millions and billions into advertisements and sales of console games still overtake PC or Steam sales. People bitch about PC ports now when their 5 year old PC can't handle a game that just came out.

People still want physical copies and still want to know they have a standardized system that will play a game they buy it for rather than the PC gamble.

All hail the death of consoles! May they die!

Consoles will die when we all start using solar power and stop using gasoline.

Consoles will die when CDs and DVDs have died and neither one has died. I still find bands putting out records even if no one puts out 8 tracks.

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BaronOfStuff said:

Oh for fuck's sake.

Nurse! GoatLord's escaped again!


You know what would be constructive? A response like, "I think this is ridiculous because..."

geo, those are all good points, but that's the climate right now. The culture of gaming and its technology has evolved so quickly over the last four decades that your model won't hold up in the long run. 10 years is probably too early for a new paradigm to be affected, but closer to the 30 year mark, I suspect we'll have a variety of new devices--possibly outfitted with disruptive technology that might, for example, be unbelievably compact or energy efficient. The whole idea of buying a box to plug into another box is obsolete.

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Actually, I think he's right (except for the retarded stuff). It wouldn't surprise me in the least if they pretty much made consoles without optical drives and went online downloads only. Maybe not next gen, but once the connections start inevitably getting faster and more consistent, they might start releasing games digital only.

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I think platforms will gradually become more generic, open and interoperable, and that will be the "death of consoles". 8th gen consoles are already (weak) PCs on a corporate leash. Imagine if most programs were distributed in source, or at least a "fat binary" of select targeted platforms, and the consumer could choose from any range of devices with different hardware and software. ARM based with Android, or maybe an x86 PC with a Linux distro, MS, Apple, Amazon, and who knows what else.

I think it's inevitable in some form or another. It probably won't be perfect by any means, but the playing field will at least be more level. A large part of the consumer base (those who were casual to begin with) already left for the mobile market a while ago, and there is a slowly growing presence of more "traditional" titles for Android.

Really, there's no reason an Android based machine couldn't serve as a capable game console. It's just Linux on an ARM processor, if you've got a Tegra, where can you really go wrong as long as good games are available? I'm tired of this "ewww, mobile is icky" attitude applied to the whole platform and not just the admittedly shitty marketplaces that exist for them.

Valve are very clumsy in their implementation (1st gen of Steam Machines weren't really well thought out IMO), but they are onto something.

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Clonehunter said:

We won the war for this?


First world war winning problems.

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I don't like the idea of everything being cloud based. What if you have no internet connection? What if the cloud server is down? What if the company offering the services goes bust? All your games are fucked. Sure physical hard drives can be broken, lost or otherwise unusable but they don't stop working if Kingston or whatever goes out of business. I would at least prefer a combination of the two, where you can opt to use the cloud service and have backups on physical drives or the other way around probably depending on what you want.

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The real question is: will this happen in our lifetime? I can see lots of Goatlord's predictions eventually coming true supposing the world continues to progress at the current rate without some sort of giant disaster (world war, etc.) Only time will tell. Hard to believe people will eventually look at Youtube videos I made in 2007 and say "oh yeah, that guy must be long dead by now." Or will Youtube even be a thing at that point? Questions questions... the far future will be a strange place I reckon. Perhaps I'll be happy to be dead by then.

"You were born in a year starting with 19? Damn you're old!"

I wonder what people will think of Doomworld and our posts in 2145...

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I really don't think gaming is going to make huge leaps and bounds into magical worlds like thought-input or whatever, at least not within the lifespan of anyone on this board.

Even though I don't always agree with calling games art, let's look at another form of art that has been around for quite a while. Here is 15th century sheet music, and here is 21st century sheet music. In a similar vein, here is an 18th century piano, and here is a modern piano. Both old examples are easily recognizable by anyone in the modern day. By no means are these isolated cases. The foundation of music has gone unchanged for thousands of years. We still use string instruments, reed instruments, percussion, and so on. Sheet music, hundreds of years. I mean, there's only so many ways to make sound, and many fewer ways to make sound that doesn't make your ears bleed.

Essentially what I'm saying is, I don't think games are ever going to change in such a way that they are virtually unrecognizable to gamers today or gamers of earlier generations. There's only so many ways to do an interactive experience. I would be surprised if the controller ever went away. There may be technological advancements, maybe in a hundred years or two, we'll have controllers that change shape to fit your hands. I still think anyone today would be able to recognize them though. The way you get games, or the way they're made, or how they're sold, these things may change, sure, but I think gaming more or less has its foundation.

Maybe consoles will go away, and dedicated gaming platforms like Steam and GoG Galaxy will take over. Hell, maybe they'll end up being called "game consoles" despite not being separate devices, the same way we "hang up" flat, touchscreen smartphones today. That's the most I'm willing to bet on though.

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I'd say games are a medium and not an art. A medium can pull in all sorts of art. Making a game is still an art, but then making anything can still be an art form. There are plenty of starving artists out there... game developers included.

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GoatLord said:

So this one, as usual, is a bit audacious, if not downright absurd, so of course I'm attracted to it as a possible outcome. This, of course, is pure mind experimentation, and not some 100% guarantee. I would say I believe certain aspects of this prediction have a good chance of coming to fruition.


Now, the NEW and IMPROVED GoatLord posts come with their own default disclaimer! Neat-o!

For the rest it's hard to say anything. For me, this is the usual "The Cloud will pwnzr j00r l1f3 4nd h4xx0r j00r b0xx0rs, j00 fux0rz!11!" prophecy.

All that I care is that there still will be Famiclones in the future. Beat that.

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I think this is partly why Microsoft initially went with the TV-focused strategy for the Xbox One. They've seen how the console software industry has been heavily contracting, with fewer and fewer games coming out per year, and they were probably afraid that game sales being centered around a handful of AAA titles wouldn't be enough to drive sales of their machine. Sony proved them wrong of course by catering heavily to the traditional console gamer demographic and showed that there is still a big market for that, but in the long term I believe Microsoft's fears are justified. In the end both of them are playing a very long game here trying to assert themselves as the main middle man of all media consumption in the living room.

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SavageCorona said:

What's a famiclone?


A cheaper replica of a console. It started with the NES (the first Nintendo) clones, wich originally was called Famicon, hence the name.

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There's also the fact that video games for smart TVs are creeping in on becoming a thing.

They're gonna be competing with the damn TVs soon, something you need to have to run a console.

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GoatLord said:

Between 10 and 30 years from now, Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo will essentially leave the console branch of the industry, owing to the development of ubiquitous, multifunctional quantum computers.

You seem deeply confused about what quantum computers are and what their potential uses are. Leaving aside the fact that even workable models that run in the lab are decades away at least, it's very unlikely that quantum computers will ever serve any kind of role as commodity/consumer devices.

The rest of the comment is psychotic nonsense as usual.

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People have been predicting the death of game consoles practically since Day One, but I don't see that happening while manufacturers can turn a profit from them.

raymoohawk said:

i cant wait for consoles to die (im just bitter i dont own one XD)

If you like retro games, hunt around for a C64DTV. That's my most recent console purchase. ;)

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HorrorMovieGuy said:

This is a Famiclone

heh, i have two Famiclones in my possession, the second one being something i bought from a thrift store myself. they're kinda fun if only for the novelty factor. i don't recall the name of it atm, but the first one i had was called something like MegaRacer and the main control was this clunky wheel that was really awkward to use.

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gaspe said:

A cheaper replica of a console. It started with the NES (the first Nintendo) clones, wich originally was called Famicon, hence the name.


More specifically, a clone of the original Famicom. Clones of other consoles are rarer, however there have been Atari 2600, Sega Master System and Megadrive/Genesis clones, the latter through a custom ASIC ("Genesis-on-a-chip" impoementation).

Modern Famiclones (anything made after 1993, basically) tend to be very cheap affairs, implemented with the infamous NoAC ASIC (NES-on-a-chip) and VERY nasty electronics and thin plastic casings. However, older ones made in the 80s can be just as well made as the real thing, with heavy cases, discrete ICs, etc.

The NoaC itself, despite its limitations, gives smooth gameplay, compared to some consoles that have a NES emulation mode, none of which gives real-time performance.

Jaxxoon R said:

There's also the fact that video games for smart TVs are creeping in on becoming a thing.

They're gonna be competing with the damn TVs soon, something you need to have to run a console.



I've seen some DTB receivers having some simple built-in games (e.g. Tetris, Othello or Minesweeper), and many are based on an ARM core, but as manufacturers tend to use the same, cheapest generic chipset that just barely gets the job done, I doubt there will be a guaranteed minimum standard that will allow a gaming platform to emerge. Maybe if they go around it in a much more complex way (e.g. through web browsers or Java), which however will require much more powerful hardware.

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GoatLord said:

You know what would be constructive? A response like, "I think this is ridiculous because..."

Okay then. This is ridiculous because YOU posted it. The end.

Please, please take note of your fucking title next time you decide to start a topic like this. The local tramp under the bridge comes out with less gibberish than you, and he's invariably pissed out of his head on White Star and Tennent's Super.

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fraggle said:

You seem deeply confused about what quantum computers are and what their potential uses are. Leaving aside the fact that even workable models that run in the lab are decades away at least, it's very unlikely that quantum computers will ever serve any kind of role as commodity/consumer devices.

The rest of the comment is psychotic nonsense as usual.


Actually there is a company that does sell a working quantum computer for commerical use:
http://www.dwavesys.com/

It's primarily for large scale simulations and complex computational dynamic automated learning scenarios.

Major hardware geek boners:





There will need to be some insane technological leap for these to be in your living room anytime soon. I can see them remaining accessible only to governments & megacorps for the forseeable future. This kind of like when they had the first computers that were entire rooms. As for being used for gaming, maybe crunching large lists of data to create games for targeted demographics. That is if the ability to program it to "learn" turns out to be as dynamic as promised.

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Too bad that the D-Wave is not considered to be Turing-complete, so it's not a general-purpose computer in the sense established by Turing/von Neumann. A more accurate description of it would be that it's a very specialized coprocessor/DSP the size of an entire computer system.

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I think consoles "going away" (or more accurately, becoming "one" with PC gaming) is just the natural progression of technological evolution. We used to have pocket-radios, watches, compasses and pagers, and now we simply have phones that do it all. I wouldn't be surprised at all if this new tech IS super bendable either. Long story shot, GL's theory doesn't seem too far out there to me personally. Minus the whole "quantum computer" thing, but I get what he was saying, multi-functional computers of the future.

Maes said:

All that I care is that there still will be Famiclones in the future. Beat that.

I can only hope so, nothing beats that fresh cheap Chinese plastic smell!

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