The future of consoles

What do you think how consoles are going to be like in the next few generations, or how they should be like?

Personally, I think the Nvidia Shield TV is a pretty cool primitive idea of a console. It's open ended OS design allows for making easy ports of PC games to the system, and because of that, it even runs PC source ports with mods, such as Doom Touch, Xash3D and DIII4A. Which means, it plays Doom 1 mods (like Brutal Doom), Half-Life mods and expansions, and even Doom 3 mods (albeit with a shitty framerate). Moreover, all app purchases on Google Play carry on to any other Android devices you have. It's far from perfect, but I think that it's basically a primitive (stone age) preview of future console generations. Future consoles should have a complex OS capable enough to be good even for tasks that are NOT gaming related, and being able to play PC mods as well. Seriously, it's pretty pathetic that Doom 3 on Xbox 360 can't run mods but an Android smartphone of all things can.

But not only that, future consoles might also get rid of physical media altogether as well. How to you people feel about this? Honestly, I don't care so much because internet these days is very accessible these days, and besides, physical media in general is getting more expensive and harder to market and produce because of technological costs and marketing issues and hardships. Many indie games these days have no physical releases whatsoever and only few of them even have limited physical editions to begin with. Not only that, but consoles with Blu-Ray drives are also more expensive and harder to make as well. Maybe the solution would be to go the Nintendo Switch route of having small cartridges, but even then, it still has the issue of marketing, which a lot of AAA publishers want to get rid of. Maybe Nintendo won't get rid of physical releases (as stubborn as they are) but the other companies definitely will at some point, eventually.

wut

I think the future is looking really good.

Before this gen there were some doubts from Big Publishers, who thought tablets and smartphones would take over for gaming.

Hence why we got so many remasters, instead of original games on consoles.

But this, yeah

I'll be buying less and less consoles.

ps4 and nintendo with several exclusive games have potential to survive.

xbox one x is becoming a closed pc with great price/performance but the lack of exclusives leads to pc victory.

Which alt is Nya? Both? He does have a history of having conversations with himself.

The future of consoles is epitomized and shines bright by what MS is doing and the Mighty X1X MonsterBoz MasterRace itself. :P

I think we should have no worries.

A few years ago everyone was saying that 8th gen consoles would be weak (Wii like) and 90% of gaming would be about tablets and smartphones.

Every one of rhose predictions failed. Consoles are selling alot, showing incredible graphics on every AAA game, and thanks to indies, we have been getting more diversity now than any time in the past.

The future of consoles are set top streaming boxes, low hardware development costs, easy to profit on each box sold, big profits from games where no other retailer is involved, etc. It's only a matter of time before the majority of the developed world (where first world issues like gaming consoles exist) has an internet infrastructure capable of it.

We can already see the foundations in the likes of PSN and Xbox Live.

Another day, another alt. I guess SW is dying off :(

But oh well, back to the topic at hand. After what we have seen from what has current-gen consoles are doing as of now, I see the lack of innovation coming from both Sony/MS and I expect next-gen console to be more the same. Only Nintendo is still innovating and that is the only Co. I'm gonna be supporting and PC will always pave the way as far as gaming goes.

I completely agree with digital foundry on this one.

The next generation of consoles HAVE to push forward with bigger CPUs.

Everything these consoles are trying to do, all in one boxes, need more CPU power.

We are at the point with GPUs of diminishing returns, which is why you see resolution at the forefront.

The next wave of console innovation needs to be on the CPU to allow for more advanced AI, animations, lighting, living worlds, simulation, physics, etc.

This is what is holding back the PC market as well, as developers are always developing with consoles in mind.

This generation bland, nothing more than higher resolutions. There wasnt a jump in console innovation like going for PS2/Xbox to 360/PS3 or even gens before that.

CPU power is a must

I'm liking that Microsoft is pushing backwards compatibility and I hope Sony follows suit with the next PlayStation being BC with all PS4 software. I'm pretty happy with my PS4 game library so if they don't have BC in the PS5, it will be a longer wait for me to pick one up.

This is what I was thinking.....

PS4 is obliterating the competition, so yeah, there's still hope for consoles in the future.

Consoles today, consoles tomorrow, consoles FOREVER!

We need better CPU’s in consoles but PC gamers are holding back PC gaming as they refuse to buy PC games at full price.

If PC gamers actually supported their hobby by paying full price, more PC delevopers would be willing to push boundaries and take risks.

You hermits can blame consoles all you want, but it’s your fault in the end.

Start buying PC games.

The NES outsold most of the recent consoles i think NES was the peak for consoles were in downhill xbox one isn't even going to outsell xbox 360

Why is then that BF1 sees huge gains in CPU upgrades?

I'm not a fan of anything that has to do with connecting my systems to the internet. I don't like multiplayer I don't like dlc I don't like lootboxes I don't like day 1 patches I don't pre order and I don't buy season passes. I try to stay offline with my systems as much as possible. With the way the industry is going I may be forced to go the piracy route. I can't bring myself to pay full retail for games anymore. I'm old and it's difficult for me to except change. Most of my life I was used to getting a complete finished product when I bought a game.

@ProtossRushX: I have been reading about the end of consoles for decades. We are ALWAYS in the last generation of consoles, yet this gen has been amazing sales and games wise.

I mean, it's impossible to predict the state of this industry 30 years from now, but nothing radical will happen in 5 or 10 years for sure...

@Telekill: same, i always see cows downplay BC and it boggles my mind

Id love to have a playstation that could play the countless ps3 games i got lying around, along with ps1/2 games

I can completely see this from happening, and it's vomit worthy.

There's a couple of Gamers that want a "Netflix of Video Games" to be a thing despite multiple chances of doing so having already failed.

But as we go further into the hell hole that is "Games as a Service" medium, it's likely that the next generation or 2 we'll just have Streamed services for our games, new and old and I bet they'll just make it an app for your TV and Phone and the service will cost like $60 to access.

@FLOPPAGE_50: weren't cows pissed when the ps3 lost it bc?

@Black96Z: yep, but since MS brought BC some known cow trolls claim they dont want BC and would rather play new games(wtf kind of logic is that?) having the ability to play classic games on your console is awesome

I never heard of console demises until the mobile crowd came along. I've heard of arcade demises though.

That said, have the recent consoles made inroads to gain back the marketshare they lost to the mobile crowd?

I can definitely imagine console gaming becoming something akin to OnLive, the traditional trend will probably continue for another 2 console generations before console gaming becomes 100% online streaming. It certainly has its benefits but there will be consequences to it, some that I fear may even affect PC gaming.

no the Mobile IPAD crowd is outpacing the PS4 and XBOX One and the switch

its even worse wiith phones the IPHONE is dominating them even more with gaming

@ProtossRushX: Didn't stop 100 million home consoles from being sold in the last 4 years.

Tablets and smartphones simply brought more people to gaming.

That would not bode well for consoles if it remains the norm except maybe for Nintendo. But, I have to wonder how many voices within the company are calling for Nintendo to wholeheartedly support the mobile crowd. Tremendous pressure, for sure. ;)

its hard to say.

they could go the onlive route (perish the thought). from MS and sonys perspective it makes a lot of sense (MS especially). designing, manufacturing and shipping a complex console costs a lot of money. no doubt the idea of shipping a small, low power, easy to manufacture console is a very tempting proposition. gaming hardware in and of itself is not that profitable in the console space (though its not the loss leader it once was either). at the same time though onlive failed miserably (thank god). so doing so could be a death sentence for any console manufacturer.

power can of course increase and increase by a lot. the CPU in current consoles is pretty meh (though the overall design philosophy of the consoles this gen has been correct) and devs will never say no to more ram and GPU power. but the flip side of all this is the cost of development and we just need to look at the state of the AAA sector to see the burden the cost of development has become. the risk is too high. its creatively dead. they just try to nickle and dime you as much as they can. EA, activision and ubisoft (pretty much the only AAA developers left) are an absolute shambles now. ubisoft is the least bad but the best stuff coming out from them is not on the AAA side. consoles can certainly get more powerful but im not so sure they should. at the end of the day its not CPU power that limiting dev creativity or pushing the boundaries in gameplay. its the sheer size of the budget. thats currently the biggest bottleneck in the industry.

nintendos choices in hardware and the overall platform have been interesting with the switch. they have closed no doors. they can make a gaming device in any shape or size they basically want and still use the hardware and software stack the switch currently uses. at the moment they have transfer pains from transferring from the Wii and wiiu in terms of the VC and the store and legacy purchases and such like. but once they get over that hump they shouldnt need to go messing with it again. iwata talked about the NX (at the time( being a platform and it could very well be. the software side of it can already accomodate a handheld and home game console device. same software, just a different configuration. the hardware is a desktop maxwell part in architecture and standard ARM cores. its not some completely custom built design. so everything nintendo learns on the swich can be applied to developing for a much much more powerful device. the fact that it uses ARM also doesnt limit them in the slightest. so the same software and hardware stack can scale from a gaming phone to a 4K gaming beast of a console. so it makes guessing what ninendo is going to do next almost impossible.

@osan0: Game streaming will be phased in by Sony and MS over the next decade. I doubt their dumb enough to go balls out and drop their home consoles in favour of it though. They'll need to guide the market and mainstream gamers towards it first. I'll guarantee though, once the mainstream are on board, it'll be streaming services and nothing else for console only gamers. The financial side of it is far too attractive for it not to happen.

PC gaming will hold out a lot longer because part of being PC gamer is the hardware side, we love our power hungry monsters.

I mean.... its pretty clear that within a decade..... maybe 15 years. consoles will be dead altogether (except maybe Nintendo) and will be replaced by little boxes that cloud stream and the focus will be on software for IPads, PCs, Iphones, Laptops, cable boxes, etc. and Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft will become software systems that stream games..... pretty much what that one company attempted.

hell yeah can't wait till my X-Streambox

Well the day we can only get stream boxes comes, well that will be the game gaming dies for me.

With stream boxes comes mostly always online games, servers shutting down making games useless afterwards, and so much more. Yet people are looking forward to that how sad.

Its less a bout a "steam box" and more about the idea of being able to effectively cloud game on any device in your house. I think its safe to say this is the direction we are heading given how great the technology is and how much it changes the game. And we cannot ignore that MS And Sony went around buying up all these game based cloud streaming companies.

This is why competition is essential in this industry (like any industry)... MS pushing BC so much might force Sony to follow suit.

I agree. It's probably one of the few things I like about MS this gen. I hope Sony has BC for PS4 on PS5. I would understand if it doesn't have for PS3 and before though due to the differences in architectures. But at least all digital games you bought on PS4 should be accessible on PS5 including the ones from last gens.

Next gen consoles in ~2020-ish (PS5, Next Xbox) will still use physical media, which is not going away nearly as fast as people think.

Digital-only consoles are a long way off and streaming-only "games as a service" is even further off. The present internet situation in NA can't support that yet and won't for a long time (streaming-only I mean), and even though digital downloads only without physical media could happen sooner, if it happens too soon it would leave millions of potential customers out in the cold who don't have in-home broadband. Even then, ISPs have bandwidth caps and their policies are unlikely to change, except get worse. Those situations aren't going to magically be resolved in the next 3-4 years as next-gen gets underway.

The next round of consoles from Sony and Microsoft will no doubt focus on better, faster storage, an also use BDXL drives / Blu-ray 128 GB discs, aside from the obvious uplift in processor / GPU / RAM spec.

At least for the upcoming generation, the next consoles will almost certainly be traditional, conventional systems, built from the ground up to handle 4K gaming, VR and next-gen game engines. The CPU will no doubt be a major focus and I'd expect PS5 / Xbox Next to have a more even balance between CPU and GPU. And storage will need to be improved (not only in capacity) given there will be a lot more RAM to fill, more than X1X's 12 GB.

Hopefully, more thought will be put into the standard controllers those consoles ship with. DualShock 4 was a major improvement over DS3, but the touchpad has been pretty useless. Both DS4 and the X1 pads are fine, but I'd expect some new forms of interface on next-gen controllers, while still being conventional (and to maintain backwards compatibility).

Back compat should almost be a given with PS5, and obviously with the next Xbox. I'm not sure what issues there will be going from Jaguar x86 to Zen x86 CPUs, but given Zen's huge uplift in IPC and better clock speeds, I don't see BC being a huge issue.

Also, these DF discussions are worth watching: