THQ: Death of Consoles Means "Tremendous Opportunity"

[Tom Goldman]

THQ: Death of Consoles Means "Tremendous Opportunity"

The ideal future for both videogame publishers and players is one that doesn't include the existence of consoles, according to THQ's CEO.

THQ CEO Brian Farrell has thrown his hat into the ring on the future of consoles, or lack thereof. Farrell sees the death of consoles, and the rise of cloud gaming, as a humongous opportunity to get more consumers into videogames.

In an episode of Game Industry TV, Farrell predicts that digital distribution will expand far beyond its current phase. "It's not just going to be casual games, it's not just going to be MMOGs, it's going to be all sorts of gaming experiences," he says when speaking of digital distribution's future.

This itself is not that crazy of an idea, but in Farrell's digital future, he doesn't necessarily see the need for consoles. In fact, he sees them as a barrier that is keeping people from playing games. So what's the solution? Cloud gaming services like Gaikai [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/99052-OnLive-Goes-Live-in-June], perhaps. "I am a huge believer in the concept of cloud computing," Farrell admitted.

On cloud gaming, Farrell said: "The concept of lowering the entry barrier to consumers for gamers to get into our games by not having to shell out for the hardware is a tremendous potential opportunity." He seems to believe cloud services could ease players into gaming more easily, and would also be a better avenue for Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft that have to spend millions of dollars on developing expensive hardware. He asks: "Why do we need a $1,000... that's what these consoles actually cost the manufacturers to make. Why do we need that computing power?"

Things happen slowly, but digital distribution is on the rise and cloud gaming is attempting to garner consumer attention. People from Farrell to EA founder id's John Carmack [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/102704-The-Days-of-Consoles-Are-Numbered-Says-EA-Founder] are putting their belief into cloud gaming services, but they're still such a foreign concept to the majority of gamers that I truly wonder if they'll be able to catch on like much of the videogame industry hopes.

Source: CVG [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxhGlNbsRxs]

Permalink

 

[Jared]

No matter what they want...people want consoles, and physical copies. Its human nature and they canot stop that, or change that

 

[tehbeard]

I'm sorry, did I blink?

Do we all now have never-failing highspeed fiber-optic links?

Cloud gaming is a nice idea, but we ain't ready yet.

 

[ArMartinez02]

Maybe in the future, instead of buying physical sopies maybe they will come with removable thumbdrives with games in it.....

 

[Jadak]

No matter what they want...people want consoles, and physical copies. Its human nature and they canot stop that, or change that

Really? Because I don't. The only reason I have anything in physical form these days (other than the mandatory stuff like console games) is for a backup, to save myself the download time if I want it again, not because I have any desire for having a physical copy, just more clutter I don't need.

In a theoretical future where I have 100% reliable, crazy fast internet, hard copies be damned.

 

[Nightfalke]

Even with cloud gaming...you still need a console like device to have the game transmitted to you.

So, I don't see much death of consoles happening, even in this cloud gaming utopia.

 

[WanderingFool]

Ill never trust the idea of not owning a game and having to pay to play for anything other than MMOGs. Plus I doubt there is enough of a stable internet infrasturcture to support millions of gamers at any one time player thousands of different games, and this arent just multiplayer games.

 

[V8 Ninja]

Y'know, I wanna say, "That will never happen!" and then list a bunch of reasons that support my idea, but that would just be too cliche for internet forums. Instead, I leave you with two words:

Blueberry pie.

 

[Arachon]

Cloud computing will take away control of our games, software and computers from us, placing it in the hands of some corporation or other. I hope it dies in a fire.

 

[JEBWrench]

Console gaming, proudly dying since 1972.

 

[Simonism451]

Cloud computing will take away control of our games, software and computers from us, placing it in the hands of some corporation or other. I hope it dies in a fire.

So it's actually Steam?

 

[MelasZepheos_v1legacy]

I hate digital distribution, and I know I'm not the only one. I hope it all goes away soon and we can get back to physical things. Things which you hold, things which you own.

Of course, with ACTA in the works the digital age might soon be coming to a premature end anyway, make sure you read up on your international treaties before you make such bold statements Farrell.

Also, if anything then digital distribution is much easier for the pirates to attack, so I think I see a clear causal chain here. All distribution becomes digital, pirates have a field day, more and more elaborate methods of DRM are introduced, either gaming as an industry dies entirely, or we revert back to consoles and disks as a 'radical new way to protect the product.'

I think Farrell is talking without any clear idea of the actual situation behind gaming right now, and I think he should return to his boardroom and let the actual game designers and console designers work on gaming's future, because we sure as fuck don't need anything CEO who thinks he knows everything and doesn't think before he speaks.

(Yeah I just compared with to Bobby Kotick, it's my new variant of Godwin's Law.)

 

[Treblaine]

Console gaming is... dying?

Huh? I wonder where Steam fits in THQ's "theory".

I hope they realise that there is a difference between utilising cloud computing... and merely ignoring all client-side computing power. There are immeasurable advantages to keeping much of the processing on client side, particularity the pixel rendering which outputs an INCREDIBLE bitrate of data.

Consider on PC (good analogy for future development) it outputs:
-1920x1080 = 2'073'600 or more pixels per frame
-32 bits (of colour) per pixel
-60+ frames per second
(-3D 2x everything per second)

3.7 GIGA-bits per second! with zero latency or compression artefacts (double that to 7.4 Gb/sec with 3D)

That is WAY beyond the limits of the internet now or what the internet will even be capable of in the next 20 YEARS!

See, this is not like a HD Youtube video where the file can be sent to a local server from Far away, then copied again to anyone else in London who wants it... this is a custom stream of video that must not only de delivered quickly but DECOMPRESSED quickly AND efficiently.

Decompression that is that quick and efficient needs an incredibly powerful GPU, so powerful it would be better to have it ACTUALLY RENDERING it itself!

HD video we view on the internet that you may watch can have incredible latency of 1 to 2 seconds, fine for a passive video but unplayable for a game. Try to do it quicker and the compression is less efficient = looks plain ugly.

Cloud computing MIGHT have a place for certain things, such as maybe AI or physics calculation, those have fairly simple and small data-output, just co-ordinates and commands measured in kilobytes... but the actually rendering of 3D world MUST remain on the client-side.

No. This won't work simply because server cost are HUGE compared to the client consoles model:
-electricity to power these super computers
-maintenance of alls this expensive equipment from dirt/moisture
-real estate in the ISP's network in close proximity to where you THINK your market will be

All that cost will have to be covered by gamer's monthly fee and of course they will also have to foot the bill with their ISP for the VAST amount of internet traffic. Hudreds of dolalrs likely every year jsut to match what a console does already. ISPs may not even allow these servers into privelaged part of their network if they are going to hog it all with massive amounts of low-latency HD video streams.

Far easier to sell consoles to users at a small-profit or small-loss so THE USER pays for the electricity, space, maintenance (cleaning, etc), access to ISPs.

And people are not going to trust these services. Most Xbox 360 owners haven't even connected their consoles online!

 

[felixader]

No matter what they want...people want consoles, and physical copies. Its human nature and they canot stop that, or change that

There are generations growing up rigth now with all this DLC and other stuff we had once never even considered to be existing.

I remember a time when we had just one TV and one telephone in the house, and that was NOTZ THAT LONG ago.

Now My family has three working PC's, two PCs for only private purposses, two huge LCDs or Plamsa Tvs, two consoles, adittional soundsystems and i don't know exactly how much Phones and/or Smartphones for several different reasons.
Oh yeah and then there are Navis, USB Sticks with enormous Capacitys that weren't once even thinkable on full PCs, a digital Recorder.....

 

[Hybridwolf]

Erm...no?

Unless you have Skynet working for you THQ, you wouldn't even know where to begin with cloud gaming, considering how much lag I get in all of your games.

 

[FieryTrainwreck]

Lots of good reasons why this stuff shouldn't happen, but it doesn't matter. This is where we're going. All electronic and computing software/hardware is transitioning to digital distribution and cloud computing models because those are the "end game" for the advancement of entertainment media - and they want to make sure they've slapped subscription models on everything. They're going to monetize this shit well in advance this time. They don't want to make the same mistakes they did with "the internet".

 

[GonzoGamer]

Maybe in the future, instead of buying physical sopies maybe they will come with removable thumbdrives with games in it.....

Great idea but we just left that medium... or do you not remember cartridges.

After seeing the prices and lack of quality hardware (360) or decent hardware support (ps3) for the consoles this generation, I don't think a loss of consoles would be the worst thing that could happen to gamers.

Now we just have to get a cloud gaming service that isn't a bigger ripoff. I would be willing to give up ownership of a physical disc if I was saving money by doing so. If they price the games more reasonably (considering they don't have to design, print, package or ship anything I don't think it should be out of the question) and arrange it so I don't have to buy a $300-600 console, I'll be very interested.

The one thing I would have a problem with is if they don't arrange for a way we can rent titles. There are some games I've enjoyed playing through but wouldn't buy.

 

[Sartan0]

Even with cloud gaming...you still need a console like device to have the game transmitted to you.

So, I don't see much death of consoles happening, even in this cloud gaming utopia.

Well at that point all they would need is a screen so your TV could do it.

Right now we have Steam as mentioned above by another poster. It downloads games to your computer where it runs them. That is not the cloud. I think it is a more likely model for the future. At least the near future.

The cloud is a long way off.