The "one/no-console" era.

[thejboy88]

Although I'm sure many will have talked about this before, I feel the need to ask the question myself.

In thia age where we have an increasinly large digital segment to video gaming, i.e. through patches and digital downloads and such, much has been said about the possibility that very soon we'll reach a time when video game creators will no longer be making either physical games or even consoles.

This new age would involve the use of only one machine, capable of streaming any game from any game creator to anyone, regardless of what their previous console preferences might be.

Imagine it, a console that would host characters and titles from all sorts of previously rival groups. Mario, Sonic, Solid Snake, Master Chief, the Angry Birds, and many more. All on the same machine.

Needless to say many will be upset by the change, not the least of which will be those game manufacturers who've done so well in the console market, like Nintendo.

But I'd like to know what all of your theoughts are on this matter.

Is the one/no console age coming? And if so, would it even be a good thing?

 

[skywolfblue]

Well, that'd suck for anyone with slow internet connections (which is a massive swath of rural America). (I'm in that crowd.)

Imagine it, a console that would host characters and titles from all sorts of previously rival groups. Mario, Sonic, Solid Snake, Master Chief, the Angry Birds, and many more. All on the same machine.

I doubt that. Modern console companies like Microsoft and Sony and Nintendo make a lot of their sales off of "exclusives". They want you to plunk down extra for ~their~ hardware, they're not going to give that up to someone else.

 

[ShinyCharizard]

It would be a bad thing for everyone. Competition is necessary and a good thing for consumers.

 

[krazykidd]

If that happens , i quit gaming and i become a retro gamer . Seriously , no more physical copies of my games? Fuck that! I want something tangible . I do not seek nor desire that future!

 

[Rawne1980]

Boohoo no more physical copies, deal with it. Music has.

CD's are still readily available.

Therefore your comment is a lie.

 

[TrevHead]

I think Ninty or Sega will continue to produce a gaming machine for years to come, even if it's no longer mainstream ppl pay a premium.

More likely we will see Sony and Ninty home consoles and handhelds becoming one at some point. Given how badly the Vita is doing and how Sony tends to push the tech chances are they'll do it first.

 

[Rawne1980]

Boohoo no more physical copies, deal with it. Music has.

CD's are still readily available.

Therefore your comment is a lie.

brb gonna go stick a CD in my ipod.

Now you can try and get clever but it won't work.

You said that music has dealt with no more physical copies when I can go out and buy a brand new CD therefore you were talking crap.

Just because digital media for music is there doesn't make that the only way of listening to it.

Now run along little smart arse.

 

[Doom972]

It would be a bad thing for everyone. Competition is necessary and a good thing for consumers.

There'll still be competition, but it'd be based on the quality of games alone. A game will have to stand on its own without having the excuses like "It's pretty good for a Wii game".

The only thing left to worry about is that the single platform available will be very expensive due to it being the only one, but if it's an open platform - like the PC or Android-based Tablets, competing companies can make their own models and compete for giving the best value for the lowest price.

It can happen and it should.

Boohoo no more physical copies, deal with it. Music has.

CD's are still readily available.

Therefore your comment is a lie.

brb gonna go stick a CD in my ipod.

Now you can try and get clever but it won't work.

You said that music has dealt with no more physical copies when I can go out and buy a brand new CD therefore you were talking crap.

Just because digital media for music is there doesn't make that the only way of listening to it.

Now run along little smart arse.

You can also still get audio cassettes and even Vinyl records, but very few people use them. I haven't seen someone using a portable CD player for years. Just MP3 players or Smartphones. Mostly Smartphones.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

See, there are two general camps of people. People who think that consoles are a constantly receding patch of gaming that will eventually vanish as personal computers become more powerful, and people who think that there is a console market for a reason and that consoles have their own advantages. I am of the latter kind. I also think that a market with one product is unlikely to remain that way very long. So as far as I'm concerned, I expect at the least two consoles and PC at any one time.

 

[Vault101]

]brb gonna go stick a CD in my ipod.

no silly...you have to burn the music OFF the CD before you put it on your Ipod

 

[anonymity88]

Boohoo no more physical copies, deal with it. Music has.

CD's are still readily available.

Therefore your comment is a lie.

brb gonna go stick a CD in my ipod.

Now you can try and get clever but it won't work.

You said that music has dealt with no more physical copies when I can go out and buy a brand new CD therefore you were talking crap.

Just because digital media for music is there doesn't make that the only way of listening to it.

Now run along little smart arse.

Probably sounds incredibly condescending but I read this and all I could think was, 'kids these days...'

I still own vinyl though, so whatever.

OT: I'm not in favour of a move to onlne distribution as the sole means of playing games, then you move into always on territory,a nd like we constantly see with the uproar surrounding DRM people are not happy about that!

 

[Assassin Xaero]

1. Not everyone has internet, let alone fast internet (not to mention how those of us that do are stuck with bad providers - everyone I knew in this city yesterday lost internet last night).
2. Some of us have caps on out internet so can't download and stream stuff 24/7 without paying hundreds of dollars a month.
3. Monopolies are bad for everyone.

 

[Rawne1980]

Probably sounds incredibly condescending but I read this and all I could think was, 'kids these days...'

I still own vinyl though, so whatever.

I still have a Shakin Stevens LP from 1985.

I doubt it will still play though. It's well travelled and seems to have gathered more than a few scratches. It was my first album though so I don't want to throw it.

 

[Entitled]

If anything, we are moving towards a many console future. With the WiiU, the next Xbox and PS, plus iPads, android phones, Ouya, Windows PCs, Nvidia Shield, GameStick, Steambox, not to mention peripherals that are starting to require exclusive games, such as motion controllers, the Oculus Rift, and whatever VR Valve is working on, the markets more divided than ever.

The way technology is evolving, it's getting freakishly affordable for any company to put enough power into any tiny box that can at least render 5th-gen/early 6th-gen quality gameplay affordably, and most people only want that. And many are using this to create gaming systems around entirely non-compatibe paradigms: touchscreens, motion controllers, VR, and traditional input are creating entirely separate games.

I guess that's a good thing for innovation. Not so much for you having to buy all systems, but even that could help gaming culture on the long term.

It is my theory, that one of the tragedies of digital art, that we somehow got convinced that gaming must be a specific thing, and everyone else who is doing it differently from us is doing it wrong.

Maybe if "video games" get so divergent that no one is willing to follow all major forms of it, then maybe their fans can stop pretending that they are all "gamers" and those who play something else are not, and just admit that they are into a bunch of entirely different hobbies that are tangentially connected by being digitally interactive.

Imagine it, a console that would host characters and titles from all sorts of previously rival groups. Mario, Sonic, Solid Snake, Master Chief, the Angry Birds, and many more. All on the same machine.

It's many unlikely that all first party companies could fail in the exact same way as Sega did, with a software department still around, especially Sony and Microsoft, that would rather close their game studios and sit on all their IPs than to let anyone else have them.

 

[jim1398]

I doubt it's going to happen any time soon (beyond failed attempts like OnLive), the internet speeds and reliability needed just aren't there for much of the world right now. Next decade, maybe we might start seeing serious talk of it, but not until then at least.


As for whether it would be a good thing or not, assuming they actually wait until the internet speed and reliability is available for most of the people who can afford to buy games, then...maybe.

If the single console was owned by a single company (as everyone talking about a monopoly is assuming), then it would most certainly be a bad thing. However, I think it would be far more likely that we would just have a standardised platform for games, but many companies making the actual hardware, like we currently have with , CDs, DVDs, MP3s, etc. I don't see any real issues with that. The competition is still there, but you're still guaranteed to be able to play every game no matter who you buy your hardware from.

 

[Madman123456]

That reminds me of a faked concept art i saw a rather long time ago. The "Wonk 3000" combined all the Videogame consoles of the time into one giant monolith. Was a Product of its time and so it had a Megadrive, Super Nintendo, their 8 bit forerunners, a 3DO, a Neo Geo and a PC-Engine.

 

[crimson sickle2]

The only a current company would make it happen is if Valve negotiates to have a share of all exclusives for one generation and create something that could run all of them. Even then, Nintendo will still exist for a while longer. Of course if it just refers to only needing one console because exclusives disappear, I hope it happens soon, then we can finally put to rest any ill-will against other consoles.

 

[Rawne1980]

i can go out and buy a vinyl record as well, vhs tapes are still sold hell i could also get a giant feather and some ink if i wanted to.

Also 'smart arse' is a bad insult, i rather be a smart arse than a dumb arse.

Exactly, so your statement of music getting over not being sold physically was false.

That's what I said and you tried to come back with a crap attempt at being clever.

Also, smart arse doesn't mean what you think it means. It's a british insult, usually said to someone who's said something stupid. The smart part is sarcasm.

 

[Esotera]

Why on earth would that happen? If anything we're going to experience a massive growth in consoles (Android, IOS, Steambox) and the only plausible way that all games would run on all these consoles is the adoption of a common factor such as HTML5 or Java to produce games. But I don't see that happening...

 

[Lucem712]

I'll admit I like console gaming. I'm not against PC gaming, but I'm running Linux on a laptop. So, I rely on my PS to hand 90% of my gaming needs. They aren't perfect, by any means. But, I don't want a console generation with just Microsoft and Nintendo as the duopoly and Sony's footing, along with the mistakes they continue to make at seemingly every launch, has me thinking that the generation after next will be that.

I do love online services and instant gratification, but there are a-lot of issues. Mainly internet connections and cross OS usability. Hell, I bought 'Indigo Prophecy' off of Amazon and I can't even download it because of their proprietary downloader. I bought GTA:VC on a CD-ROM and couldn't install it because Rockstar deemed my install via Wine/PlayonLinux as piracy. Though, that's mainly a Linux issue. :<

I think Captcha wants me to buy it something for Valientine's day >_>