The "one/no-console" era.

[yeti585]

A "one/no console era" would probably bring a slow death to gaming. As PCs are moving closer and closer to the original idea behind the tablet-computer PC gaming will see a slowish decline. Why? The same reason why smart phone/mobile gaming doesn't appeal to PC elitists gamers. But, I digress. This will bring gaming to a) the couch or b) handhelds. This already dashes much of the gaming population that wouldn't want to make the jump to (mobile) consoles.

If there is no console than the streaming would probably be through a TV provider. This may mean that we have different consoles, but no consoles. Or, the streaming could be done through a provider like netflix (some sort of smart TV/wifi connection).

With one console the company who makes that console would have a monopoly on the market. That company would also control what gets released on their marketplace.

 

[Samantha Burt]

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.

I'm buying a new MP3 player tomorrow. All the music on it will have been burned from CD's that I own.

 

[MorganL4]

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!

Just out of curiosity...... How many games do you have on your shelf; how many games do you have in your Steam Library?

 

[The White Hunter]

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!

I absolutely agree, I much prefer having physical copies in almost any circumstance, I have a sizable steam library from things I want being on 75% off, but otherwise I'd much rather be able to pick up a game a few months after launch at half the price, than pay a publisher dictated price forever more.

Though I am already a bit of a retro gamer and collector.

The Wii is now retro, just a heads up, some stuff for it is getting a touch pricey, just netted myself the Skyward Sword limited edition and the Metroid Prime Trilogy for a pretty good price, now to find a copy of the Xenoblade Limited Edition with the red pro controller.....

Edit: I'm also considering opening a games store dealing in retro stuff, including repairs and such on top of newer content. So yeah there's some method to my madness. I'm also on the prowl for a region-free Saturn...

 

[The White Hunter]

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.

I'm buying a new MP3 player tomorrow. All the music on it will have been burned from CD's that I own.

I too own all my music on CD's.

All 167 of them.

 

[The White Hunter]

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 >_>

Another competitor will step into the ring if Sony backs out of the hardware race, don't worry. I couldn't tell you who at this point but something would fill the void, though in that situation I'd become a proud Nintendo supporter with a PC on the side.

 

[flarty]

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

I hate it when people say this. Its a fallacy and only true when the main motive behind the entire thing is profit. Which unfortunately it is

 

[ShinyCharizard]

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

I hate it when people say this. Its a fallacy and only true when the main motive behind the entire thing is profit. Which unfortunately it is

The motive for selling gaming hardware is always profit

 

[veloper]

The lag problem won't be solved in the forseable future. Bandwidth increases all the time, but the packets still take a long time to reach their destination.

To reduce the perceived effect of lag in multiplayer (or even a singleplayer game in a cloud) your game server needs to do lag compensation, while on the client side the fp camera or player character runs in it's own time.
This requires a modest computer (console) that can draw the scene on your end. And what's only a couple hundred bucks on top of evertyhing else, if it let's you play the latest console games for 5 years or even longer?
Consumer hardware is very cheap through mass production and doesn't require maintenance, while powerful servers become exponentially more expensive.

A distant future with gaming in the cloud only, may happen once we have something better than the internet, but the purpose will be to nickel & dime the player to death, even worse than now in this gaming era of DLC. Servers still cost money to maintain. It has to be more profitable than the current setup to be worth it.

 

[wulf3n]

One console that can play all the games? isn't the solution just PC's then?

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.

On the contrary Sony and Microsoft lose money on hardware, and try and make it back through games.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13506_3-10448137-17.html
http://au.gamespot.com/news/microsoft-taking-126-hit-per-xbox-360-6140383

 

[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!

Just out of curiosity...... How many games do you have on your shelf; how many games do you have in your Steam Library?

Physical copies of games i have about 300+ going from NES to current gen. It's not a lot but i only buy games in genres i enjoy rather than collecting every possible game .

Steam i have 7 , one of which was gifted to me. All indy games that i couldn't have played otherwize + that 1 free copy of portal.

I'm 24 years old.

 

[Lilani]

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

And don't forget people in cheap apartments, like a huge swathe of college students/post grads!

I think we might be headed that way, but I think it will still be a while before consoles are given up on altogether. I think the tide will only start to turn when investing in consoles is no longer worthwhile for game developers, and there are still too many factors in play that are keeping consoles viable.

Captcha: Hard and fast. Dirty, dirty captcha...

 

[MorganL4]

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!

Just out of curiosity...... How many games do you have on your shelf; how many games do you have in your Steam Library?

Physical copies of games i have about 300+ going from NES to current gen. It's not a lot but i only buy games in genres i enjoy rather than collecting every possible game .

Steam i have 7 , one of which was gifted to me. All indy games that i couldn't have played otherwize + that 1 free copy of portal.

I'm 24 years old.

You sir, are most definitely the exception...... Not the rule.

Games Stores are shutting down, don;t get me wrong there are things about digital distribution I don't like.

I got a hard copy of Skyrim when it came out because I wanted the disk.... the back of the box told me that Steam was mandatory to play the game..... Like it or not we are being hit with DRM..... and some things about it are good..... as you said you bought 6 indie games via a digital system because that was the only way you could get them.... If those makers could have I can assure you, they'd have made a 360 or PS3 version, but PC was the only viable means of getting their game on the market, and getting their name out there.

There are positives and negatives to every side of the coin.

 

[Giyguy]

not gonna happen. every single console maker company has to merge before that happens for the one console thing and i'm not sure what you mean by "no console".

 

[Doom972]

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.

I'm buying a new MP3 player tomorrow. All the music on it will have been burned from CD's that I own.

So you see how pointless they have become. Reminds me of how I have to create a CD image file whenever I want to install one of my older games on my netbook.

 

[Jedi-Hunter4]

Although
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.

You pretty much stole this idea of yahtzee he wrote about it in extra punctuation. But added the internet.

It's an awful idea.

Dealing with the digital only thing first. What if you don't have a set up that allows internet on your console. Or you have limited downloads. Or just have a bad internet connection. Its already annoying enough on Xlive when your not connected arcade games don't work.

An with the single console idea. Why do people think this would ever work? By getting rid of competition your harming the consumer. Why would this manufacturer who makes this sole console feel the need to go the extra mile? it's not like the consumer has any choice. Where as each generation of consoles that comes out the manufacturers do they best and spend a fortune to ensure they put out the best possible product to compete against their competitors. It would be like training a race horse you know is only racing against itself as long as you have improved each time they have a new product to sell anything else is wasted effort.

Then say they do make a decent product an they do make decent improvements. Theres the element of choice and prefrance. At present there's 3 mainstream consoles to choose from, each from a different manufacturer with a different ethos, a different unique style. If you don't like one of them you can take your money else where. If you don't want to support a company for any given reason, you can go elsewhere. With only one console, you don't like it? don't own a console.

For this to work it would have to be such an idealized world where company's thoughts were (no.1 customer satisfaction and enjoyment no.2 making money) rather than the reality of staying business (no.1 making money no.2 customer satisfaction and enjoyment). That you might as well say, wouldn't it be great if we all owned small floating clouds who follow you round, that could absorb you and you can play any game you want or can imagine in a virtual reality online with your friends. Ow and it also functions as a personal go kart and pet dog.

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

I hate it when people say this. Its a fallacy and only true when the main motive behind the entire thing is profit. Which unfortunately it is

In a world where we work under a monetary system what other reason is there to do anything for the pure benefit of others, that's not a charity. Unless your an eccentric billionaire.

So competition is necessary for both the consumer and businesses to get a fair deal, how is that a fallacy? How awful would it be if there was only one model of car? one model of phone? One brand of clothing?

 

[Joccaren]

Just out of curiosity...... How many games do you have on your shelf; how many games do you have in your Steam Library?

I'll answer this one too!

On my Shelf: Counting only PC games, because you've said Steam Library and I don't own a console that can use digital distribution, over 100 games.
Steam Library: 10 games, 6 of which I have the physical copies of but which need to be tied to Steam thanks to DRM.

I don't have bad Internet or anything, its just faster to shove a CD in and install than it is to download 20-30Gb then install, and I'll go for practicality over novelty any day. I can spend half an hour going down to the shops, buying a game, coming back and then 5-10 minutes installing it, or I can take a few hours downloading it then 5-10 minutes of installing it. Its obvious which one would win out for me. Until I can download at 20Mb/s [Megabytes not Megabits] consistently for a game, its not going to be the digital version.

As for exception not the rule... No, not around here. Sure, Steam is great, but the people I know are smart enough to to get tricked into spending hundreds of $ on sales because they're cheap, and have worse Internet than me so that it'll take them several days to download a 20Gb game they want to play. They'll have a lot of games tied to their Steam Accounts, none of them will be installed via digital distribution.
Whether games stores are closing down or not depends on where you live. If you've got really fast Internet and live in an area where there's a lot of traffic so getting to the shops is a pain in the ass, you'll probably go digital. If you live in an area where the Internet is medium or slow speed, and its rather easy to head down to the shops, you'll take physical media. This is, of course, ignoring people who go the novelty route and buy CDs because they like CDs or download digital 'cause its a cool thing to be able to do.
Yeah, digital distribution is growing, its not at the point where almost everyone downloads all their games though, and it won't be for quite a while for very practical reasons; namely the billions of dollars it'll take to properly upgrade the Internet everywhere, and the fact that until that happens large parts of any games audience will be left out by digital distribution.

 

[Floppertje]

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

yes. assuming the whole capitalism thing works (I will, for the sake of argument).
but that's not what's happening here. 'competition is good for consumers' would be true if every company used the same format and used their hardware to get the best experience out of that format. Like philips and sony competing with dvd players. anyone who buys a dvd can play it in any dvd player. the difference is in how well it functions, what the exact funcitons are etc. etc. what happens here is that sony and microsoft yell 'you can ONLY use OUR products on OUR machine'. that's not good for the consumer because it completely bogs down the market. once you've invested in your xbox, it's very hard to switch to a playstation because none of your games work. if your dvd player breaks and you decide to buy a different brand, your dvd's will work fine. see the difference?

 

[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!

Just out of curiosity...... How many games do you have on your shelf; how many games do you have in your Steam Library?

Physical copies of games i have about 300+ going from NES to current gen. It's not a lot but i only buy games in genres i enjoy rather than collecting every possible game .

Steam i have 7 , one of which was gifted to me. All indy games that i couldn't have played otherwize + that 1 free copy of portal.

I'm 24 years old.

You sir, are most definitely the exception...... Not the rule.

Games Stores are shutting down, don;t get me wrong there are things about digital distribution I don't like.

I got a hard copy of Skyrim when it came out because I wanted the disk.... the back of the box told me that Steam was mandatory to play the game..... Like it or not we are being hit with DRM..... and some things about it are good..... as you said you bought 6 indie games via a digital system because that was the only way you could get them.... If those makers could have I can assure you, they'd have made a 360 or PS3 version, but PC was the only viable means of getting their game on the market, and getting their name out there.

There are positives and negatives to every side of the coin.

Oh yeah dude i know . Honestly speaking , Digital distribution makes a lot of sense . I understand why people perfer it , developpers and consumers alike . I know it's the future , and when it arrives i will not ***** and moan , i will have to accept the digital age has come . For me personally , i don't like it . I want to hold my games in my hands, stack them on my shelves , bring and play them where and when i want at long as i have the equipment . Digital data is cheaper , easier distributed , easier to account for , and a whole bunch of other advantages . I just won't be compelled to buy games anymore when that happens , that's my problem. I don't expect everyone to think like me , they would be crazy to honestly .

If by my original post i made it seem like gaming would be ruined forever because of it , that was not my intention .

 

[Sonic Doctor]

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.

Actually, I think thejboy88 has a point, but decades have to pass first. Xbox 360, PS3, and Wii games and such have to pass into being somewhat retro, where those consoles aren't being sold new retail, and most gamers that want one, have to by one used if they want it sort of cheap.
With that enters the third party type consoles.

A couple years ago I paid 53 dollars and got myself a Retron 3 made by a company called Hyperkin.

Spoiler

It plays NES, SNES, and Sega Genesis games. So you got the cross of Nintendo and Sega.

The controllers that come with the thing are shit, but since I already had controllers from my NES and SNES, all I had to do was buy a third party Genesis controller for cheap.(Edit: Because the system has ports for the old style/original controllers for all three systems)


But, other than the controllers that come with it, the system plays great, compatibility-wise, it has played every game I own from those systems, and from what I have heard it is 99.9% compatible. There are only a rare few that can't get some games to work on it.

So that is an example of a cross company game playing system. Nintendo and Sega obviously don't mind, because the thing still exists and is still sold.