I have a strange perspective for most I think. Started with Mario and Sonic in early 90s, pretty much from when I could hold a controller. Progressed with Nintendo stuff until the Wii finally made me realize that one company alone couldn't reasonably provide for my gaming needs (especially after that one apocryphal E3 showing, I think it was 2008?).
It is notable though that in the mid-2000's, I went from playing mostly gamecube to playing mostly NES. I had never owned one before, and it fascinated me. Even as the Wii came around, and then later as I moved onto 360, PS3, and PSP, playing NES games was still a main part of my gaming in the 2000's (was even the main reason I hacked my PSP, played a lot of NES games on bus rides and car trips). Since 2012-2013 I haven't played new games much at all. Most of what I play i stuff that's been out for a few decades. For example, I'm getting back into various N64 and Dreamcast games currently, mostly ones I didn't play back in their day. Same is true for PS2 and Wonderswan, both things I never had back in their day, and the Game Boy is getting a lot of love too for its 30th trip 'round the sun. In fact, beyond my switch (which I don't play much), my 3DS and Vita, and my Wii U (guess I'm a nintendo fan until I die
, my newest console is still my PS3, which I mostly use to watch 4:3 TV shows on my tube TV. So I guess you could say I am unusual for the average player these days.
I can't believe how everybody pays an internet tax these days. Microsoft, then Sony, now even Nintendo are scamming you for their network services. I think it's ridiculous, just as ridiculous as the people who used to pay 15/month for MMOs (but at least the MMOs make it obvious that you're paying for the servers to run). It's more damning to me when Sony and Nintendo both started free, and then went behind paywalls since they saw how warm and cozy microsoft was with all of their xbox live money. I tend to suspect that the only people happy with paying an internet tax are the people who don't pay for their internet at all, or more pointedly, someone older in the house pays for it for them
I expect in the future that not only will saving be expected, but absolute preservation of progress will happen as a matter of fact. Meaning, in the same way that if you are reading on a kindle and then put it away to sleep, you wake up the next morning and the kindle turns back on to the same page, people will come to expect games to simply always remember exactly where you are and what you were doing, and to be able to pick you up immediately. Saving everywhere was good, but in my mind it will turn into universal save states for these games. The game will remember everything, exactly where you were, your status, it will take away enemies in the area so you don't die (not that death is a problem, you'll just go right back to where you were anyway), and quest logs and markers on your screen will tell you exactly where to go and what to do. Essentially, games will by and large be thought-free entertainment! This will be to the delight of "reviewers", who will continue to fail at even the most brainless of modern game "challenges", because they feel that every game should be beatable using the PS3's blu-ray remote.
I think the above paragraph is more of a personal lashing out at current status than anything else if I'm being honest. What continues to surprise me is actually the output of smaller developers. I feel like there are a number of independents that are making projects which big companies could only dream of, games possible because the independents are free to do as they wish while the big companies are just mules being led by investor's riding crop down the short-sighted economic pit of despair. I expect that while the stuff you see at E3 will continue to get the big press attention, it's the small devs that you will actually want to follow for good new games.
On that note, I think it's interesting to see the death of journalism and how it has affected games. In this case, it's astounding because in my childhood, there were many times that rather than have a game system to play, I'd have a new game magazine to read. Or perhaps you just got a new game, so you're reading the manual as you wait to get home to play it. Neither of those really exist anymore. In the case of the mags (or rather web pages nowadays), I'd say at this point good riddance, the people writing as a salary job aren't worth the bandwidth they take up. Feels more like they wanted to write about movies and didn't cut it there, so rags like IGN or Kotaku swooped in to pick up hollywood's sloppy seconds (see also: the current devs at naughty dog).
In professional journalism, you are seeing newspapers fire their best writers because they can't afford to pay them anymore. Those writers are starting to go freelance, using the internet and twitter to reach people. I assume they obtain money through alternative channels, such as patreon or some other arrangement. Either way, I wouldn't be surprised if that happens for games too. Surely people don't still trust game site reviews, do they? I would have to expect that players are just looking for footage online to see what a game looks/plays like and are then making a decision. Even a streamer is probably a better source of product info, since they don't have any explicit financial ties telling them to rate the game highly. I would like to see game writing go fully to the freelance world, where the best writers prove their worth and take their money from those who recognize they are worth it, rather than continuing the sorry state of game website writing.
I think streaming is still pretty strange. I watch some streams, but they are only ones where 1) the person doesn't show their face as a major point of the video 2) the game is the only thing being shown 3) they don't talk over the game constantly, only when relevant or when commentating on something 4) they play obscure games (old or new) and are a good way to find out about them. What I don't get is the ones who produce videos where it's more about the streamer's personality than it is the actual game. I guess that's part of the death of television too, you need your new entertainment outlets, and streamers are like a modern day variety show host. Besides, kids and teens today aren't waiting until 8PM on a specific n for the new premiere of a new episode of their favorite TV show, they are just getting the new upload online. That's something I think younger people will be confused by (unless sports hold onto TV for a few more decades), how exactly did people "watch TV" when you didn't have the entire season available for streaming immediately? How did you actually wait a week for the next episode? I expect (maybe the future kids being born right now rather than the current kids/teens) to ask questions like that.
The strangest thing I ever had someone tell me is that they didn't "get" 2D games. It was a few years ago, and they were a high-schooler with a gaming PC and a no-doubt overflowing steam library. The thought was just strange to me, I asked him to explain, and it sounds like he just couldn't take game worlds seriously or even bother to get involved with them if they weren't 3D-rendered. Given that 2D remained relevant through the mid-late 2000's (surviving there on handhelds) and that 3D was in my childhood a big new thing, it's hard to reckon with a comment like that. I imagine that the last 10-15 years of independent 2D games were not made with him in mind!
As for current tech, I don't think VR is going away, but I don't think it's going to explode either. Some games will be made in VR, and most games won't. The main thing I see with it is that it should become cheaper and better technology, it just won't matter that much as the basic experience is pretty much there.
Personally, I'm a big fan of the oculus quest, and I'm looking forward to more mobile 6DOF VR systems coming out. I don't see VR being much more than a sideshow though. Even if we all get AR glasses that let us project screens into virtual space of a room, we won't be playing VR games with them much, we'll just be putting flat games on massive floating "screens" projected over our field of view.
Also, maybe my Nintendo fandom is showing again, but I would like to see Nintendo take a second crack at a VR system. Labo VR was a nice dip of their toes into the water, and they also had "Mario Kart VR GP" for a limited time in Shinjuku VR. A mobile 6DOF headset built off of switch technology would be pretty cool. I also think that if any company could make VR even somewhat mainstream, it would be Nintendo.
