Next Gen of Consoles Will Be The Last?

[Guild McCommunist]

Honestly I'd sacrifice collectibility for accessibility.

Again, I'll draw back on my Magic parallel. They have an online version of the game called "Magic Online". It's basically the card game, but online. It isn't streamlined like the Duels of the Planeswalkers games, it supports almost every card and almost every format of the game. But of course not everyone likes it. Some people enjoy the collecting, but some people like it for the accessibility. If it wasn't for the massive collection I've already accumulated and the lack of income, I'd invest in it. You sacrifice physical product for being able to play your hobby at any time and across the globe.

Cloud gaming is kinda the same. You sacrifice collectibility but gain accessibility. Imagine a day where we'd scoff at a $300 price tag on a new console. Imagine paying $100 for your console and playing games that look better than what's on the market now. Cloud gaming does that. You don't need to worry about game shortages, hard drive space, or download times. You buy a game online and you play it within 5 seconds. It was one of the neatest things about OnLive when I used it. I'd buy Borderlands, click play, and within 10 seconds I was at the start menu.

It's a really cool idea. I mean it has flaws but no more so than current physical distribution gaming.

 

[ShadowSoldier]

While at the present it may seem years away !0 years ago I didn't think we would be using consoles as media centres and playing our music and movies on them or be so obsessed with online gaming. The whole interview can be found here but what is your take on it? Would you support a cloud only future?

...PS2?

Honestly, consoles will always be around. Not everybody is going to have good enough internet for cloud gaming. This is like people saying digital downloads are going to replace retail copies of games and the physical copies will become obsolete. That is NEVER going to happen either.

 

[Guild McCommunist]

Honestly, consoles will always be around. Not everybody is going to have good enough internet for cloud gaming. This is like people saying digital downloads are going to replace retail copies of games and the physical copies will become obsolete. That is NEVER going to happen either.

You'd be surprised.

If twenty years ago, someone told you that you could get internet on your phone from almost anywhere, internet that's decent enough to browse the web, watch Youtube clips, upload videos and images, would you really scoff at that notion? I mean in my lifetime, the internet went from dial up to 4G. If anything it'll continue skyrocketing.

EDIT: And digital downloads are basically the PC. 8 years ago, Steam launched. Now a large majority of PC games sales are digital. In a few more years I can bet PC games will stop being in print.

 

[the_randomizer]

I fucking hate cloud gaming. If the servers are ever down you have no games.

Find a way to download the games, crack the DRM, problem solved. People did it with Steam. The day I resort to cloud gaming is the day hell freezes over.

 

[Guild McCommunist]

I fucking hate cloud gaming. If the servers are ever down you have no games.

Find a way to download the games, crack the DRM, problem solved. People did it with Steam. The day I resort to cloud gaming is the day hell freezes over.

You got all the files with the game when you got it off Steam. All the files are on a server in cloud gaming. Not to mention the native hardware on consoles would be far too weak to play the games on its own.

Cloud gaming is a 100% perfect anti-piracy solution.

 

[Clarky]

While at the present it may seem years away !0 years ago I didn't think we would be using consoles as media centres and playing our music and movies on them or be so obsessed with online gaming. The whole interview can be found here but what is your take on it? Would you support a cloud only future?

...PS2?

keyword here being media centre, not dvd player. Now you see people buying into consoles for stuff like Netflix and more, and although the PS2 did have a number of online games, I never saw many people (keyword, I ) actually take a PS2 online

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[the_randomizer]

While at the present it may seem years away !0 years ago I didn't think we would be using consoles as media centres and playing our music and movies on them or be so obsessed with online gaming. The whole interview can be found here but what is your take on it? Would you support a cloud only future?

...PS2?

keyword here being media centre, not dvd player. Now you see people buying into consoles for stuff like Netflix and more, and although the PS2 did have a number of online games, I never saw many people (keyword, I ) actually take a PS2 online

---

 

[Hyro-Sama]

I see people saying it gives advantages to the corporate world, but I didn't see it for consumers (even non-pirates) outside
what cloud gaming meant to provide.

Those exclusives and your games could possibly not be "scooped up" as well.

Licencing laws regarding software distribution will evolve as cloud gaming increases in popularity and more players join the market. In regards to the consumer, the average consumer isn't tech savvy and cloud gaming puts most of the tech into the hands of the distributor.

 

[ShadowSoldier]

While at the present it may seem years away !0 years ago I didn't think we would be using consoles as media centres and playing our music and movies on them or be so obsessed with online gaming. The whole interview can be found here but what is your take on it? Would you support a cloud only future?

...PS2?

keyword here being media centre, not dvd player. Now you see people buying into consoles for stuff like Netflix and more, and although the PS2 did have a number of online games, I never saw many people (keyword, I ) actually take a PS2 online

Really? Here the PS2 was the go to console and like everybody had online. Hell the first time I played an online game was SOCOM 2, and that was probably the most fun I have ever had.

Honestly, consoles will always be around. Not everybody is going to have good enough internet for cloud gaming. This is like people saying digital downloads are going to replace retail copies of games and the physical copies will become obsolete. That is NEVER going to happen either.

You'd be surprised.

If twenty years ago, someone told you that you could get internet on your phone from almost anywhere, internet that's decent enough to browse the web, watch Youtube clips, upload videos and images, would you really scoff at that notion? I mean in my lifetime, the internet went from dial up to 4G. If anything it'll continue skyrocketing.

EDIT: And digital downloads are basically the PC. 8 years ago, Steam launched. Now a large majority of PC games sales are digital. In a few more years I can bet PC games will stop being in print.

Again, until internet becomes available at great download speeds everywhere in the world where people have consoles, cloud gaming isn't going to replace consoles at all. I mean I drive up to our cabin, there's no internet up there. There's not enough people to warrant the internet the companies say (having to buy poles and shit). So those people would be shit out of luck. And even then, places that do have internet, have crap connections where it would take like a month to download one game.

 

[Clarky]

out of interest, does anyone happen to know if Steam's servers have ever gone down?

 

[narutofan777]

i hate cloud gaming, i would never try it.

instead i think tv's that come with the internet in the future will takeover. i only watch tv when they do sports. I read the news everyday from certain websites.

 

[Guild McCommunist]

For fast internet speeds, it's certainly possible. Google Fiber runs at 1Gb/s, which is about 100 times faster than what most Americans have.

Now we just need more of that.

 

[porkiewpyne]

IMHO while tech can improve, so does the requirement. Back in the day, a 512MB thumbdrive is enough to drive people jealous. Now 1TB and I am still running out of space.

 

[Clarky]

Really? Here the PS2 was the go to console and like everybody had online. Hell the first time I played an online game was SOCOM 2, and that was probably the most fun I have ever had.

I remember a lot of people here (UK) having the original Xbox online, that was probably more of the go to, but PS2, people I know i doubt they even knew it was capable of going online. Then again keep in mind the bigger PS2 online games like Final Fantasy 11 never came out here on the PS2

 

[Guild McCommunist]

IMHO while tech can improve, so does the requirement. Back in the day, a 512MB thumbdrive is enough to drive people jealous. Now 1TB and I am still running out of space.

Cloud gaming eliminates any need for a substantial hard drive. All save files and game files are saved on a large cloud. Odds are they'd have support for their own music/movie libraries that would also be cloud stored.

 

[porkiewpyne]

IMHO while tech can improve, so does the requirement. Back in the day, a 512MB thumbdrive is enough to drive people jealous. Now 1TB and I am still running out of space.

Cloud gaming eliminates any need for a substantial hard drive. All save files and game files are saved on a large cloud. Odds are they'd have support for their own music/movie libraries that would also be cloud stored.

Oh I think I may have misworded my analogy. What I meant was that even say we get higher speed internet, stuff still needs to be downloaded and I highly doubt that it will shrink. Pretty sure it just gets bigger and bigger to pack more features and gameplay and what not.

 

[Guild McCommunist]

IMHO while tech can improve, so does the requirement. Back in the day, a 512MB thumbdrive is enough to drive people jealous. Now 1TB and I am still running out of space.

Cloud gaming eliminates any need for a substantial hard drive. All save files and game files are saved on a large cloud. Odds are they'd have support for their own music/movie libraries that would also be cloud stored.

Oh I think I may have misworded my analogy. What I meant was that even say we get higher speed internet, stuff still needs to be downloaded and I highly doubt that it will shrink. Pretty sure it just gets bigger and bigger to pack more features and gameplay and what not.

Well you can stream a pretty large game like Borderlands or Mafia II from OnLive and it starts almost instantly and the input lag isn't that bad (I actually found it unnoticeable after a couple minutes of playing).

 

[Densetsu]

I will always love my physical media. Whenever a GOTY edition or a "complete" edition of a game is released with all the DLC included on-disc, I always buy it even if I already have the original release of the game.

I also happen to be a huge collector, so cloud gaming does absolutely nothing for me.

Yes, make it another option for people who just want to play games and nothing more. But don't alienate a whole demographic of gamers who prefer the physical copy.

 

[Gahars]

I know a lot of people are pessimistic about this, but I don't know. Given the chance to develop, and for internet speed/connection to advance, I think it could provide a viable alternative. And who knows? Maybe ten or fifteen years down the road, we'll all be gaming on Cloud Nine.

 

[ShadowSoldier]

I know a lot of people are pessimistic about this, but I don't know. Given the chance to develop, and for internet speed/connection to advance, I think it could provide a viable alternative. And who knows? Maybe ten or fifteen years down the road, we'll all be gaming on Cloud Nine.

It should be an alternative, but don't make it the standard.