Will the future be streaming only and no gaming consoles available

[chaparral]

Lately i been wondering how long it will be before there going be no gaming consoles available and we just stream games on a TV/Tablet/Mobile phone etc

Thinking about how this happened with movies and how no one buys DVD or Blu-ray players any more and everyone just stream movies..


And then i see support added for Dualsense wireless controllers on my TV for remote play

 

[malachi]

Infrastructure is still not really there for this to happen. That's the biggest hurdle.

Streaming games is still a poor experience for many and it's not a good way for devs to show how good their graphics look.

Subscription models is another thing, we have all seen a massive price increase with the big players. It's not going to get any cheaper and people cant justify the price anymore.

We have all woken up the possibilities of what could happen with pricing models and most gamers will just opt out and not bother anymore.

 

[megalomanic]

I do think game steaming is entering a peak era and it's impact will be felt, even if it's a long way off being the primary method for gaming as a hobby.

I've been very impressed with Geforce Now recently (the Premium tier, it's not that great on Free tier). I played Alan Wake 2 on it and it was incredible - really low latency and a good quality 4K image. I get 20ms ping.

I think it worked especially well for Alan Wake 2 because of it's mostly dark tones and scenes. In games with complex scenes in lighter environments, the video compression becomes a bit more apparent.

 

[Finners]

If things do continue and the upfront costs are so high for entry I can see it becoming the dominant format for gaming but there would be a lot less gamers overall.

Input latency seems to big of a hurdle to overcome in my head given our infrastructure

So this means if mainstream switches to streaming games then the type of games will have to be those where input lag is less critical.

And the market for those type of games are a lot smaller currently, and I don't see the people who play shooters switching to playing animal farm, they will just stop all together

 

[Jim99]

I think it's inevitable.

Look at what's happened in the film space. At one point, having a blu-ray player and a collection of discs was common.

Now it's much more of a niche thing. There aren't many companies making blu-ray players any more. For the average person, the convenience is everything.

The average person has always been happy to sacrifice quality graphics etc with a cutting edge PC, and been happy with a PlayStation etc.

If you offer them a monthly sub to play a bunch of games via their TV with no up front hardware cost, it's going (eventually) to eclipse gaming hardware just by convenience alone.

Computers will obviously last a lot longer since they're multipurpose.

The question is more about how long it will take to happen.

 

[silvagti]

I think it's inevitable.

Look at what's happened in the film space. At one point, having a blu-ray player and a collection of discs was common.

Now it's much more of a niche thing. There aren't many companies making blu-ray players any more. For the average person, the convenience is everything.

I'd agree with the conveneience and (upfront hardware) cost saving aspects. The other thing I think will tip people over towards game streaming is that eventually the quality/scale of the games you'll be able to play in the cloud will ecliple anything you can run locally. Graphics are an obvious advantage running game streaming as you'll always have access to a top tier hardware. However many games are limited to instances of 64-128 players due to server latency/etc. When everything is run in the cloud it'll be possible to remove those limits. Also wth server farms/ec it'll be possible to have games with dynamic AI characters and constantly changing/growing/evolving dynamic game worlds. Utlimately the games themselves will be massively superior to anything you can run locally on a single internet connected PC or console.

 

[SimonRigga]

I'd agree with the conveneience and (upfront hardware) cost saving aspects. The other thing I think will tip people over towards game streaming is that eventually the quality/scale of the games you'll be able to play in the cloud will ecliple anything you can run locally. Graphics are an obvious advantage running game streaming as you'll always have access to a top tier hardware. However many games are limited to instances of 64-128 players due to server latency/etc. When everything is run in the cloud it'll be possible to remove those limits. Also wth server farms/ec it'll be possible to have games with dynamic AI characters and constantly changing/growing/evolving dynamic game worlds. Utlimately the games themselves will be massively superior to anything you can run locally on a single internet connected PC or console.

Can't say I agree with this.. it already takes companies many many years to create the scale of games we already have, do you really think that in some future utopia game arena that companies will makes games of an even greater scale?? say they made a game that was 10x the scale that would take 10x the money to make, and we'd have to be paying 000's of pounds a month to play a single game.. for them to make any money out of it..

Unless of course they will try to fob us off with AI generated stuff, which will be pap..

 

[Vinno]

I've been dreading this happening for literally 15 years. I remember being at uni and seeing all of the fuss about OnLive and having a sinking feeling in my stomach. Fortunately that never panned out, but we are getting closer to it becoming a reality, sadly.

It will definitely be a sad day in my opinion when it does happen, as I have no doubt that it will at some point.

 

[Plainsong]

Can't say I agree with this.. it already takes companies many many years to create the scale of games we already have, do you really think that in some future utopia game arena that companies will makes games of an even greater scale?? say they made a game that was 10x the scale that would take 10x the money to make, and we'd have to be paying 000's of pounds a month to play a single game.. for them to make any money out of it..

Unless of course they will try to fob us off with AI generated stuff, which will be pap..

The AI learning of the bots in Arc Raiders has been really interesting and impressive the way it is panning out. I’m definitely intrigued to see how that plays out in the future.

 

[SimonRigga]

The AI learning of the bots in Arc Raiders has been really interesting and impressive the way it is panning out. I’m definitely intrigued to see how that plays out in the future.

While i agree that seeing AI implemented for NPC's is a good direction, that's not only what big studio's will use it for, they will try to use it to bypass the creative expensive people process of building games, and we all know how that's going to go.. Generic settings with generic storylines.. and generic styling..

At the end of the day the studios (not the devs) making games are not making them so that people will play them, they are making them to make money.. full stop..

If subscriptions have taught us anything is that whatever they apply it to will only get more and more expensive.. while they try to cut all the corners they can.. Late stage capitalism in action..

 

[SuperElectric]

It will never happen. It's the same faulty logic that car manufacturers will stop selling cars outright and you'll only ever be able to rent/lease them.

Streaming movies replaced buying DVDs/Blurays so easily because it was better, not worse. Most people watch a movie once only in their lifetime, owning the media was pointless for them. I will never, ever rewatch 2023's 'Plane' starring Gerard Butler and Mike Colter. Good movie but I don't need the Bluray and was happy streaming it at a questionable resolution/bitrate, i.e. good enough quality for £12 month or whatever it was at the time.

Gaming is different. There are plenty of gamers worldwide who can't stream for whatever reason, but have money in their pocket to spend on games. Is EA really going to voluntarily remove X% of gamers from their books to force streaming on the rest? Is Ubisoft? Bethesda?

Also, streaming is not equal to subscription, you can have subscription without streaming. Maybe forced subscription for everything is the way forward

 

[ChocAndGray]

That future will come but I doubt we will be alive to see it. Local hardware isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

I've liked the thought of cloud gaming for some time. I've had OnLive, Stadia, Shadow (before they were bought out), I was signed up to GeForce Now during the beta when you could play any game etc and the fact the majority have failed shows the mass market is nowhere near migrating to a cloud only future.

As of right now GeForce now is the best service and actually feels good to play. If you could run any PC game on it I think a lot more people might be open to it but as things stand it's still not a good enough replacement for a PC.

In my opinion we'll have subscription services like gamepass, ea play etc become the norm before we have cloud gaming. By the time everything is a subscription the mass market would be more inclined to adopt a cloud system.

While some are against it I'd pay £50 a month to have access to every game released in a subscription service. I'm not that bothered about owning games as I rarely go back to them, they're disposable experiences for me like movies and tv shows are.

 

[SimonRigga]

While some are against it I'd pay £50 a month to have access to every game released in a subscription service. I'm not that bothered about owning games as I rarely go back to them, they're disposable experiences for me like movies and tv shows are.

and herein lies the issue.. same with TV.. Once companies say that netflix had a market, they all wanted a slice.. so instead of just paying netflix for all content, you end up with 4 or 5 different streaming services.. and you the consumer loses out, if you want to watch all the "good" content..

One company will charge you £30, another £30, and yet another £30.. they will all want their slice.. it very much will not be one company charging you XX amount for "all" the games.. as all the various publishing companies will want their own profits off the top of their own subscription service..

an example... It used to be I paid sky an amount of money for all the premier league football, and then some people lobbied the goverment that it was a monopoly.. so they forced the league to sell to other companies.. was that better for me.. certainly not, because no I have to pay 3 different companies to watch all the football I want, and sky have certainly not gone down in price.. the simple fact is.. the only way to drive competition is force it so that numerous companies have access to "all" the games.. and then they can compete on price..

So even if by sheer luck / chance say Valve got access to "all" the games and created a subscription service for them, once other companies realised the cash involved.. then would lobby government until the "monopoly" was broken up, and then we'd have to pay 3 or 4 different companies for access to the same games.. and each would be simliar priced to the original..

Gotta love late stage capitalism..

 

[ChocAndGray]

One company will charge you £30, another £30, and yet another £30.. they will all want their slice.. it very much will not be one company charging you XX amount for "all" the games.. as all the various publishing companies will want their own profits off the top of their own subscription service..

Oh I don't disagree. The reality is we'd have Gamepass, EA, Ubisoft, Sony's one with their exclusive games, and likely one for Take Two and you'd be spending £200 a month if you subscribed to all of them.

Peak subscription times for me were when we had Netflix and Prime and you could pretty much watch anything. Nowadays you get a better experience using a debrid service and stremio than you do subscribing to everything.

 

[chaparral]

I think it's inevitable.

Look at what's happened in the film space. At one point, having a blu-ray player and a collection of discs was common.

Now it's much more of a niche thing. There aren't many companies making blu-ray players any more. For the average person, the convenience is everything.

The average person has always been happy to sacrifice quality graphics etc with a cutting edge PC, and been happy with a PlayStation etc.

If you offer them a monthly sub to play a bunch of games via their TV with no up front hardware cost, it's going (eventually) to eclipse gaming hardware just by convenience alone.

Computers will obviously last a lot longer since they're multipurpose.

The question is more about how long it will take to happen.

Bit like a kid and Robox
It only streamed and they love it.