Why Xbox One and PS4 may be the final generation of consoles
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The war over specs and prices doesn't matter, because future game systems will be unrecognizable.
Excited about the high-tech look and feel of the upcoming Microsoft Xbox One and Sony PlayStation 4? Better enjoy them while you can, because this may be the final generation of big, dedicated living room game console hardware.
Based on the cheers and jeers coming out of this week's E3 video game trade show about the Xbox One and PlayStation 4, you'd think we were about to enter a new era of cutting-edge game machines, complete with a new arms race of processors, GPUs, and other features. But if you look at how media consumption has changed rapidly over the past several years, and more importantly, how the hardware used to consume said media has also changed, that may not be the case at all.
In fact, both new consoles appear to be lumbering dinosaurs, throwbacks to an era when your technology hardware, software, and processing power were all housed on-site, in one localized package.
But, since the launch of the previous generation of living room game consoles more than half a decade ago, we've moved toward a far more connected way to access content, largely through cloud services that can stream both video and game content, as well as live interactive experiences such as shopping and social networking.
In fact, the Xbox 360, a console still at the heart of a great many living room setups, didn't even originally ship with built-in wireless Internet connectivity (although subsequent redesigns of the hardware added Wi-Fi, and the PS3 always included it).
Anyone who watches content trends knows that the future, and even much of the present, is not in plastic discs that get pressed at a factory, put into boxes, and then shipped to retail stores to sit until you decide to buy them and bring them home.
To its credit, Microsoft is at least being upfront that your relationship with Xbox One games is through the software license that gamers are actually purchasing, not the antiquated physical media that comes with it.
Not that this makes the restrictive sharing and trade-in conditions of the Xbox One any easier for consumers raised on trading plastic discs with each other or to retail stores any less annoying.
To see where games and game systems are going, look at how people connect to video content.
It's through streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, delivered over hardware devices that are little more than simple online conduits, such as the Roku or Apple TV (even "CBS This Morning" anchor Gayle King recently told me she purchased a DVD player specifically to stream Hulu Plus over it).
The original Apple TV box was a set-top box with a hard drive for local content. Subsequent versions dropped that in favor of what is essentially a passthrough box for online streaming.
The video game equivalent of this trend is streaming game services such as On Live and Gaikai.
Both offload the hardware and storage-intensive tasks of housing and rendering games to cloud-based server farms, literally broadcasting the live gameplay back to you through your TV or Web browser.
No, it's not perfect yet, and still far too reliant on maintaining a strong broadband internet connection, but that's why we're talking about the following generation of game consoles, not this one.
That said, at least one of the major console makers is clearly seeing the writing on the wall.
Sony's acquisition of streaming-game provider Gaikai in 2012 set the stage for streaming game content in the PS4, and while that won't be the main way you play games on it, some games will be available as streaming content in early 2014 and beyond.
If that ends up working well enough, there's no reason a Sony streaming-games service couldn't be built into other hardware, just as Netflix is built into televisions, DVD players, small streaming devices, etc.
That means Sony, and Microsoft and Nintendo, if they follow suit, could exit the incredibly risky and expensive business of planning, designing, building, and marketing $400-$500 plastic hardware boxes with half-decade lead times, and instead become, like Netflix or Amazon's Kindle, a platform for both first-party and third-party content. Even better, like Netflix, On Live, Hulu Plus, and other services, you could simply build future Sony and Microsoft "console" access into smart televisions and other online devices.
The end result: the PlayStation 5 and Xbox, uh, Two (?) are more likely to look like a Roku or Apple TV than a hulking squared-off gaming PC. It would be far-fetched if not for three things; Sony's existing commitment to stream at least some games, soft sales for the high-profile Nintendo Wii U, and muted reaction to the overpriced, overly restrictive Xbox One.
Think I'm crazy? Let's tune back in four to six years from now and we'll see what the next wave of living room game devices and services look like. If we're looking at more big, black boxes brimming with silicon, I'll be happy to eat my words.
Excited about the high-tech look and feel of the upcoming Microsoft Xbox One and Sony PlayStation 4? Better enjoy them while you can, because this may be the final generation of big, dedicated living room game console hardware.
Based on the cheers and jeers coming out of this week's E3 video game trade show about the Xbox One and PlayStation 4, you'd think we were about to enter a new era of cutting-edge game machines, complete with a new arms race of processors, GPUs, and other features. But if you look at how media consumption has changed rapidly over the past several years, and more importantly, how the hardware used to consume said media has also changed, that may not be the case at all.
In fact, both new consoles appear to be lumbering dinosaurs, throwbacks to an era when your technology hardware, software, and processing power were all housed on-site, in one localized package.
But, since the launch of the previous generation of living room game consoles more than half a decade ago, we've moved toward a far more connected way to access content, largely through cloud services that can stream both video and game content, as well as live interactive experiences such as shopping and social networking.
In fact, the Xbox 360, a console still at the heart of a great many living room setups, didn't even originally ship with built-in wireless Internet connectivity (although subsequent redesigns of the hardware added Wi-Fi, and the PS3 always included it).
Anyone who watches content trends knows that the future, and even much of the present, is not in plastic discs that get pressed at a factory, put into boxes, and then shipped to retail stores to sit until you decide to buy them and bring them home.
To its credit, Microsoft is at least being upfront that your relationship with Xbox One games is through the software license that gamers are actually purchasing, not the antiquated physical media that comes with it.
Not that this makes the restrictive sharing and trade-in conditions of the Xbox One any easier for consumers raised on trading plastic discs with each other or to retail stores any less annoying.
To see where games and game systems are going, look at how people connect to video content.
It's through streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, delivered over hardware devices that are little more than simple online conduits, such as the Roku or Apple TV (even "CBS This Morning" anchor Gayle King recently told me she purchased a DVD player specifically to stream Hulu Plus over it).
The original Apple TV box was a set-top box with a hard drive for local content. Subsequent versions dropped that in favor of what is essentially a passthrough box for online streaming.
The video game equivalent of this trend is streaming game services such as On Live and Gaikai.
Both offload the hardware and storage-intensive tasks of housing and rendering games to cloud-based server farms, literally broadcasting the live gameplay back to you through your TV or Web browser.
No, it's not perfect yet, and still far too reliant on maintaining a strong broadband internet connection, but that's why we're talking about the following generation of game consoles, not this one.
That said, at least one of the major console makers is clearly seeing the writing on the wall.
Sony's acquisition of streaming-game provider Gaikai in 2012 set the stage for streaming game content in the PS4, and while that won't be the main way you play games on it, some games will be available as streaming content in early 2014 and beyond.
If that ends up working well enough, there's no reason a Sony streaming-games service couldn't be built into other hardware, just as Netflix is built into televisions, DVD players, small streaming devices, etc.
That means Sony, and Microsoft and Nintendo, if they follow suit, could exit the incredibly risky and expensive business of planning, designing, building, and marketing $400-$500 plastic hardware boxes with half-decade lead times, and instead become, like Netflix or Amazon's Kindle, a platform for both first-party and third-party content. Even better, like Netflix, On Live, Hulu Plus, and other services, you could simply build future Sony and Microsoft "console" access into smart televisions and other online devices.
The end result: the PlayStation 5 and Xbox, uh, Two (?) are more likely to look like a Roku or Apple TV than a hulking squared-off gaming PC. It would be far-fetched if not for three things; Sony's existing commitment to stream at least some games, soft sales for the high-profile Nintendo Wii U, and muted reaction to the overpriced, overly restrictive Xbox One.
Think I'm crazy? Let's tune back in four to six years from now and we'll see what the next wave of living room game devices and services look like. If we're looking at more big, black boxes brimming with silicon, I'll be happy to eat my words.
Comments
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Yea graphics won't matter in the next generation.
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Never going to happen. They said the same thing about the next generation. Why even bother writing these type of articles? This might be the last Xbox though.
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Raging Raven wrote: »Never going to happen. They said the same thing about the next generation. Why even bother writing these type of articles? This might be the last Xbox though.
I think Microsoft might bow out gracefully after this generation.
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I read a similar article 7 years ago.
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Gaming is getting so widespread in cell phones and in tablets, that consoles have to provide Virtual Reality in order to compete. If not, then yeah, people will get tired of new consoles outside of prettier graphics.
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This has been a terribke yr for microsoft with windows 8 and xbox1
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Not gonna happen. As long as ? can continue making us pay 500 dollars for new consoles with just slightly better graphics they'll continue releasing new ones. Phones and tablets aren't gonna stop gamers from buying consoles. Maybe casual gamers
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infamous118 wrote: »Not gonna happen. As long as ? can continue making us pay 500 dollars for new consoles with just slightly better graphics they'll continue releasing new ones. Phones and tablets aren't gonna stop gamers from buying consoles. Maybe casual gamers
The ps4 actually has the better hardware so the console with the much better specs is the least expensive. -
The Xbox One will have bigger open worlds, better AI, no loading screens, more characters on screen, more players supported on multiplayer games, 100% dedicated servers at all times available to all developers, constantly evolving worlds, etc. The PS4 has more raw power than the One, only about 40% which is less than the difference between a GameCube and a Wii, but it's mostly graphical power so it isn't game altering at all. The Xbox One is designed to draw a huge amount of power from the cloud servers. Basically developers can make games that would require the horsepower of multiple Xbox One's worth of hardware. That's why Microsoft is leaving behind people with no internet. The Xbox One is truly Next Gen, the PS4 is just better spec's, same experience as the PS3.
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the ? lmao -
The Xbox One will have bigger open worlds, better AI, no loading screens, more characters on screen, more players supported on multiplayer games, 100% dedicated servers at all times available to all developers, constantly evolving worlds, etc. The PS4 has more raw power than the One, only about 40% which is less than the difference between a GameCube and a Wii, but it's mostly graphical power so it isn't game altering at all. The Xbox One is designed to draw a huge amount of power from the cloud servers. Basically developers can make games that would require the horsepower of multiple Xbox One's worth of hardware. That's why Microsoft is leaving behind people with no internet. The Xbox One is truly Next Gen, the PS4 is just better spec's, same experience as the PS3.
You can update a cloud server with any console... Ps4 is going to use the ? cloud too. Lol at the cloud server being the end all be all. I really doubt it's going to make a big diffrence. Really that cloud ? isn't going to do much. -
BlackxChild wrote: »The Xbox One will have bigger open worlds, better AI, no loading screens, more characters on screen, more players supported on multiplayer games, 100% dedicated servers at all times available to all developers, constantly evolving worlds, etc. The PS4 has more raw power than the One, only about 40% which is less than the difference between a GameCube and a Wii, but it's mostly graphical power so it isn't game altering at all. The Xbox One is designed to draw a huge amount of power from the cloud servers. Basically developers can make games that would require the horsepower of multiple Xbox One's worth of hardware. That's why Microsoft is leaving behind people with no internet. The Xbox One is truly Next Gen, the PS4 is just better spec's, same experience as the PS3.
You can update a cloud server with any console... Ps4 is going to use the ? cloud too. Lol at the cloud server being the end all be all. I really doubt it's going to make a big diffrence. Really that cloud ? isn't going to do much.
LOL. Yea, everyone knows this internet thing is just a fad.
Developers won't be able to guarantee a connection with the PS4 like they will with the XBone which limits is potential. -
Lol @ ? cloud
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Does Bill gates personally write checks to this ? Focus?
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