What do you think the future of consoles will be?

[x7q3]

In the future, I believe consoles will stream or download games only. There will be no physical games and the console won't open.

There will be no hard drive. All game saves will be stored on online servers.

The console will also be much smaller, partly due to no disc dive and no hard drive.

It will basically be a streaming box, and in addition to game streaming, it'll have other entertainment apps, like Netflix, Hulu, Vudu, etc. So the future of consoles are basically small streaming boxes, similar to a Roku.

What do you think the future of consoles is?

[emailking]

If it's fully streaming, it may just end up being an app on your tv or something.

But I think we have a while before that. Fast internet isn't ubiquitous enough to support that.

Digital only is probably coming, but may be a generation away.

[dyne]

It will be a cord plugged into my butt.

[mars2878]

my town is dsl service only, so it cant support a digital only lifestyle.

even if could, I want my physical media, so no discs = a no buy from me

[Derb]

WiFi9

[Steedeel]

Originally Posted by dyne

It will be a cord plugged into my butt.

Kinky!

[Maxflier]

It will be a cord plugged into dyne's butt.

[pwarner184]

[mrveggieman]

Unfortunately all signs appear to be all digital for new systems but I do see a booming market for retro physical games.

[dlwpwd]

Future of console gaming is hard to say but there isn't any future for them.
They're already in the mobile and server. So in the future, you would be playing streaming them on the TV or wall (with the help of next-generation projectors) directly from the server. Or for offline playing by using specific storing devices for games.

[Verisimilitude1984]

Digital only, subscription based, largely live services games rather than yearly releases (ala Halo Infinite).

[JamesKurtovich]

It's bad enough you can't play the game without running their bloatware. I'd hate it if the game itself was being hosted on a remote server and I doubt that would ever happen, especially for multiplayer titles.

[Ozman79]

Originally Posted by dyne

it will be a cord plugged into my butt.

eXistenZ is paused!

[Ozman79]

Honestly I worry about the push for digital-only. I can see why people want it so they don't have to have discs and boxes taking up space, but it's bad news for consumers. We've got digital-only consoles already, and now we have publishers like Activision who have just made the beta for the new CoD only available to people who pre-ordered the game digitally. Pre-ordered a disc copy? No beta for you.

At the end of the day it may be convenient, but it also locks you into paying whatever price is demanded on the digital store. People are complaining about $70 games, but then they're happily going out and buying a digital-only console that will force them to pay that $70 if they want to download the latest game. Sure, there will be sales and deals, but that won't compare to buying a physical copy cheaper at launch. I mean, there's a new CoD coming out in a month, and Modern Warfare is still full price on the Xbox store. That's laughable.

Say goodbye to recouping money by trading old games in too. That's the big one that developers and publishers have tried to put a stop to for years. Remember EA and their "online codes" that forced you to buy a $10 code from the store if you wanted to play multiplayer in a game you bought second hand? With digital-only they'll completely destroy the 2nd hand market, which again means you're forced to pay full price for games, and old games that you don't play anymore will just sit in your library collecting virtual dust.

It's convenient, but that doesn't mean it's good.