Future of Gaming

[Zomoniac]

My predictions about gaming:

 

Physical media, e.g. games coming on dvds will be completely phased out and replaced by downloading, or streaming games. It is a far better way of getting and distributing files.

 

Browser games will become much more interesting and involved. Everyone can play a game in a browser like internet explorer or firefox, no matter what computer / operating system you are using. Forget having to buy a specific console for gaming.

 

Games involving thousands, or even millions of people playing together simultaneously. MMORPG's are big, and in the future they will get much much bigger as they are improved.

 

Much more immersive gaming. Combine 3-d, motion detection like project Natal, photo-realistic graphics.

 

Physical media will never go. It will be a disaster. For a start, they lose any potential revenue from people without broadband or with capped services (in some countries that could rule out most of the population). They also limit the number of games people can buy with physical media storage. Plus how much money will they lose out on from present buying?

 

And, worst of all, you are locked in on price. MS have just started their games on demand service on 360, with a load of games available for £19.99. But every single game on the service can easily be had from well under a tenner from real retailers. Most games can be had on release day with at least a £10-15 saving on RRP. You can see this disappearing instantly if there is no competition, plus you lose the option of re-selling your games. Whilst a fully online distribution model is every publisher's wet dream, it's so fraught with impracticalities. I think Sony is somewhat testing the water with PSP Go (which I think they've gone about completely the wrong way and seriously shot themselves in the foot with), having a download only model available alongside a physical media console. T'will be interesting to see how it pans out.

[Zomoniac]

Imagine Rez HD-3D ...

 

/spunks uncontrollably

 

 

 

[Beakerzoid]

Physical media will never go. It will be a disaster. For a start, they lose any potential revenue from people without broadband or with capped services (in some countries that could rule out most of the population). They also limit the number of games people can buy with physical media storage. Plus how much money will they lose out on from present buying?

 

And, worst of all, you are locked in on price. MS have just started their games on demand service on 360, with a load of games available for £19.99. But every single game on the service can easily be had from well under a tenner from real retailers. Most games can be had on release day with at least a £10-15 saving on RRP. You can see this disappearing instantly if there is no competition, plus you lose the option of re-selling your games.

 

In addition, some people just prefer to own a physical disc/box. I recently purchased Chapions Online for PC. I already had the game client installed, having run the beta, and could have just paid for a code online to activate it, but instead I went out and purchased a physical copy. Why? Because i prefer it, same as I prefer films on DVD/Bluray over HD downloads.

[Redyam]

Physical media will never go. It will be a disaster. For a start, they lose any potential revenue from people without broadband or with capped services (in some countries that could rule out most of the population).

 

As we're talking about the future, I believe quite the majority of people will have super-fast broadband with no caps. There is such an advantage in having it - even Gordon Brown has said this will happen.

 

They also limit the number of games people can buy with physical media storage. Plus how much money will they lose out on from present buying?

 

This won't be an issue, storage space for getting games is getting cheaper all the time, soon we'll have so much space we won't know what to do with it. People can still buy presents, they will just be a 'digital' present as a code that can be redeemed online.

 

And, worst of all, you are locked in on price. MS have just started their games on demand service on 360, with a load of games available for £19.99. But every single game on the service can easily be had from well under a tenner from real retailers. Most games can be had on release day with at least a £10-15 saving on RRP. You can see this disappearing instantly if there is no competition, plus you lose the option of re-selling your games.

 

There will most likely be multiple places to download games from, much like there are multiple shops you can buy games from now. If you see my example of games running in browsers, hopefully people won't buy a console from one manufacturer and be locked into their games. We'll have a situation more like PC games.

 

Take an example of the ipod touch / iphone - this is already a system that sells games very successfully on a purely download digital distribution method though itunes. Of course people are also only allowed to download from Apple, but I hope it won't be like this in the future

 

It is also so much cheaper selling games by download only. You don't need the spend money on the disc, the packaging, the transporting, the cost of putting it on display in a shop. This should mean games become cheaper.

 

+ you aren't actually allowed to re-sell your games now if you read the small print - of course they can't enforce this.

 

Whilst a fully online distribution model is every publisher's wet dream, it's so fraught with impracticalities. I think Sony is somewhat testing the water with PSP Go (which I think they've gone about completely the wrong way and seriously shot themselves in the foot with), having a download only model available alongside a physical media console. T'will be interesting to see how it pans out.

 

Sony are just copying Apple with there Appstore business model. No doubt it will be successful if they sell enough PSP's. I reakon once they sort out all the niggling problems and impractabilities, most companies will go down this route. As well as film companies, and record companies.

Edited September 16, 2009 by Redyam

[Zomoniac]

As we're talking about the future, I believe quite the majority of people will have super-fast broadband with no caps. There is such an advantage in having it - even Gordon Brown has said this will happen.

 

And you believe him? I have an uncapped 20MB connection, but as soon as I download over 5GB in an evening I start getting throttled heavily. As long as ISPs continue to throttle high users it's a no-go area.

 

This won't be an issue, storage space for getting games is getting cheaper all the time, soon we'll have so much space we won't know what to do with it. People can still buy presents, they will just be a 'digital' present as a code that can be redeemed online.

 

But games are getting bigger as well. Having a couple of terrabytes is great, but if the games are 50-100GB then that's not going to last long.

 

There will most likely be multiple places to download games from, much like there are multiple shops you can buy games from now. If you see my example of games running in browsers, hopefully people won't buy a console from one manufacturer and be locked into their games. We'll have a situation more like PC games.

 

I don't think a browser and live webstream will be capable of delivering the sort of gaming people want. Evidently 10m+ people want to play Call Of Duty in high-def online without lag, without having to mess around with the complications of PC instability, hardware incompatibility and so forth. A plug-and-play machine capable of running it will always be desirable. As long as there is a single-manufacturer console, they will not allow third-party downloadable sources.

 

Take an example of the ipod touch / iphone - this is already a system that sells games very successfully on a purely download digital distribution method though itunes. Of course people are also only allowed to download from Apple, but I hope it won't be like this in the future

 

Big difference. Regarding music on there, you've kind of defeated your own argument. I have 4 iPods, my girlfriend and I each have an iPhone, and I have over 80GB of music on my copy of iTunes, and lots of it is on my iPods and phone. And every single bit of it was bought on disc from a physical store, I've never bought an iTunes song and never will. If iPods were only able to play songs bought from Apple I assure you they would have been a catastrophic failure. With the apps, they're aiming for a different market. Most iPhone games are knocked up a week, rubbish, and cost less than a quid. The ridiculously cheap price is why it works. GTA IV had a development budget of £100m. Put it up for £1.19 and even if every iPhone and iPod Touch owner in the world bought it you wouldn't make back the dev costs. The cheap and cheerful impulse handheld market and the mega-budget console blockbusters cannot possibly be compared.

 

It is also so much cheaper selling games by download only. You don't need the spend money on the disc, the packaging, the transporting, the cost of putting it on display in a shop. This should mean games become cheaper.

 

Should being the main word. They won't. Steam sell new games for usually more than double the price they're easily available for on release day from a real shop.

 

+ you aren't actually allowed to re-sell your games now if you read the small print - of course they can't enforce this.

 

There's a difference between technically questionable but widely practiced and physically impossible.

 

 

 

Sony are just copying Apple with there Appstore business model. No doubt it will be successful if they sell enough PSP's. I reakon once they sort out all the niggling problems and impractabilities, most companies will go down this route. As well as film companies, and record companies.

 

Again, they're not exactly. Buying Flight Control for 59 pence when you're bored on the train is one thing. Buying Gran Turismo PSP for £29.99 from PSN isn't. Especially when the UMD version is available in the shop you just went in for £14.99 and you can't buy it because you bought the locked-to-Sony's-prices edition of the console.

[Beakerzoid]

....storage space for getting games is getting cheaper all the time, soon we'll have so much space we won't know what to do with it.

 

People said exactly the same thing 10 years ago, when even a 10Gb hard drive was seen as "more than you will ever need"

 

Heck, when I got my first 250Gb drive I thought, "Wow - I'll be able to install everything I have now, and will never run out of space!" Now, 250Gb is nowhere near enough for all my media.

 

If you look at the install folders of most modern games they run to over 10Gb (WoW is currently around 15Gb). Go back only 5 years and most games only took up around 1Gb - 2Gb.

 

As drive space gets bigger, and machines get more and more powerful, developers use more storage for more information.

 

I look at my rapidly filling hard-drive on my PS3 and wonder when I will have to upgrade the drive again - I reckon it won't be too long now as more and more games and DLC take up more and more space.

 

Yes, we will be able to store more on the drives in future, but we won't be any better off than we currently are in real terms.

[Pr0187]

I would say in 20 years we will have a whole room in which once you step in you can be in a FPS game..not sure how running or whatever would be like but just imagine, holding some sort of wireless light-gun and each wall is a screen (projected) and you can run around (again, not sure how they would do that..some sort of treadmill kinda functionality.)

[segasonic]

I would say in 20 years we will have a whole room in which once you step in you can be in a FPS game..not sure how running or whatever would be like but just imagine, holding some sort of wireless light-gun and each wall is a screen (projected) and you can run around (again, not sure how they would do that..some sort of treadmill kinda functionality.)

 

Heheh, I imagine a game of CoD would have half of the players leaning on walls gasping for breath, me included. Truly survival of the fittest.

[L00b]

Heheh, I imagine a game of CoD would have half of the players leaning on walls gasping for breath, me included. Truly survival of the fittest.

Well, for the CoD or BF afficionados who would like to supersize their gaming experience...can I heartily recommend airsoft Doesn't get any more (photo)realistic than that

 

(@ Zomoniac) I still believe media-less distribution is where the industry is going. Bit by bit, slowly-but-surely that is.

 

PSP is Sony's attempt at online-only, soon to be followed by 'some implementation' on PS3 I'm sure.

 

360 is still a hybrid (drive + online), but MS has been at the online-only model for a fair while now, with community/xbox1/'A' games (BF1943 is a runaway success), and the recent introduction of download-only versions of 'AAA' games fits fully within their masterplan. I wouldn't be surprised one bit by a drive-less/big-ish HDD entry-level 360 in years to come.

 

Even Nintendo has been at it a fair while as well, with the Virtual Console on Wii.

 

All of the above makes me think that it's all about gathering sufficient in-house experience/market data to make a case, when decisions will be made about the 'Next Gen' iterations. To my mind, the slow and gradual progression of this model follows fully the take-up of ever higher-speed/ever higher-caps to ever more consumers.

 

Thinking with a business head for a second, it's less about the mark-up on each DVD 'now', and much more about gathering control of the entire distribution pipeline, from dev to consumer (thereby removing retailers' cut and 2nd hand sales altogether).

Edited September 17, 2009 by L00b

[segasonic]

As a collector I personally prefer a boxed product, something tangible I can hold, display and read the manual. I do have a lot of XBLA stuff though.

 

It does seem that manufacturers are testing the water for digital delivery, I'd say that Microsoft are furthest along that path as it stands.

Sony aren't going to release a download-only PS3, because in that case they wouldn't be able to sneak a Blu-Ray player into your home.

Nintendo have the Virtual Console and WiiWare, but the Wii comes with a pathetic amount of storage and Nintendo claim they have no plans to release a hard drive or increase the memory.