Is console gaming dying?

Ryan Wilsey 8 Jul, 2010 at 8:53pm ET Article published in Gaming

We’ve all been taking for granted that gaming companies like Nintendo will always have a new console or piece of hardware to peddle towards us. Each year at trade shows like GDC and E3, every console manufacturer and their mum go on stage to show us the newest peripheral, and perhaps a hint or two of the next platform to look forward to. The one that will have massive graphical breakthroughs, crystal-clear audio, and perhaps a new feature nobody ever knew they wanted but suddenly become addicted to.

But what would happen if it all suddenly stopped?

The death of the gaming console. Imagine it for a moment—no more hardware updates, with cutely-named graphics chips or CPU cores. No big fancy glowing box to proudly sit under the TV. No expensive device that needs to be manufactured, warehoused, distributed, and given tech support if it fails. But then… what would replace it?

Cloud-based gaming is already here

The cloud. For years now, people have been shouting from the rooftops that the end is nigh. That game companies will offload the graphical muscle from little TV boxes to impressive supercomputers they can stick in freezers and power with Pandora-mined unobtanium, then stream the output as video to gamers who just have a little low-powered receiver that hooks to their TV. With services such as OnLive just at the cusp of making this a widespread reality, such techno-religious fanatics finally have something to show for their blatherings.

But is it enough to kill the console market as we know it?

My argument is “no”. At least, not for a good decade or two. Cloud-based gaming computing may be “the way of the future”, but I don’t think it will be the new face of console gaming just yet. While there have been no concrete announcements of a Wii², Xbox 720, or PlayStation 4, I highly doubt any of them will utilize a cloud for game processing. Looking to OnLive—while it is still quite an impressive milestone in its own right, it is still plagued by video artifacting simply because there just isn’t enough bandwidth to go around—thus the necessity of video compression.

Then why is the current console generation lasting so long? It is true that this generation we are on is having a much longer lifespan than ever before. But it’s not because there is no more consoles in line. It’s because gamers just aren’t as demanding for hardware upgrades as they have been before.

Mario on NES vs SNES: kind of a big deal

Think about it—The jump from the Atari 2600 to the NES was huge. The next leap to the Genesis and the SNES was also big. Then came the leap to 3D, which the PS1 and N64 did an adequate job of, but gamers still wanted more than blocky characters. PS2, GameCube, and Xbox brought 3D to a level that looked fairly realistic. The current generation brought it to a whole new level of shine.

But then what? What’s next? A few more levels of anti-aliasing? You can’t bump the resolution up, 1080p is as high as TVs go right now. You can’t up the number of colors on them, either. Sure, you can increase the poly count, maybe have a few more on-screen particle effects. But at the end of the day, the discernible upgrades that the average gamer will notice is dwindling. There are marginal diminishing returns for graphics hardware compared to the visual effect on people.

Halo on Xbox vs 360: not so much

And that’s the reason why we don’t have a newer set of consoles just yet. People paid through the nose for their PS3’s, and they aren’t quite so willing to plunk down another $600 for the next wave a few years later if it’s not going to have as noticeable an upgrade as before. As an example, I’ve talked to enough people who aren’t interested in a Blu-Ray player as they find the upgrade over DVDs is trivial, even on 1080p displays—why pay for a premium they don’t value?

So does this all make home gaming consoles obsolete? Not just yet. There is still a demand for hardware that isn’t completely dependent on an online service. Speaking for myself, I will not buy into a service that is totally dependent on them existing to access my games unless there were no other available solutions. I like owning physical hardware. I like the idea of going back and playing older classics without paying for them again. Because it’s physical and I have it in front of me to run on hardware sitting on my desk. Even with Steam and Xbox Live Arcade I can download all the games then go offline if the distribution networks are shut down.

And what of people with poor internet connections? People in rural Wyoming can still play Final Fantasy XIII just as well as someone in Silicon Valley or New York City. We certainly couldn’t have the same thing if games went fully internet-dependent. Even though a good percentage of gamers do have broadband, and some companies may settle for leaving behind potential customers with poor internet solutions, consoles today can still penetrate to get anyone with a TV and live power outlets.

OnLive has given us a tremendous glimpse into what could very well be the future of gaming. While it’s true that they have successfully created a cloud-based gaming technology that can turn a meager setup into a powerhouse, the next generation of game consoles having nothing to fear. There still needs to be a PlayStation 4, and perhaps another console after that. It’s just going to take a little longer for the current investments in technology to pay off before anyone’s ready to make the next jump.

Image credit: llimllib on Flickr

Comments

8 Jul 2010 ~ 11:12pm UPSLynx OnLive isn't the endgame, but you can bet the concept will go further than it will.

OnLive's pricing structure and lack of proper media ownership will keep it from rising to the top. No, OnLive will not usher in that new era.

But cloud computing will.

Just look at Steam, for example. Steam recently integrated some cloud functions. It stores save games, game settings, control setups, and such in the cloud. No matter where you log into your account, it's as if you're sitting at your own computer back home.

At Expo, I logged into three different PCs to play my Steam games, since I couldn't bring my own PC. Every time I bounced around, I didn't have to change one setting. I just sat down and played. It was wonderful.

When I reformatted and rebuilt my PC recently, I reinstalled Street Fighter 4, which uses Games for Windows LIVE, and logged in to play. To my complete shock, ALL of my stats and achievements were gone. Everything was saved in a local file. Despite my LIVE account retaining record of my earnings and achievements, the actual game reflected no such thing. Worse yet - my battlepoints had been reset to zero. The BP system is how the game matches you up to other players in online bouts. Now I have to work my BP way back up to where it was before after months of playing. All because Games for Windows LIVE didn't save jack crap.

That situation alone makes me not want to use the service anymore.

Cloud computing is going to change a lot about daily computing, and gaming is one of its flagship examples. Things are going to change in a big way over the next few years.
8 Jul 2010 ~ 11:48pm ardichoke As long as I can't get an Internet connection faster than 1.5M/s without paying out the ass for Comcast overpriced shared bandwidth service, cloud computing beyond Google Docs won't take off for me.

When the day comes that I can get a 10M connection for less than $50 a month, then I'll embrace offloading my heavy computing to the cloud.
9 Jul 2010 ~ 9:07am timuchan @ardichoke ATT u-verse is priced about there. In fact, I *was* going to get 24mbit for about $60. And yes, you can get just the internet... you just have to hassle them a bit. Too bad the service doesn't quite reach to my apartment.
9 Jul 2010 ~ 9:10am kryyst Console gaming won't die. The end goal is to kill off the media so that all content is digital distribution. If anything console gaming will become more prevalent with this model because they have more lockable control over a console.
9 Jul 2010 ~ 9:20am primesuspect Yeah, I pay $60 for 24mb with u-verse. And it's very low latency.
9 Jul 2010 ~ 5:27pm Cliff_Forster I feel like I inspired some content here??

Nicely written, but I still think it largely ignores all the potential cost advantages to everyone in the industry. Gaming on the cloud is the future. Its going to save everyone money. The developers will save because they wont have to develop for three completely unique hardware profiles, distribution is controlled without a middle man and zero inventory, logistics and warehousing cost. The data centers will be scalable to meet demand, so you pay for what gets played, instead of developing an expensive console as a loss leader. Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo may all have their versions on this, and they may all trump onlive, and it may even look something like a console, but dedicated hardware on the client end, and optical disks, that era is ending with the current crop. Mark my word, what comes next will be driven by the cloud. They may market them as consoles, but they wont be, they will just be a gateway to a cloud service. Its the logical next step, and if people are really happy with the 360 and PS3 from a graphics stand point (which I think your right, most folks are), then they have a few years to figure it all out.
11 Jul 2010 ~ 8:05pm ardichoke

Timu-chan wrote:

@ardichoke ATT u-verse is priced about there. In fact, I *was* going to get 24mbit for about $60. And yes, you can get just the internet... you just have to hassle them a bit. Too bad the service doesn't quite reach to my apartment.

Yeah, I'm aware of this, the problem is U-verse is only available in very limited locations. My house is not in one of these areas (despite being in the middle of Lansing, MI). This is the "availability" part of my previous post. Sure, it's out there for some people, but it's not available everywhere or even at a majority of locations for that matter.
13 Jul 2010 ~ 3:39pm boasist I agree with the concerns of the ISPs. I have already gotten dinged extra for going over the 250gb monthly limit with comcast. They do have a graph to follow if you login to your account. On the downside though, it is tough for the average user to track that. If (or when) ISPs start charging for internet use like cell companies do, that will kill cloud computing (at this level, not so much save game data i.e. steam).

Also, lets not forget content, making it easier for developers to put games into our hands is nice. Yet lets hope they don't start all turning into EA. Little gaming factories pumping out 1-2 hour single player games.

Which brings up price, the benefits of steam are great, yet could be greater to save the cost over retail. Bandwidth is cheaper than retail publishing, so pass some of that along and it will greatly help....Just don't go with the Michael Scott Paper Company business plan.
3 Aug 2010 ~ 9:07pm Tikiwiki @ kryyst

I think the point should read PC gaming will never die because if it does so do consoles, as a digital artist I can tell you with certainty that 120% of games for consoles are built on PC's/Mac's. If they all of a sudden died or decided to go awol in action consoles would be royally screwed.

Locked control schemes are actually more a pain in the ass, because they are proprietary technology aside from getting licensed to release your product on a console you also need exclusive rights to make use of the technology behind all that. I think the general public is too easily mislead. Its actually quiet costly to write games for consoles vs computers. That will never change either because it's all part of a corporate weight.

If anything what you should be asking is: "Why are games so expensive for consoles?" Now you know why happy gaming
5 Aug 2010 ~ 3:28pm kryyst

Tikiwiki wrote:

@ kryyst

I think the point should read PC gaming will never die because if it does so do consoles, as a digital artist I can tell you with certainty that 120% of games for consoles are built on PC's/Mac's. If they all of a sudden died or decided to go awol in action consoles would be royally screwed.

Locked control schemes are actually more a pain in the ass, because they are proprietary technology aside from getting licensed to release your product on a console you also need exclusive rights to make use of the technology behind all that. I think the general public is too easily mislead. Its actually quiet costly to write games for consoles vs computers. That will never change either because it's all part of a corporate weight.

If anything what you should be asking is: "Why are games so expensive for consoles?" Now you know why happy gaming

Ummm what are you talking about? The fact that the games are designed on computers doesn't mean that the games need to be built to run on computers. It's not that they build a pc game then port it. The PC is the tool. PC's aren't going to die. But PC gaming as a platform could - which isn't me saying that it is. But PC gaming as a platform could die and console gaming could go on.

Locked down hardware means you only have to develop one code base and not worry about exceptions. You don't need to consider if the console has an ati card or nvidia you know. You know how much ram, cpu speed. You design the game for a specific console that frees resources and should lead to more stable games.

But that's not even what we are talking about here. Streamed games means the console is essentially just an internet gateway to the streaming server with a controller. It's locked down hardware, it's an appliance the designers of the games don't have to worry about it. Much like TV show producers don't have to care what TV their show is airing on. This is the type of scenario we are talking about. The future of game design is to remove the need for gamers to buy disks which would allow them to share disks and access a used game market that game makers don't directly generate revenue from. You stream a game and the only way you can play that game is to pay no two ways around it. It only exists on the web and you only access it through your paid account.