Support NeoGAF

[Mibu no ookami]

It currently is this way because development costs have skyrocketed. And development costs have skyrocketed because we simply weren't ready for the 1-2-punch of 4k and ray tracing at the birth of their popularity. It's why engines like UE 5 and AI advancements are so crucial, because otherwise it truly wouldn't be sustainable over time.

The problem with Nintendo's way, is that it only suits Nintendo. It's a trap for any other console manufacturer to follow them and they know this and thus take advantage of it. They have proven that the need for better graphics isn't sustainable for themselves, and that's perfectly fine.

But then look at games like Fortnite which aren't graphical juggernauts either... Maybe the saying availability is the best ability is true and being available on as many devices as possible is the key to sustainable revenue for these companies.

All consoles have subscriptions and will continue to have them. But gamers also want to OWN their games.....many wanting physical copies too. That won't go away. All will co-exist.

Might not have that option if they're not willing to sell you the game.

They don’t have to move, but the first one that does.

The first one to move permanently to a streaming stick will have already seen the vast majority of their revenue come from streaming.

 

[bitbydeath]

The first one to move permanently to a streaming stick will have already seen the vast majority of their revenue come from streaming.

So we trick em into thinking everyone wants it then pull the rug out.

 

[March Climber]

But then look at games like Fortnite which aren't graphical juggernauts either... Maybe the saying availability is the best ability is true and being available on as many devices as possible is the key to sustainable revenue for these companies.

Fortnite UE5 edition on Switch is currently experiencing what every other switch port is experiencing. Severe graphical downgrades to meet hardware requirements.



While you're right that it helps to be on every platform for sales reasons, that doesn't coincide with the visions that developers have for their games. They're wanting to create what they picture to themselves as artistically and creatively 'the best' for their audiences, while trying not to be completely kneecapped by a lesser platform. You can't make a game like Red Dead Redemption 2 on Switch without massive downgrades. It's a tightrope they have to walk and the best way they're doing it is by optimizing the graphical capabilities of 'low' and 'medium' settings you would see on PC to make sure they look as presentable as possible. Whereas in the past, 'low' and 'medium' meant either 'textureless blobs' or 'textureless blobs with slightly better lighting'.

One of the issues here is that many people here don't see the actual graphical progression in games like Fortnite or Cel-Shaded games like Hi-Fi Rush, so they have the naive thought that Hi-Fi Rush is on the same level as an emulated Jet Set Radio because they're both cel shaded. So they also think that Fortnite from 2011 is the same as Fortnite from 2021. It's not.

Also, like stated, no other console can do what the Switch is doing right now. To add another reason onto this, if MS and Sony decided to do what Switch does, PC would pull way, way ahead graphically, and then that would bring death much closer, much faster, to both HD consoles. It's a lose-lose situation.

We have a long, long way until we actually plateau. Right now, devs are still using essentially graphical 'magic tricks' to trick players into thinking their game looks amazing at all times. An actual full plateau means full ray tracing/path tracing capabilities, at 8k, possible even in VR(dual 8k displays) with extremely high resolution varied textures(that can be viewed at the closest and farthest of distances without a drop in quality), fully interactable and enterable houses and cities with zero loading screens with A.I. routes and programming on a level that's much higher than anything we've ever seen in Red Dead Redemption 2(which was great already), all running at 120fps or more, maximum AA, all realtime, all the time at anywhere and anytime in a game.

That's a full plateau. That's when things will truly become interesting, because then all that's left is full creativity.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

ChorizoPicozo

The amount of consolidation will grow significantly in the coming years. The only thing slowly it now is that cash has become so expensive, but when the global economy picks up again, I expect we'll see it happening quickly. Even if it doesn't that will cause it to happen as well.

consolidation is not something that happens over night. we are living trough it. and it could take the entire generation for things to finally settle down to a "new-normal".

The difference between what you're mentioned and consoles is that all those devices agnostically play everything and don't have a primary license holder.

they do have lincense holders.

companies need multiple certifications for these apps to be "fully supported" or even be able to run.

EA Play Pro is more of the future I think we're going to see with consoles dead. You have to ask yourself if streaming can be achieved a mass market level, why the publishers need the console.

the same reason turntables or High End consumers cameras exists:

The enthusiast market = highest profit margin

there is a reason companies invest tons of money in R&D > create a flagship product then Halo effect.

In consoles goes beyond that. because the content is intrinsically tied to this technology (not like video streaming).

Skipping streaming devices straight to the TV

what is a tv if not a streaming device with a screen.

cuts out a potential middle man and increases margins.

streaming is not free.

I meant that Netflix was platform agnostic, meaning you could play it on anything, not that the content within Netflix is on any service.

but what is your equation between companies like netflix and gaming publishers/devs?

you could say Ubisoft/Epic/EA/CDPRed are agnostic because they are third party, yet; they have their own stores and/or services.

If games no longer released on consoles and only release on cloud subscription services,

what games? Third Party i will assume.

because First party have all the incentives to release on their own platform

(just like Netfix with their own productions)

but even. why no release your content on consoles AND on your store AND PC AND Streaming.

steam will also likely die

no.

. You might be able to use the PC as a device to play your games, but it won't be the same as PC gaming. If Steam continues to exist it will be at a high premium like services that exist for VOD, such as VUDU.

this dosen't make sense at all.

one of the prime benefits of PC is the access to weird or broken or unfinished games. plus the mod community and stuff like that.



This isn the thing:
You are equating streaming/cloud gaming as something that magically exists in the ether.

there are ongoing costs just by having X game in the server, these costs increases by how many people play such game.

 

[daveonezero]

I don’t care where the industry is going I’m going more local storage owning my hardware and software.

 

[hemo memo]

Subscription for sure. It will the death of AAA and the return of AA.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

consolidation is not something that happens over night. we are living trough it. and it could take the entire generation for things to finally settle down to a "new-normal".


they do have lincense holders.

companies need multiple certifications for these apps to be "fully supported" or even be able to run.


the same reason turntables or High End consumers cameras exists:

The enthusiast market = highest profit margin

there is a reason companies invest tons of money in R&D > create a flagship product then Halo effect.

In consoles goes beyond that. because the content is intrinsically tied to this technology (not like video streaming).



what is a tv if not a streaming device with a screen.

streaming is not free.


but what is your equation between companies like netflix and gaming publishers/devs?

you could say Ubisoft/Epic/EA/CDPRed are agnostic because they are third party, yet; they have their own stores and/or services.



what games? Third Party i will assume.

because First party have all the incentives to release on their own platform

(just like Netfix with their own productions)

but even. why no release your content on consoles AND on your store AND PC AND Streaming.


no.

this dosen't make sense at all.

one of the prime benefits of PC is the access to weird or broken or unfinished games. plus the mod community and stuff like that.



This isn the thing:
You are equating streaming/cloud gaming as something that magically exists in the ether.

there are ongoing costs just by having X game in the server, these costs increases by how many people play such game.

This was almost entirely straw man to the point where I'm no longer interested in responding...

 

[Ansphn]

The industry is heading into only a big 2 surviving (Sony and Nintendo) and another company entering the Frey. I'm thinking Tencent, Amazon or Apple.

 

[01011001]

PC, Phone and Console will eventually merge into one another.

you can already install Windows 11 on Phones and play Windows games on them.

Microsoft absolutely is planning to get Windows 11 ready for Mobile phones and ARM based tablets.
the built-in Android emulator and the partnership with Amazon's app store (plus the ability to sideload) is most likely also part of this plan, as it will make the switch to a Windows 11 based phone easier for many.

the UI already has a tablet mode with an adjusted UI and easy gesture controls, extending this to phones eventually should be no issue.


the Xbox also basically is already half a PC. you can develop UWP programs and games on a Windows PC, and with only a tiny bit of adjustments these all also run natively on any modern Xbox.
that's how all the Emulators like Retroarch, XBSX2, PPSSPP and Dolphin are available on Xbox now, some of the people porting them over don't even have an Xbox to test them on, yet they all work.


with hardware getting smaller and stronger we will eventually come to a point where fidelity of a game is mostly dictated by the manpower and budget of the studio instead of the hardware it's running on.
and when this point comes there will be no reason for developers not to make their games run on all available systems.
with future phones maybe running full Windwos, they wouldn't even need to port them to phones in the first place, because they will simply run them like any other Windows device.
and Xbox running a modified Windows and DX12, that should eventually also be a small step from dedicated and walled off console, to a hybrid system that's basically a compact PC designed for games, but also able to do everything a PC does.


IMO this is at the very least the end goal of Microsoft themselves.
Windows 11 PC
Windows 11 Xbox
Windows 11 Mobile
all being intercompatible and running the same games.

maybe we will be at Windows 12 by then, who knows. But there's no way this isn't the end goal

 

[bentanchorbolt]

With both MS and Sony releasing their games on PC as well, and through Steam, I think we are okay.

 

[GigaBowser]

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

This was almost entirely straw man to the point where I'm no longer interested in responding...

Because what you are saying dosen't make sense at all. you are being hyperbolic.

you could easily have said:

"because of streaming, consoles will become less popular".

instead you are choosing to say:

consoles dead.

 

[01011001]

Because what you are saying dosen't make sense at all. you are being hyperbolic.

you could easily have said:

"because of streaming, consoles will become less popular".

instead you are choosing to say:

consoles dead.

also streaming will never take over consoles, it just won't.
and the longer it doesn't the smaller the chances get.

streaming can only remain even remotely relevant as long as local hardware is a limiting factor both for developers and for people wanting to play games.

in 15 years when every small box the size of a Steam Deck will be able to play games at higher fidelity than that of an RTX4090, then why would you stream anything over the cloud?

time is running out for game streaming, and so far noone came even close to succeeding against literally any other form of gaming.

 

[angrod14]

Streaming games will remain niche/alternative for ever, unless there's some sort of major breakthrough in internet technology. My connection is very good, I can stream 4K movies no problem, I download all my games at decent speed to play them locally on my system. But when I get into multiplayer my ping is always through the roof. That's why I couldn't care less about playing online. And I would guess many, many players are on the same situation.

Consoles will always be a thing. Every software requires hardware; mobile just doesn't cut it for AAA games, and PC is complicated for the non-enthusiast.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

also streaming will never take over consoles, it just won't.
and the longer it doesn't the smaller the chances get.

streaming can only remain even remotely relevant as long as local hardware is a limiting factor both for developers and for people wanting to play games.

in 15 years when every small box the size of a Steam Deck will be able to play games at higher fidelity than that of an RTX4090, then why would you stream anything over the cloud?

time is running out for game streaming, and so far noone came even close to succeeding against literally any other form of gaming.

something closer and more tangible:

Virtual Reality.

to be fair, streaming is here to stay. but is going to be a subpar experience. ("for the masses") -nothing wrong with that-.

just like watching avatar on IMAX vs on your 6" screen phone with your Bluetooth earplugs.

 

[01011001]

something closer and more tangible:

Virtual Reality.

to be fair, streaming is here to stay. but is going to be a subpar experience. ("for the masses") -nothing wrong with that-.

just like watching avatar on IMAX vs on your 6" screen phone with your Bluetooth earplugs.

Well I think streaming games is a dying concept.

I explained my thoughts on this on multiple occasions in other threads already but the jist of it is,
hardware is getting more and more powerful.
powerful hardware will eventually be cheaper and cheaper.
developers are already hitting a wall in terms of manpower, where new games rarely look substantially better than last gen games because it's basically not feasible to increase fidelity by much at all anymore.

this combination of things could absolutely mean that in 15 to 20 years time CPUs and GPUs that are highly affordable will be so powerful that they do not limit developers anymore for the most part.

so if that happens, it will mean most people will have cheap boxes at home that can play the highest fidelity games natively.

so why stream at that point? the concept of streaming relies entirely on 2 things:
1: easily taking your games with you
2: not needing powerful and expensive hardware

so it IMO is pretty clear that once the hardware is cheap and small enough to play anything any AAA studio could ever produce, Game Streaming will become entirely obsolete.

or in other words,
we already hit the wall of absolute hardware overkill for 2D games. every imaginable game using 2D graphics is easy to run on even the smallest little boxes, including phones.
one day the same will be true for 3D games

 

[Griffon]

Yup, I don't know what people over here at Neogaf are smoking, but streaming/subscription models aren't gonna be the future.

Gamepass is just a poor man's Humble Bundle (where you don't get to keep any game you pay rent for), and hopefully the majority of studios and gamers remain wise to the grift.

And streaming is just trash. The lag is unbearable and will never get any better (unless you somehow can get faster than speed of light transfers, so no, it's not happening).

I could see the future being handheld PCs/Consoles like the Steam Deck and Switch. But only for a while, in the farther future all of our computing will be AR/VR glasses that are no bigger than a normal pair of glasses.

 

[Barakov]

It's kinda going everywhere. If the industry/hardware makers are smart they won't put their eggs in one basket. It'll most likely be a combination of some of the things listed in the poll.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

also streaming will never take over consoles, it just won't.
and the longer it doesn't the smaller the chances get.

streaming can only remain even remotely relevant as long as local hardware is a limiting factor both for developers and for people wanting to play games.

in 15 years when every small box the size of a Steam Deck will be able to play games at higher fidelity than that of an RTX4090, then why would you stream anything over the cloud?

time is running out for game streaming, and so far noone came even close to succeeding against literally any other form of gaming.

This is a great take, however, I'd suggest that also yields a poor future for consoles and PC gaming.

The closer that gaming can be conducted from a small device (like a streaming stick, even if the game isn't streamed) the more likely, tvs and such will come with their own built in hardware to game. That goes for devices such as roku sticks as well.

I don't think we're anywhere close to that though. Just look at the PS5. It's the largest PlayStation to date by far.

 

[semiconscious]

no 'to it's inevitable doom' option?...

 

[AJUMP23]

Mobile is where the whale money is. Subscription is where the consistent money resides.

 

[gothmog]

Consoles aren't going anywhere for quite some time because large parts of the world still have shitty internet.

 

[Holammer]

PC is going to grow like hell (mobile already does) because of India and other emerging economies. Within 5 years I expect your regular AA & AAA games to start featuring Hindi, Urdu, Indonesian, Vietnamese translations and localization.
The exact same process that happened with China as those countries gain a new middle class with money to spend, by the time consoles recognize the market potential and try to make inroads, PC culture will be heavily entrenched there (it already is).

Just think of it, Indonesia's population is x3 the one of Germany. Lots of spending power that's about to be unleashed in the coming decades.

 

[daveonezero]

Yup, I don't know what people over here at Neogaf are smoking, but streaming/subscription models aren't gonna be the future.

Gamepass is just a poor man's Humble Bundle (where you don't get to keep any game you pay rent for), and hopefully the majority of studios and gamers remain wise to the grift.

And streaming is just trash. The lag is unbearable and will never get any better (unless you somehow can get faster than speed of light transfers, so no, it's not happening).

I could see the future being handheld PCs/Consoles like the Steam Deck and Switch. But only for a while, in the farther future all of our computing will be AR/VR glasses that are no bigger than a normal pair of glasses.

It’s gonna be all local storage too.

Petabytes on and SD card.

Good classic inspired games will be everythwere.

Zombie Survivors success in this era proves it. Not to mention you’ll be able to play a whole history of pc games at insane resolutions and virtual theaters.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

Well I think streaming games is a dying concept.

I explained my thoughts on this on multiple occasions in other threads already but the jist of it is,
hardware is getting more and more powerful.
powerful hardware will eventually be cheaper and cheaper.
developers are already hitting a wall in terms of manpower, where new games rarely look substantially better than last gen games because it's basically not feasible to increase fidelity by much at all anymore.

this combination of things could absolutely mean that in 15 to 20 years time CPUs and GPUs that are highly affordable will be so powerful that they do not limit developers anymore for the most part.

so if that happens, it will mean most people will have cheap boxes at home that can play the highest fidelity games natively.

so why stream at that point? the concept of streaming relies entirely on 2 things:
1: easily taking your games with you
2: not needing powerful and expensive hardware

so it IMO is pretty clear that once the hardware is cheap and small enough to play anything any AAA studio could ever produce, Game Streaming will become entirely obsolete.

or in other words,
we already hit the wall of absolute hardware overkill for 2D games. every imaginable game using 2D graphics is easy to run on even the smallest little boxes, including phones.
one day the same will be true for 3D games

oh, I see what you are saying.

I am talking about more like the "value proposition or as a package of services"

what i mean with that is this:

Here in Mexico there is a company called TotalPlay. offers Cable TV, VOD (buying or renting movies) and of course internet; and because they use Optical Fiber they offer a telephone line "for free". you can even use this telephone line on your smartphone just because uses the same infrastructure. (they don't even advertise this)

In fact. this very company already had planned to offer videogame streaming around 2016 (I dont know what happend).

So. I can see, just as with Xbox or PlayStation companies offering streaming as a add-on to their services not as the main selling point but just as "value".

very limited catalog, old titles and stuff like that.

but you are right. Why stream Fornite, CoD or Roblox? if my mid-range phone can run them fine.

 

[anothertech]

The consoles are dead jargon gets more laughable by the year.

 

[Rhazkul]

The future is mobile. Nintendo will come up with a new Switch model. Steam Deck seems like a success so mobile PC gaming handhelds will become a thing, possibly with VR support on top, and maybe even Sony releases a new PSP.
Subscription based cloud gaming flopped hard, so that's not going to come back soon. But subscription gaming like Xbox Game Pass are industry standard now, nothing new here. Possibly new players will enter the field, but i think the market is saturated with these services.

 

[ahtlas7]

headed straight for the

 

[Crayon]

I've lost faith in the idea that many people want to play real games on their phones. I thought that mobile game players could cross over to traditional games but not anymore. That's where the big streaming explosion is supposed to come from.

 

[Three]

I've lost faith in the idea that many people want to play real games on their phones. I thought that mobile game players could cross over to traditional games but not anymore. That's where the big streaming explosion is supposed to come from.

They really don't because the mobile games they play aren't designed in the same way a typical traditional game is.

Mobile games are designed for very short bursts with not much required attention. Something you can be distracted from easily and not lose either. Traditional games are usually a lot more higher intensity for longer periods. Somebody who enjoys Candy Crush isn't going to want to play God of War Ragnarok or Halo Infinite.

 

[k_trout]

not sure why, but my second videodrome post in 2 days

 

[Benniewise de Clown]

Streaming won't replace traditional gaming anytime soon.

 

[Benniewise de Clown]

The industry is heading into only a big 2 surviving (Sony and Nintendo) and another company entering the Frey. I'm thinking Tencent, Amazon or Apple.

This.

MS is headed on the way out, hence why there is this idea that subscriptions are the future (GamePass).

 

[Warablo]

I voted for PC, Cloud and Subscriptions.

 

[mxbison]

Subscriptions, and devs putting (even) more extra monetization in their games.

 

[CGNoire]

Gambling Addiction will replace all. All games will be replaced with defacto slot machines. The masses when continue to gaslight the few holdouts depriving them of sanity.

 

[UnNamed]

Everywhere except consoles

 

[Robb]

Subscriptions and cloud would be my guess. Even Nintendo, which is the most technically inept of the big three, offer cloud games. I feel it will only become more common over time.

 

[TrebleShot]

Cloud.
PC - NO
Console - NO

Mobile, Tiny Streaming boxes, Sub Services - Yes

Kidding yourself if you think the current high end PC market will over-take, enthusiasts will spend the money, avg consumer wants ease of access and ability to play anywhere much like movies and music so streaming eventually will take over and tbh, its good and getting alot better.

Just recently I was a bit pissed off I couldn't install GamePass on my Steam Deck as I play on PC with it too, but cloud streaming allows me to play on it with GP and carry over progress on any device.

 

[Shits_McGiggles]

Literally this:

 

[GeekyDad]