Consoles are doomed, says Lord British.

Lord British has spoken. All you need is a paper crown, gauntlets and cheeseburgers. Let me sell you my book with these and other tips on being timeless and awesome.
 
I agree with this. Over time I think smartphones/tablets will be the primary entertainment device.
 
Heh, he's obviously right in the long run, but I think we've got more than one additional generation.

Cloud gaming is most likely the future, but it's a distant one at best. The infrastructure needed to keep up with what local dedicated devices can do simply isn't there yet....and even if it catches up to what local devices can do now, it's going to be awhile before the one outpaces the other.
 
Several industry leaders disagree with Garriott’s assessment. In a recent interview with BGR that will be published in the coming weeks, Saber Interactive co-Founder and CEO Matthew Karch suggested smartphones and tablets may never catch up to consoles in terms of capabilities and user experience. Consoles already have such a tremendous technology lead and the physical limitations of mobile devices will be a huge barrier until broadband data speeds and reliability reach a point where the bulk of game processing can be handled remotely.
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This is a part I found interesting. Honestly, because of the above statement, I agree with Lord British. After all, home computers are so far in front of consoles, yet its the consoles which lead sales.

We're getting to a point where television technology isn't increasing as fast as computer technology, and it's almost a matter of time before to the average consumer, your smart phone produces similar graphics to your console. I'm not talking quantitatively, but qualitatively here.

And what typical consumer wouldn't want their phone to also act as their console and their computer? It just works (a mantra console users love to use), it's portable, it fits in your pocket, and most apps will be priced under $10, instead of $50+. I mean, with blue tooth (or whatever follows it), it wouldn't be hard to add a keyboard or controller. Heck, even wireless video adapters exist now. The potential smart phones have is leaps and bounds above that of a typical console. Sure, it won't be the most powerful piece of hardware out there, but that's why the rest of us have home computers:p
 
Oldie said:
Heh, he's obviously right in the long run, but I think we've got more than one additional generation.

Cloud gaming is most likely the future, but it's a distant one at best. The infrastructure needed to keep up with what local dedicated devices can do simply isn't there yet....and even if it catches up to what local devices can do now, it's going to be awhile before the one outpaces the other.
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Distance is a matter of perspective. Slightly over a decade ago, I barely knew anyone with high speed internet. Now, your smart phone has more bandwidth than the modems most people used back then.

Thirty years ago, most people didn't have computers. It sounds like a long time ago, but how many generations of consoles is that? Six at most? The thing is in my opinion, one generation of consoles is a huge amount of time technologically.
 
In 5-10 years time, I suppose I could see consoles being replaced, or at least partially supplanted, by what amounts to docking stations for portable devices.
 
Nytegard, I agree if nothing changes it's on track to happen, but I think one console generation is a laughable estimate.
 
Oldie said:
Nytegard, I agree if nothing changes it's on track to happen, but I think one console generation is a laughable estimate.
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I wouldn't say it's laughable. The thing here is what exactly is one generation of a console? It use to be 5 years, but MS and Sony have been wanting to push it to 10 years. That makes sense honestly. I mean, anyone can tell that an NES is a huge leap over an Atari 2600, and the SNES is a huge leap over NES. But as technology improves, the qualitative difference drops down tremendously.

This is due to multiple things, but the two most important in my opinion are that we're now more concerned with the qualitative performance of the development team (design, art, music, etc), and the cost it requires to make such a game.

To your average consumer, the XBox and PS3 look and sound good enough compared to the high end PC. I'm not going to get into a debate about quantitative comparisons, because I'd agree with most people here that the PC blows them away. But compare two technological groundbreaking games between a 5 year period before the year 2000, and I don't even think you'll find most people think the difference is anything less than substantial.

GORANKAR said:
In 5-10 years time, I suppose I could see consoles being replaced, or at least partially supplanted, by what amounts to docking stations for portable devices.
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Docking stations are archaic. We're living in an age where even our power supplies are becoming wireless. Our smart phones have more power than computers of only a decade ago. (And a decade ago, our portable devices had megabytes of memory. Now, we have gigabytes which fit on a tiny chip).

I honestly don't know what the future holds, but my best guess will be the swiss-army smart phone. (Tablets imho are just a fad which will die). Everything will hook up wirelessly. Keyboard, mouse, controller, even multimedia connections to speakers and your tv or monitor. Each person in your family will have their own little smart-phone console, which can exchange information between other smart phones. And if done correctly, you might actually be able to link phones together for multiprocessing.
 
I think consoles, PCs, tablets, phones, home-theater systems and media players are all merging into one singularity. Pretty soon, you wont buy DVDs, you'll purchase and download to your handheld 'device' and then you can watch it on the go or stream it to your HD+ TV and sit down on the couch. You won't insert 'disks' into 'consoles' but rather purchase and download games and play them using your 'device' as a controller, streaming gameplay on your TV.

And all of US PC gamers will have real superiority complexes, and constantly complain about how our medium is so much better but the n00bs of 'device' based gaming are dumbing down our pure PC games.... oh wait... that's already happening..
 
I've long predicted that the next Xbox/Psp will be the last generation of game console.

Game consoles exist for two reasons: more power for the money (subsidized hardware, programming to metal), and ease of use (stick in the game, play). Hardware is getting so cheap and powerful that the first reason is becoming obsolete. With more powerful hardware comes smarter software, making the second reason obsolete.

Another reason consoles will die is that in the past, they weren't powerful enough to be anything but game consoles. But, they're becoming powerful enough to be full-function computers and entertainment centers.
 
This won't happen, at least for "core" gamers. Graphics WILL continue to get better, and there are a significant number of us "core" gamers (well, me at least) who don't want to game on a tiny screen. If you think a mobile device will be able to power a game at the highest graphics at the best resolution on a big screen (better than a non-mobile solution), you're wrong. There are numerous reasons, but the simplest is just heat dispersion.

EDIT: Cloud gaming could eventually overtake personal PCs/consoles, but it would have to change a lot from what it is now, and internet infrastructure would have to get A LOT better.
 
There was a discussion about how NGage was just too ahead of it's time but with the age of mobile computing hand held consoles are dead. Ninento and Sony are taking it pretty serious. Poor Ngage. Like 3-4 years and you woulda been the Prom queen right now.

Mobile graphics chips will never replace dedicated GPU's though. I got a brand new latitude 6420 from work. All the cool toys. Touch screen i5 4GB but the mutherfucker can barely run Counter-strike source. Figured even the bare minimum could play that.
 
Well, console guys always says "it's not about the graphics", everytime a PC vs Console debate comes up. So all the phone has to do is raise their GPU up to a decent level and it'll be able to adequately compete since, to consoles, graphics being low in the graphics department is acceptable as long as the 'gameplay' is there.
 
I don't see this happening.....ever. By the time that technology has gotten to the point where small hand held devices can render life like graphics smart phones will be obsolete. Until then graphics can only get better and smart phones will continue to trail behind a few years like they always have.......
 
If we're talking about cloud gaming, as long as ISP's are looking to cap our usage, I doubt it'll take off if the ISPs have their way and are able to force caps on us on a large scale that prevents you from using any meaningful amount of data unless you pay out of your ass for a top tier service.
 
KazeoHin said:
I think consoles, PCs, tablets, phones, home-theater systems and media players are all merging into one singularity. Pretty soon, you wont buy DVDs, you'll purchase and download to your handheld 'device' and then you can watch it on the go or stream it to your HD+ TV and sit down on the couch. You won't insert 'disks' into 'consoles' but rather purchase and download games and play them using your 'device' as a controller, streaming gameplay on your TV.
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Wake up. You're not downloading shit with data caps.
 
Nytegard said:
This is a part I found interesting. Honestly, because of the above statement, I agree with Lord British. After all, home computers are so far in front of consoles, yet its the consoles which lead sales.

We're getting to a point where television technology isn't increasing as fast as computer technology, and it's almost a matter of time before to the average consumer, your smart phone produces similar graphics to your console. I'm not talking quantitatively, but qualitatively here.

And what typical consumer wouldn't want their phone to also act as their console and their computer? It just works (a mantra console users love to use), it's portable, it fits in your pocket, and most apps will be priced under $10, instead of $50+. I mean, with blue tooth (or whatever follows it), it wouldn't be hard to add a keyboard or controller. Heck, even wireless video adapters exist now. The potential smart phones have is leaps and bounds above that of a typical console. Sure, it won't be the most powerful piece of hardware out there, but that's why the rest of us have home computers:p
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at this point it's a matter of culture and marketing though, not technology limitations. if moore's law stays on track, pretty soon it will become a reality no matter what manufacturers can do to prevent it. we already have devices running general use operating systems, compact enough to hold against your face and connect with any input/output we choose, so the computational power to make it practical for combining them is really not that far off. portables have already made consoles pointless, it just lacks the backing from devs to phase them out.

I would go even further to say that closed platforms in general are doomed, how long do you think device makers will keep being able to tell you that this device is for communication, that device is for spreadsheets, this hardware is for video games. only for as long as computing power prevents us from using the form factor of choice for what you want to do. people are just oblivious to this because everything beyond a particular interface is all witchcraft and sorcery, they would not demand what they don't know is possible.
 
Consoles will NEVER go away in my opinion. If portable devices and smart phones continue to get more powerful, so will consoles as they will always be more powerful. Also there is nothing more satisfying than lounging back on your couch or your favorite chair to relax and play games on a nice big screen with a nice powerful sound system. Handhelds will always have their place, but I sure as hell won't be gaming on some small little screen. As the above poster mentioned, consoles will also continue to evolve.

BTW Lord British, I stlll want my money back for that buggy POS you sold me called Ultima Ascension. Even after the final patch, the game was still insanely buggy.
 
Alchemic said:
Wake up. You're not downloading shit with data caps.
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We've had Data caps in Australia for decades, and the digital distribution business is as strong as ever. I'm not happy about data caps in any situation, but they don't effect online business.

Also, try to have some manners.
 
amdgamer said:
Consoles will NEVER go away in my opinion. If portable devices and smart phones continue to get more powerful, so will consoles as they will always be more powerful. Also there is nothing more satisfying than lounging back on your couch or your favorite chair to relax and play games on a nice big screen with a nice powerful sound system. Handhelds will always have their place, but I sure as hell won't be gaming on some small little screen. As the above poster mentioned, consoles will also continue to evolve.

BTW Lord British, I stlll want my money back for that buggy POS you sold me called Ultima Ascension. Even after the final patch, the game was still insanely buggy.
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*wooooosh* haha wow

I'm not understanding how furniture is relevant to the discussion? this is about tying form factors to certain functions. why not plug your tv and controllers into your phone/notebook/tablet when you want to play games, instead of limiting this function to the device known as a "console". did you really think he was talking about playing video games on a tiny ass phone screen...
 
funny how PCs and consoles are going towards the same end....entertainment devices that can do some work (ie run office, browse the web, handle e-mail)
 
Personally I don't give a shit about carrying games around on some tiny screen rather than sitting on my couch and playing on a 60" one.

Consoles will be around forever because the standardized hardware makes development inexpensive and the overall lack of piracy makes for big profits. Doesn't take a rocket surgeon to figure that one out.
 
Oldie said:
Heh, he's obviously right in the long run, but I think we've got more than one additional generation.

Cloud gaming is most likely the future, but it's a distant one at best. The infrastructure needed to keep up with what local dedicated devices can do simply isn't there yet....and even if it catches up to what local devices can do now, it's going to be awhile before the one outpaces the other.
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I think Cloud gaming will be pushed over consoles because developers believe it might potentially end piracy once and for all if nobody has access to the game code and only receives the final output that's a result of the output. IE Reverse engineering world of warcraft from the signal that reaches your monitor would be extremely difficult. Not impossible as you could capture a lot of the various models, models at different degrees of rotation, etc but very time consuming, extremely difficult and nearly easier to program a game yourself from scratch.

The problem comes down to that consumer funds are limited. If I only have money to buy 5 games, I am only going to buy 5 games. I won't buy 15 games because the bottom 10 games I might want to play in a year are not available online through various 'sources' or 'discount sale websites(see steam)'. I'll still just buy the 5 games I support and just become unable to play those other games at all. Till perhaps they are several years old when I can pick them all up for the price of one game.
 
Thuleman said:
Personally I don't give a shit about carrying games around on some tiny screen rather than sitting on my couch and playing on a 60" one.

Consoles will be around forever because the standardized hardware makes development inexpensive and the overall lack of piracy makes for big profits. Doesn't take a rocket surgeon to figure that one out.
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I think what your lacking/failing to see is that iPad's have HDMI out. HDMI out > goes straight into a monitor/tv. Thus your iPad can be a controller for big-screen gaming. Likewise, cellphone can be your gamepad/interface for big screen gaming. Especially with mini-connector type > tv @ 720p or 1080p. A lot of cellphone screens are starting to get up into the 640x480 or higher rates of resolution. 720p is only pushing double the pixels and 1080p about 4x the pixels. That's only two "doubling" jumps in technology hence the "two generations away" till console extinction.

Some people will still buy PCs/consoles b/c they want the best image quality possible and cellphone games will be too 'simple' for their tastes but casual gamers may be satisfied by what they find on cellphones. Not to mention, what can be done by an xbox 360 slim today, can probably be done by a machine 1/4th the size capable of being carried in your hand in 4 years time. 1/16th or 1/8th to fit into the pocket of your jeans/mini pocket in maybe 8-16 years.

As long as it had HD-output, would a machine capable of creating xbox 360 level graphics that is the size of a USB stick be all that bad of a console replacement? You might not even need the controller if future tvs have kinectx type features//web-camera built in. You know for video calls via v&voip to your friends (video & voice over IP like Skype integration). Wouldn't it be nice to see your grandmother on your home-flatscreen while talking with her and vice-versa + never have to worry about using your remote control thx to hand gestures + be able to use the same web-camera for gaming after?
 
KazeoHin said:
We've had Data caps in Australia for decades, and the digital distribution business is as strong as ever. I'm not happy about data caps in any situation, but they don't effect online business.

Also, try to have some manners.
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A clanmate lives in australia and he kept going absentee every fourth week because he reached his data cap for the month, that happens every month.
 
Thuleman said:
Personally I don't give a shit about carrying games around on some tiny screen rather than sitting on my couch and playing on a 60" one.

Consoles will be around forever because the standardized hardware makes development inexpensive and the overall lack of piracy makes for big profits. Doesn't take a rocket surgeon to figure that one out.
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The category also includes tablets. HDMI has become pretty much the standard for a tablet these days, and the graphics are already long past playstation 1 level.
 
When I read the article, I thought he meant one of our generations, rather than one console generation.
“I think we might get one more generation, might, but I think fundamentally they’re doomed,”
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That would make more sense. 70-80 years would be more than enough time for pc's and handhelds to overpower consoles to extinction. That would make the "maybe" more sensible as well.

But on another note, I see so many people going apeshit over 4g and phones already. It's definitely getting to that point. And I swear our dependency on these mobile phones is transforming the masses into slobbering degenerates. Do we really need to be up to date on everything all the time? Facebook, twitter, you name it. My two cents.
 
I stopped trusting in Garriot's wisdom after Tabula Rasa. That's no.1 in my worst MMO list.
 
I think there'll always be a place for big screen gaming, whether that comes in the form of more consoles, PCs or handhelds/phones which have enough power to drive a high resolution screen, I dont know. Personally I dont care a lot about portable gaming. I play a few games on my phone, but not seriously and not for any length of time, only when I'm procrastinating from doing work.

If handhelds/phones become powerful enough to drive sufficient quality graphics at standard TV resolutions, I dont see consoles having too much of a market, its hard to see them completely dying though.

One more generation? Well maybe, console generations can potentially be quite a long time apart, so its conceivable that things will change in the course of 1 generation.
 
He could be right. Consoles are nothing more than glorified living room appliances. They aren't any more important than the television that they use to display their image. If LG, Sony, Vizio integrated a videogame console into the bottom of a TV I wouldn't be surprised.

Smartphones, tablets, etc are bling accessories for your hands. For the screen size, they display high resolution images. Only thing they need is a wireless hookup to the TV to display their images and consoles can be replaced.

PC's are necessary for productivity in businesses. Then the same people that use them in the office are familiar enough with them to use them for entertainment at home. Thus they aren't at risk for replacement in the near future. Well unless someone gets smart enough to get a full sized keyboard on a smartphone that's not a gimmick. SIRI and apps like that are too low tech to replace a keyboard at this time although I see that as the future also.
 
WBurchnall said:
Wouldn't it be nice to see your grandmother on your home-flatscreen while talking with her
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Speaking as someone without a living grandmother, no, no it wouldn't ;)

A lot of this convergence might be inevitable, but that doesn't mean it's a good thing for the gaming experience. The only people it really benefits are the device makers, who lock you into their devices and services for an increasing proportion of your digital activities.

Take your example of using an ipad as controller. Yes, of course it's technically feasible, but with its complete lack of tactile feedback or comfort is it actually an improvement over current controllers? Absolutely not.
 
mas said:
*wooooosh* haha wow

I'm not understanding how furniture is relevant to the discussion? this is about tying form factors to certain functions. why not plug your tv and controllers into your phone/notebook/tablet when you want to play games, instead of limiting this function to the device known as a "console". did you really think he was talking about playing video games on a tiny ass phone screen...
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But you also missed my point that consoles will always be more powerful than some tiny ass phone or mobile device. When people want to engage in some stationary gaming in their living room, they are going to care what their graphics look like and how good it sounds. Consoles just arn't limited like that.
 
I'm waiting for the day when phones are so damned powerful you can easily run BF3 on them, hooked up to a nice display of course. Obviously we would need some serious hardware changes that make everything very simple and straight forward so development is uniform. Oh well.
 
Until your portable has a built in projector that can beam a 50" HD image onto a wall that is better than a TV, Lord British is wrong.

How did Tabula Rasa work out Garriot? Oh damn, I can't use it as an example because even though it failed and he was "fired" he ended up getting millions in court for his inability to sell his stock options.
 
Spare-Flair said:
Until your portable has a built in projector that can beam a 50" HD image onto a wall that is better than a TV, Lord British is wrong.
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Some smartphones and tablets already have hdmi out. Bluetooth KB/M, controllers, and other input devices already exist as well, and are only going to become more varied and common over time.

Not saying his vision is certainly going to come to pass, but interfacing with a display or input devices will not be some of the reasons it does not come to pass.

The real question is whether future markets will prefer combining consoles and portables into one device, or will it prefer to retain it's current level of specialization?
 
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