Top 7 Features Of Next-Gen Game Consoles

[quantum mask]

[citation][nom]dark_lord69[/nom]Why are people so afraid of could gaming?You sound like an 80yr old that refuses to learn about computers.Cloud gaming is a GOOD THING..1. You don't need expensive hardware to play HD games.2. Your saves and "Your stuff" can be saved on your console's HDD.Apperently this guy has never purchased a movie from the playstation store. If that playstation blows up is the movie you bought gone with it? NO!! You get a new playstation login and download the movies and other stuff you already own. If they sell virtual items they will always be force to keep a record of your purchase so they know you have the rights to it. Also, if we can learn anything from onlive it's that monthly subscriptions that many different games will likely be an option in the future. This would mean that don't have to actually BUY the games. It's like infinite rental.[/citation]
I think people put too much trust in corporations to do the right thing. I don't. It has as nothing to do with being old or young. It has to do with being a sheep following the corporate shepherd or being the sheep that looks around every once in a while to see where you're going. I don't like the idea of spending my money on something and then someone else having control of it. You might think you own that content on the "cloud", but you really don't, read the agreements, don't just click "I agree" and assume everything is peachy. It's not.

I work with computers all day, believe me, things can go wrong with online data. Any data. Sure, you can ruin a physical disk too, but that depends on how careful YOU are. I don't want to spend my money and have to worry about how careful THEY are.

 

[spidey81]

Long Live PC! The next gen console now!

 

[quantum mask]

[citation][nom]dark_lord69[/nom]If that playstation blows up is the movie you bought gone with it? NO!! You get a new playstation login and download the movies and other stuff you already own. If they sell virtual items they will always be force to keep a record of your purchase so they know you have the rights to it.[/citation]
Wow, I'm so glad for you that you have enough money to just go buy another PS3 on a whim! Replacing a broken DVD or Blu-ray disc is much cheaper. Chance are, I won't break ALL of my physical discs at once. But if the cloud fails, guess what? No movies, games, music for you!

 

[quantum mask]

Don't much agree with number 3. I played a Kinect the other day and I must say it was way over-hyped. Don't get me wrong, it's a great idea, but I don't see any hard core gamers using this seriously. I think mostly it will be used to get some the Wii people to switch over. Have you noticed the demographics in the Kinect commercials?

When it gets as good as Minority Report, then they'll have something. Till then, those physical controlers are here to stay. I remember 25 years ago, they were telling us that by the year 2000 the mice and keyboard would be obsolete and that voice commands would be the main human-computer interface. Riigght.

 

[4th floor]

What I'd like to see if a PS4 is a modest increase in power, more of an evolutionary upgrade.
Processor keep the cell, just updated with all 8 cores working, more cache and a bump up in speed to 4Ghz, easily doable at 32nm considering what they did on the original 90nm. The new processor would also be much cheaper then the original.
GFX here we would see a major boost as at least 4gens have passed since the PS3 came out. Something along the lines of Cayman would be ideal but built on 28nm should make it cheap enough and with low thermals.
Throw in the new 100gb Blueray drive, should be priced similar to existing drives today.
Ram would see a huge jump, 1GB dedicated to graphics and 4GB for the system. Harddrive at 1TB would be more then enough.
USB 3.0 including connectors on the back, Bluetooth 3, Sata 3.
Built from the get go with move/kinect as well as regular controlling in mind and not an afterthough.
Keep the initial price at $399 and you would still take a lot smaller loss then the original PS3 took.

 

[shoelessinsight]

The OnLive approach to gaming may very well be the future, but I don't expect to see it in this next console generation. I would be mildly surprised if it was even in the generation after that.

Consoles are about offering an affordable gaming experience, so obviously OnLive supports that goal. But the OnLive approach also requires reliable, high-speed internet. In Japan, they may be all ready to go on this front. In Amercia, Canada, and Australia, though, we may need another 10 years before the majority of the target console market can meet those internet requirements without frustration.

I personally doubt the next generation consoles will use SSDs as their primary drives. Consoles are, again, about offering the best gaming experience as cheaply as possible. It doesn't matter if a 256 GB flash drive is 1/10 the price it was five years ago; if a magnetic hard drive is cheaper and can do the same job, then that's what will be used. These companies are out to make a profit, after all.

Human Interface Devices are the future... sort of. I think the technology has fantastic applications in certain types of games and entertainment. For many games, however, nothing beats having an array of buttons under your fingers, and nothing ever will. The controllers may get more clever, such as how the Wii added motion tracking to the traditional controller, but they will still provide buttons and joysticks. Maybe one day we'll get holographic controllers that create the tactile illusion of buttons... but there will still be buttons.

 

[Guest]

Remember Sega Channel? I had it, it was awesome, because you didn't have to buy the games, just pay a monthly fee for unlimited access to 50 some games a month, the titles rotated about every week or so.
However I disagree that having games in the cloud is the BEST option. Who all travels? Who all brings their systems on the road? Maybe none of you are at that age and are only l33t gamers but how can you game while being tethered to the internet. Not only that, Internet goes down for a bit, lose connection, it's game over. Anyone who's played with that bastard DRM from ubisoft and an unstable connection would know what I'm talking about.

 

[climber]

And what do you think your local ISP is going to be doing.... licking their chops... since all that cloud based everything is going to consume bandwidth and you'll hit your quota quick and then you'll pay, pay through the nose like nobody's business... I think the movie studios, media corporations, game developers see a way to gain way more profit out of us since they've "hooked" us into their content and now want us to mortgage our proverbial souls to pay for it now that we can't live without it. I'd rather buy my blu-ray, game, whatever and once I have it play it endlessly if I so choose, without an extra dime going to anyone other than the utility company for the electricity.

 

[quantum mask]

[citation][nom]climber[/nom]And what do you think your local ISP is going to be doing.... licking their chops... since all that cloud based everything is going to consume bandwidth and you'll hit your quota quick and then you'll pay, pay through the nose like nobody's business... I think the movie studios, media corporations, game developers see a way to gain way more profit out of us since they've "hooked" us into their content and now want us to mortgage our proverbial souls to pay for it now that we can't live without it. I'd rather buy my blu-ray, game, whatever and once I have it play it endlessly if I so choose, without an extra dime going to anyone other than the utility company for the electricity.[/citation]
Right said! And what's to stop them from holding our content hostage and upping the price. Read that TOS carefully!

 

[TeraMedia]

What the author described sounds much more like the next-gen cable box than anything else.

1: Thin. Thinner=cheaper, so yes they will go for that.
2: Merged entertainment system. All-in-one=control over your entertainment options (and spending), so yes they will go for that too.
3: Wiimote. They will go for this for the same reason that Wii is a family console, and not a serious-gamer console.
4: APU horsepower... I think you meant, "integrated CPU/GPU"=cheaper, so yes they will go for that too.
5: Cloud data storage. Of COURSE they'll go for that, because they will be the "cloud", which will prevent you from porting your digital rights (e.g. music, videos, games) elsewhere.
6: Blu-Ray. They won't do this. Instead, they will spend 10s of $Ms marketing to you why you don't need it. I would argue a USB key is probably better than a disk anyway, but what do I know.
7: Lower power and prices: For them. Power will only be lowered insofar as it reduces the PSU cost and maintenance cost of the STB (mechanical fans wear out; they therefore won't want the STB to require any fans). Price will be lower because they will want to spend less on capital investments in STB hardware, and make more on monthly box rental fees.

So the cable companies are probably in 100% agreement with 6 of your 7 tech targets. If they succeed in deploying STBs that provide equivalent functionality to a Wii, then why would most households buy an extra console? One device, one-stop shopping, no hardware to maintain, cloud-based storage so no loss from HW failures, this would be extremely appealing to most non-technical people (think iPhone buyers). Given this, I'm surprised that Comcast, Cox Communications or TWC hasn't already commissioned Samsung or similar to build this device for them.

Now I'm depressed. This really is going to happen, and it will kill the amount of R&D spent on advanced-tech gaming consoles, PC components and games. It will also make these cable giants the gatekeepers to what games you can and cannot play. Comcast doesn't like the annual publication fee for Ubisoft? Guess what, no more Ubisoft games for you. So now Ubisoft reduces its fee, reduces its budget, makes cheaper, less interesting games, and you get to, er, benefit from that.

Three other technologies that will or may be in the next-gen consoles, offered by cable providers:
1) 3D. Gimmick or not, it's here to stay this time.
2) Video conferencing. All they need to do is offer a USB camera (for a nominal monthly fee, of course) with a custom USB connection so you can't use it elsewhere. And it won't be Skype or Yahoo IM or anything like that. It will be Comcast Video Conferencing (built on top of one of those services and rebranded), and you'll pay a monthly subs fee for the privilege of being able to do it (and to have the camera). And it will be easy to use, so your grandmother will use it even though she can't figure out Skype. And eventually, you'll have to pay an extra fee (PPC?) to conference out of the "Comcast" world of customers to other providers.
3) Remotes with text keypads. Take a look at the Logitech diNovo Mini for an idea of what I'm talking about. It has an alphabetic keyboard but is the size of a phone. This will be essential for integrating all media into this one STB device.

Ugh. I can easily visualize this, but I am not looking forward to it!

 

[Cwize1]

I believe that the next Xbox will have HDDVD disks not BluRay (for games anyway). BluRay burners can now be bought for less than $200 but HDDVD burners can't be sourced anymore. It would make disk piracy a lot harder.

The other thing the next xbox will have is pressure sensitive buttons. I found it odd that the pressure sensitive computer keyboards were announced and then dropped off the face of the planet till I realized that they had huge potential for the xbox controller.

 

[jfby]

'Thin client' = deal killer for me. My internet can barely keep up with multiplayer games and would DIE if I tried to stream a full game from the 'Cloud'. Game systems for the USA for the next 10 years will have phsyical or stored media. Maybe by 2020 our speed will be were South Korea is today, but probably not for more than half the country.

I would also guarantee the next systems will not come out at the same $599 price point as the PS3, but I'm sure it will probably crest $349.

Just my $0.02; I'm not currently a fan of the cloud, and I would like to see consoles as they are released to be basically a dedicated game playing powerful computer, so I would be OK dropping that kind of change.

 

[jfby]

[citation][nom]TeraMedia[/nom]What the author described sounds much more like the next-gen cable box than anything else.1: Thin. Thinner=cheaper, so yes they will go for that.2: Merged entertainment system. All-in-one=control over your entertainment options (and spending), so yes they will go for that too.3: Wiimote. They will go for this for the same reason that Wii is a family console, and not a serious-gamer console.4: APU horsepower... I think you meant, "integrated CPU/GPU"=cheaper, so yes they will go for that too.5: Cloud data storage. Of COURSE they'll go for that, because they will be the "cloud", which will prevent you from porting your digital rights (e.g. music, videos, games) elsewhere.6: Blu-Ray. They won't do this. Instead, they will spend 10s of $Ms marketing to you why you don't need it. I would argue a USB key is probably better than a disk anyway, but what do I know.7: Lower power and prices: For them. Power will only be lowered insofar as it reduces the PSU cost and maintenance cost of the STB (mechanical fans wear out; they therefore won't want the STB to require any fans). Price will be lower because they will want to spend less on capital investments in STB hardware, and make more on monthly box rental fees.So the cable companies are probably in 100% agreement with 6 of your 7 tech targets. If they succeed in deploying STBs that provide equivalent functionality to a Wii, then why would most households buy an extra console? One device, one-stop shopping, no hardware to maintain, cloud-based storage so no loss from HW failures, this would be extremely appealing to most non-technical people (think iPhone buyers). Given this, I'm surprised that Comcast, Cox Communications or TWC hasn't already commissioned Samsung or similar to build this device for them.Now I'm depressed. This really is going to happen, and it will kill the amount of R&D spent on advanced-tech gaming consoles, PC components and games. It will also make these cable giants the gatekeepers to what games you can and cannot play. Comcast doesn't like the annual publication fee for Ubisoft? Guess what, no more Ubisoft games for you. So now Ubisoft reduces its fee, reduces its budget, makes cheaper, less interesting games, and you get to, er, benefit from that.Three other technologies that will or may be in the next-gen consoles, offered by cable providers:1) 3D. Gimmick or not, it's here to stay this time.2) Video conferencing. All they need to do is offer a USB camera (for a nominal monthly fee, of course) with a custom USB connection so you can't use it elsewhere. And it won't be Skype or Yahoo IM or anything like that. It will be Comcast Video Conferencing (built on top of one of those services and rebranded), and you'll pay a monthly subs fee for the privilege of being able to do it (and to have the camera). And it will be easy to use, so your grandmother will use it even though she can't figure out Skype. And eventually, you'll have to pay an extra fee (PPC?) to conference out of the "Comcast" world of customers to other providers.3) Remotes with text keypads. Take a look at the Logitech diNovo Mini for an idea of what I'm talking about. It has an alphabetic keyboard but is the size of a phone. This will be essential for integrating all media into this one STB device.Ugh. I can easily visualize this, but I am not looking forward to it![/citation]

I don't think the current hardware setup is going to die anytime soon.

Progress comes at a cost: I'm sure 130 years ago someone in Kentucky got depressed when he heard about 'horse-less carriages' for the first time. My obscure point is that in the end people will not demand less performance in the future but rather more. More research will be needed to deliver that. Besides, I don't see Cloud gaming being the only way to play in the near future, as much of the USA doesn't have adequate internet capacity/speed to handle the needed traffic.

 

[RevolutionRed]

To be honest the argument not to follow the corporate shepherd some are making in the comments makes no sense to me. The only reason you can still buy hardware and software is because the corporations allow it in the first place. For now, it's profitable for them. If that changes, you won't have the option. Period. Unless of course you can build your own cutting edge hardware and games. Laws or no laws, if a product loses money, a company will not make it.

The fact is that for a lot of people thin-clients and consoles (which are simply a thinner version of pc hardware, and thus an intermediate step) have ALREADY replaced full-fledged hardware. While I'm plainly not representative of the majority, I do not own a TV, or a Blu-Ray player, or a console of any type (In the past I've owned all those things). I use Netflix, and at any given time there are 4-5 computers/laptops in my house between my wife and I. The last time I updated my gaming rig was when the Radeon 4800 series came out. Since then, there has been no need since the lowest common denominator drives the market (consoles). I use OnLive, and find over a wired fiber connection the lag is manageable (not great, but I can live with it). My main beef with it is that the game selection is terrible.

The wild success of the Wii, and quick sales of the Kinect and Move show that not everyone is interested in "hardcore" games. In fact, the "hardcore" gamers are the minority. And I go even further and say that "hardcore" gamers are the most likely to have the knowledge and capability to pirate games (and thus do so). Not every gamer is a pirate, but someone who obsesses over the clock rates on their video-card is more likely to simply be able to pirate games, simply because of technical know-how. This means "hardcore" games represent a triple-risk to companies. First, they are a small (relative to the entire population) demographic. Second, Triple-AAA titles cost $$$ to develop. Third, they are the most likely to take the game and run, without ever paying a dime to play it.

At the same time, paid services have become more acceptable to our society. We pay per month for phone service, internet, insurance, cable, etc., so MOST (obviously not all people) people simply do not care about paying $10 a month for unlimited games (OnLive, GameFly, etc.). Furthermore, MOST do not care about owning the game once they are done with it. They play through once and do not touch the game again.

Whether all these people are wrong is another argument completely, and in my opinion, irrelevant. They very well could all be wrong. But the fact remains that for a lot people, thin-clients and paid-services simply fit better into their lifestyles, and they are willing to shell out for it.

 

[Guest]

All that was said is great and inspirational for the future, but for a dad on a mission, which gaming platform should Santa bring home? Young ladies, 16 to 25 and enjoy sports, hunting, fishing, guys, keeping in shape and oh yea they have opinions and friends.

 

[BulkZerker]

[citation][nom]dark_lord69[/nom]Why are people so afraid of could gaming?You sound like an 80yr old that refuses to learn about computers.Cloud gaming is a GOOD THING..1. You don't need expensive hardware to play HD games.2. Your saves and "Your stuff" can be saved on your console's HDD.Apperently this guy has never purchased a movie from the playstation store. If that playstation blows up is the movie you bought gone with it? NO!! You get a new playstation login and download the movies and other stuff you already own. If they sell virtual items they will always be force to keep a record of your purchase so they know you have the rights to it. Also, if we can learn anything from onlive it's that monthly subscriptions that many different games will likely be an option in the future. This would mean that don't have to actually BUY the games. It's like infinite rental.[/citation]


1. Your internet goes down. Now what? Solitare?

2. Someone hacks / Phishers your account. Now you are down for a week or more as the company your using investigates further into the matter.

3. Your local ISP throttles your activities back (Youtube gets throttled, ON-live WILL be next because it is a bandwidth hog as well.

Typical online games for a client to connect and play with a decent latency requires about 128kbs-1M upload speeds depending on the game and if everyone is using a mic.

Now... what if we add having to download a high deff stream? Hmm well i think it takes 3-5M to do that at 720P uncompressed if I'm not correct so ... Yea I can see ISPs giving a middle finger to this whole cloud gaming thing when they can't keep up with the demand for Justin Beiber and Twilight trailers.

The cloud is mine, I don't want MY cloud raining on someone else.

 

[bobusboy]

"We already have shown that we do not necessarily care about physical ownership of media anymore"

What are you on Tuan Nguyen; this couldn't be further from the truth.

 

[drwho1]

[citation][nom]bill gates is your daddy[/nom]1. Thin Console - Sure. Who would not like a smaller platform unless you plan to merge components then let the thing be bigger.2. Merged Entertainment System - Perfect. To me this would be the grail, just keep it away from "the cloud". My stuff, my house, my control.3. Human Controller Interface - Do not care for it.4. APU Horsepower - More power is good.5. Hybrid Data Storage - Take cloud computing and blow it out your butt. Future consoles should combine the use of SSD and HDD which would be upgradeable by the owner of the console.6. Blu-ray - Keep the disc or some other physical ownership of the games. I want something in my hand not stored on a virtual server somewhere.7. Lower Power Consumption, Prices - Yes. Lower both please.8.Upgradeable - Not going to happen but a nice pipedream.[/citation]
This I agree with.

The day that game consoles become diskless(if they ever do) that's when I will stop caring. I want REAL media something that I can touch and I know is there, something that I buy ONCE and Don't have to pay a subscription to be able to use it.

I play most of the time offline, other than downloading an upgrade I rarely use online at all for gaming, and I do NOT care at all about kinect. If consoles don't come with a NORMAL controller I won't get them either. I love the PS3 controller (just like PS2/PS1) simple, easy on your hands.

 

[ram1009]

I hope someone is going to allow use of keyboard & mouse on future consoles. Also, cheat codes for single player.

 

[Darkv1]

[citation][nom]4th floor[/nom]What I'd like to see if a PS4 is a modest increase in power, more of an evolutionary upgrade.Processor keep the cell, just updated with all 8 cores working, more cache and a bump up in speed to 4Ghz, easily doable at 32nm considering what they did on the original 90nm. The new processor would also be much cheaper then the original.GFX here we would see a major boost as at least 4gens have passed since the PS3 came out. Something along the lines of Cayman would be ideal but built on 28nm should make it cheap enough and with low thermals.Throw in the new 100gb Blueray drive, should be priced similar to existing drives today.Ram would see a huge jump, 1GB dedicated to graphics and 4GB for the system. Harddrive at 1TB would be more then enough.USB 3.0 including connectors on the back, Bluetooth 3, Sata 3.Built from the get go with move/kinect as well as regular controlling in mind and not an afterthough. Keep the initial price at $399 and you would still take a lot smaller loss then the original PS3 took.[/citation]

The majority of your suggestions look good but I can't imagine why you would want Sony to keep the Cell processor. Originally they wanted to use the Cell for both GPU and CPU tasks but it couldn't handle graphics processing. Sony could have cut the price of their console considerably and not lost performance by replacing the Cell with a derivative of any Intel or AMD triple or quad core processor. Don't get me wrong the Cell is awesome as a computing workhorse but it just doesn't seem like it would be a good fit for another console.

 

[Guest]

Has anyone said Anti Aliasing yet? That is what I want. Red Dead looked terrible with all those jagged edges.

Oh and mouse and keyboard support. Its better for FPS games, and it would allow MMOs to actually work well on the consoles.

 

[rysmith25]

This list is retarded. Who made this up, some girl?

1.) A home console number one goal should always be to push the envelope of interactive entertainment. I don't care if the home console is as big as a fridgerator, it needs to have graphics at least 2 years ahead of the latest available GPUs. The console should have an upgradeable slot to remove the graphics processor and put in a better one for future considerations. The developers can make the grahics scalable, much like that of pcs. If this means integrating GPU/CPU into a single chip that gains a performance edge, then go for it. That should always be the primary focus. We hardcore gamers don't give a rats ass about futile features like gamer profile bullcrap like Miis, ect..

2.) Large SSDs with superfast read/write speeds should be standard

3.) 3D Blu Ray drive

3.) Dual Band Wireless N and gigabit ethernet port

4.) Fleshed out full body controls (next generation kinect)

5.) Next Generation Bluetooth with a microsoft customized bluetooth headset included

6.) Voice activated controls

 

[kronos_cornelius]

I agree with most of it. Really nice article. I'll point out a couple of points where a disagree. First, the Xbox has never impressed me in terms of power, where the PS3 was considered a super computer back then, so I should correct the author. The Xbox and PS3 are not the same when it comes to power.

The other thing is that saying the knnect will eventually replace the gamepad or move controller is like saying the mouse will replace the keyboard. Each device will or has found its niche, and they will just continue to evolve move usefull in that niche.

Lastly, I think HTML5 should be part of the conversation. With a 3D mesh standard and GPU enabled browsers, it is just a matter of time before Valve, EA, and the other big game developer start publishing their games directly into a web market, completely bypassing Sony, MS, and Nintendo. To this, I would add Apple, and Google as being bigger players in the future of gaming. But Google stands out because of their GoogleTV project, which would totatly open up the market to small competitor to produce powerfull hardware (Samsung, Sony(eggs in multiple baskets)).

Of course, this is not console gaming. But I would argue that cloud-based gaming will erase the categorization we use for gaming today.

 

[theshonen8899]

"We already have shown that we do not necessarily care about physical ownership of media anymore"

Speak for yourself. The only reason I buy games on Steam is because of the great sales and specials. Otherwise, physical copies are the best.

 

[alidan]

this list is a bunch of crap.

1. if the console is thin, than its going to be in development for that much longer, personally i would prefer a giant console with GREAT heat dissipation, than a small loud console.

onlive is not the future, and never will be, its an alternative. amd is the future, with its fusion. at some point down the road, and probably sooner than onlive being a viable option anywhere you live, you will see graphics hit a wall where you can do better, but whats the point? they are close to that wall right now, once physics takes off and an awesome open source option is available, everyone will see what i mean with graphics hitting a wall.

onlive will become a game renting service (probably pc exclusive) and even a 500$ laptop could run the top of the line on it with relative ease.

2. they already pretty much are. improvements can be made, but otherwise they are.

3. no NO NO NO NO NO NO NO
anyone ANYONE who has use a kinect would rather use a controller than the menu navigation the kinct offers.

4. possibly,

5. no one will not want a cheaper bigger hdd over any other alturnative, unless flash gets near ssd speeds by than.

6. the dvd technically has more than enough space for this console cycle. some games use insane amounts of uncompressed data, but anyone who looks at a 2mb png than a jpeg converted to 1/10 the detail, will be hard pressed to see the difference.

7. not a chance in hell. i want a real console, not the wii that has no real games on it just mini game crap, to cost at least 500$. even at that price it is not making profit on consoles sold, but it s give us good tech, not barely netbook level tech.