Are we expecting consoles to continue into the 10th gen or streaming and the cloud to take off?

[Strifel]

If not, how powerful are we expecting these consoles to be?

I know some don't like teraflops being the representation of power because it's not that simple, but it's the easiest jargon for a poll like this.

Teraflop increase have always been a bit random, the 360 and PS3 were massive jumps over their predecessors (11-12x) while the PS4 and Xbox One were half that jump, same with the PS5 and Xbox Series X.

Fall 2027 should be the time when 10th gen starts.

 

[nsilvias]

consoles are here to stay as long as long as i have a datacap. 4k video streams aint small especially at 60 fps

 

[Protome]

There's not really any indication that consoles are going anywhere or that cloud streaming is making headway to replace them.
That could change over the course of this generation but it's not super likely.

 

[gattotimo]

Cloud will never completely replace local hardware.

 

[Plinkerton]

I mean streaming probably is the future, but that future is maybe 20-30 years off before it becomes ubiquitous. There will be a 10th and 11th generation of conoles and probably more after that.

10 years ago we were all talking about digital downloads and how future consoles wouldn't have a disc drive, yet all modern consoles still use physical media today (albeit with an option not to include that).

 

[julia crawford]

Honestly don't believe cloud will ever take off unless we get faster than light connections. Not to mention the vast, vast majority of people who will be locked out of it because of poor internet connections and guess what, the vast vast majority of internet connections in the world are severely incapable of cloud gaming.

 

[Vareon]

We've seen streaming and cloud rising, getting better and closing to mainstream anytime but we haven't seen any indication that they're taking over. As in, being the only option for gaming.

 

[12Danny123]

Era is not the best audience to decide what becomes mainstream or not. People who browse these forums are people who want the highest quality possible. But historically things like Smartphones, streaming etc, it doesn't need to be the best, as long as its good enough, it will gain mainstream appeal. I expect game streaming to fit that camp. But this doesn't mean traditional consoles will go away, it will simply mean that traditional consoles will become more niche and aimed at enthusiast and not the casual crowd.

I mean streaming probably is the future, but that future is maybe 20-30 years off before it becomes ubiquitous.

There will be a 10th and 11th generation of conoles and probably more after that.

Click to shrink...

20-30 years is a LONG time in technology, in that length that's when Windows 3.1 was released in 1992. Its much more likely within 5-10 years that streaming will become more mainstream. Streaming for movies and shows only became more viable when 4G started to be a big. I expect game streaming will become big when 5G becomes more widespread.

 

[Dan Thunder]

100% not a chance that streaming will replace physical consoles next generation. The infrastructure to make it viable is nowhere near good enough in large portions of the world and won't be there even when the next machines come out.

I'm in the UK, just outside a city centre and in 2022 I can only get around 22-23mb download at absolute best.

 

[E-bite]

Cloud will never completely replace local hardware.

Click to shrink...

.

 

[TechnicPuppet]

Streaming is going to be fine for a significant amount of people by the next gen. I actually think xCloud is about there now.

I still think there will always be local hardware based options though, why not?

 

[TheMoon]

you will buy a playstation 6 and 7, yes.

please remember that the internet is not widely available at your comfy speeds everywhere in the world and they're not interested in shrinking the market lol

 

[Milennia]

No shot we move away from physical consoles, maybe in 20 years or something, we aren't advancing as quickly as we did in the last 20 years obviously

We will have the option to stream games just like we do now, more advanced and consistent, but this is a steep hill to climb
Internet constraints are a massive factor, high speed internet isn't exactly common

 

[Helix]

So far nothing about Cloud gaming shows that it could theoretically replace traditional hardware gaming and even if Cloud does become uber popular, I still do think that hardware gaming will have a dedicated niche with which console manufacturers can justify making hardware.

all that said, I personally don't think we are ever getting to a point where cloud replaces traditional gaming as long as ISPs continue to enforce predatory pricing and low data caps.

 

[Strifel]

you will buy a playstation 6 and 7, yes.

please remember that the internet is not widely available at your comfy speeds everywhere in the world and they're not interested in shrinking the market lol

Click to shrink...

Marketing heads believe streaming will expand the gaming market by making it easily accessible, I don't necessarily agree but I can see why they would think that.

 

[Fudus]

People still buy crazy expensive sound systems even though spotify exists.
I assume that's where games will head too.

 

[TechnicPuppet]

Once thing I'm not sure about is MS and Sony pumping 100s of millions into the design of new consoles to sell them at a loss/near loss.

So they'll either get simpler or more expensive in my opinion.

 

[Lashley]

Streaming/Cloud will be there as an option, but it won't replace traditional consoles.

At least not for another decade.

 

[nsilvias]

People still buy crazy expensive sound systems even though spotify exists.
I assume that's where games will head too.

Click to shrink...

you do realize they can play spotify thru that sound system rite? unless you think people are buying expensive sound systems for a cd player

 

[spman2099]

Streaming will be an option, but a minor option. At the moment, the technology quite simply isn't capable of replacing consoles. As long as there are games that are severely hurt by latency, then cloud gaming just isn't a suitable replacement (at least in its current form). Like, no one wants to play Street Fighter over the cloud.

 

[Fudus]

you do realize they can play spotify thru that sound system rite? unless you think people are buying expensive sound systems for a cd player

Click to shrink...

The audiophile people I know at least don't buy $10k+ sound systems to listen to 320kbps spotify.

 

[Milennia]

you do realize they can play spotify thru that sound system rite? unless you think people are buying expensive sound systems for a cd player

Click to shrink...

You would run LDACs etc. lossless through a high end sound system

You can however, stream lossless over apple music now (not yet available for spotify), it took ages to get to that point though and it's not perfect
Better to load up your LDACs or lossless format stuff to something like Fiio etc. and run it out of that into your sound system, but mega high end systems generally are ran through a laptop or something

 

[Terbinator]

Until they can resolve the latency issue - as well as video quality - HW will always be preferable for most day-1s, I imagine.

 

[12Danny123]

The audiophile people I know at least don't buy $10k+ sound systems to listen to 320kbps spotify.

Click to shrink...

and is this a big audience?

 

[Fudus]

and is this a big audience?

Click to shrink...

Not huge no, and that's where I see local hardware vs streamed games ending up eventually... but if that's in 10 years or 30 years who knows.

 

[Damien1990]

There will be both due to data caps and infrastructure meaning that streaming alone won't be viable for the majority of consumers.

You could say a lot can change in 5 years but I can confidently say the infrastructure in the UK will still suck.

 

[Milennia]

Not huge no, and that's where I see local hardware vs streamed games ending up eventually... but if that's in 10 years or 30 years who knows.

Click to shrink...

Pretty much

If you want the best, there are options for you whether it be PC stuff or a home console with ease of use
These companies even sold mid gen upgrades to a pretty decent effect, people like having the option of having the best within their means

 

[NekoFever]

you will buy a playstation 6 and 7, yes.

please remember that the internet is not widely available at your comfy speeds everywhere in the world and they're not interested in shrinking the market lol

Click to shrink...

You say that, but we seem to be hurtling headlong towards digital-only consoles where those people will be forced out unless they want to download 100GB games.

 

[Farlander]

In the next 10-15 years, unless there's going to be a huge breakthrough in technology, streaming is still gonna be shit for around 70% of playing population.

 

[Gavalanche]

It will probably happen eventually, but not for a long long time. Decades, basically. Datacaps will have to be non existent and the internet will have to improve worldwide, and that is not happening for a long long time.

Streaming isn't really a replacement for consoles, it is just an option. It means when people travel, they no longer need to take along a physical device, or they can use their phone when laying in bed. It is meant to be there to get people playing these services for longer, not to replace the boxes. It also a good alternative for casual players who dnon't want to get the box and want to boot up a game every couple of weeks and see what is what; the amount of friends I had who purchased a 360 just to play Skyrim was huge and then they never bothered with the console afterwards. Thats what streaming is for. Its not meant to replace consoles. At least not for a long time.

 

[Kazooie]

I do not know about the number of flops and do not care, so I cannot vote, but my answer to the question in the thread title is: There will be new physical consoles.

 

[Spark]

Streaming will only take off globally if Starlink or a competitor takes off too. High speed internet needs to be ubiquitous like electricity, right now it is not.

 

[MistKnight2021]

I don't think consoles would really disappear to any extent. There's no showcase for the power these have which sells them to people when streaming. Plus going full streaming makes a lot of games inaccessible. The option for game streaming I've used being xcloud is very solid but it's good because i get game pass stuff too. Standalone streaming isn't worth it and i think stadia has shown that i don't think we'll ever get there.

 

[Speevy]

I think we're still so many iterations of the current consoles away from anything happening.

 

[Dis]

Internet speeds all over the world aren't perfect, hell even in bigger markets for gaming they can suck in plenty of places. Next generation is too soon for such a change based on that.

You could say a lot can change in 5 years but I can confidently say the infrastructure in the UK will still suck.

Click to shrink...

fully depending on location of course. I have really great gigabit fibre internet living in the middle of no where with 100 buildings in my village, but I have a friend who lives in a bigger town with 4 or 5 times as many homes and for some reason his street is the only one in surrounding area where the fastest he can get is 4mb/s download......not even the fake fibre bt has done for years, but regular old Internet.

All the houses around him on literally the next streets can get gigabit. Drives him nuts. He legitimately has to come to my house with his pc to download steam game updates if he doesn't want to leave it running all day and night. He also has to use his phone 4g to play warzone by tethering it to his pc because it's faster than his at home broadband and he refuses to pay an ISP for a 4g WiFi box thing because they can't be bothered to put a fibre in his street.

 

[Strifel]

I've added the option for 2 choices so people can guess the power otherwise the poll is a little redundant.

 

[Oddhouse]

Honestly don't believe cloud will ever take off unless we get faster than light connections. Not to mention the vast, vast majority of people who will be locked out of it because of poor internet connections and guess what, the vast vast majority of internet connections in the world are severely incapable of cloud gaming.

Click to shrink...

FYI - the laws of physics don't allow faster than light travel of atoms

 

[Lewpop]

I still think we're 10-15 years away from streaming being the de-facto choice for gaming. I have some of the best internet speeds available in the UK but even I get a considerable amount of hiccups on GFN (380 tier) and even more so on XCloud.

It's easy to say that casuals will lap it up eventually, but i don't think it would take long before the average FIFA/COD player starts to notice input latency and packet loss when streaming vs playing locally once it becomes common knowledge.

 

[Plinkerton]

20-30 years is a LONG time in technology, in that length that's when Windows 3.1 was released in 1992. Its much more likely within 5-10 years that streaming will become more mainstream. Streaming for movies and shows only became more viable when 4G started to be a big. I expect game streaming will become big when 5G becomes more widespread.

Click to shrink...

It is a long time, yes, but I think its accurate. I agree that game streaming will become much more mainstream, but for it to be come ubiquitous? For it to be the broadly accepted, default way to play games, and replace traditional consoles? I still think that's a long time off.

Again I think digital distribution is a good comparison here. Back in 2011/12, before PS4 and Xbox One were announced, there was a lot of talk about how the upcoming consoles would be the last to use physical media and everything was going to be download-only after that. It was fair enough because digital stores had taken off with PS3, 360 and Wii and so everyone just assumed that in 10 years they would become the only way to access games. Yet here we are 10 years later and every modern console still uses physical media and people still buy discs and cartridges. I imagine that the next generation will also have physical media options.

I look at streaming the same way - its new at the moment and there's a lot of excitement about it, so everyone is assuming that it will replace traditional consoles in the near future. But I just don't think it'll be within the next two console cycles.

 

[Keio]

We overestimate the impact of new tech in the short term but underestimate it in the long term.

There will be enthusiasts who want local hw (as with physical media for movies right now) but the shift will be to cloud for games.

As said here the challenge for platforms will be at what cost they can provide a home version of their cloud servers. Either the cost will be high or some compromises will need to be made.

 

[Yorker14]

Honestly, it's hard to say. Console generations have typically last 7 years lately, so we could likely expect a PS6/Xbox [whatever they decide to call it] around 2027. Which would mean that generation could be planned to last until 2034-ish.

I find it hard to imagine that in 2030 we'd still be gaming much as we have been since the 90s. So there's definitely a part of my brain that assumes huge change will have taken place in the console landscape by then.

That being said, towards the end of the 7th gen everyone many people assumed the 8th gen either would never arrive, would arrive very late, or would be a flop. Instead, the 8th gen was Playstation's second most successful after the 6th gen, and whether you want to count the Wii U or Switch as Nintendo's 8th gen console, it was either their best generation or one of their worst.

So far this generation, consoles have endured a global pandemic delaying many games as well as a chip shortage severely limiting the availability of the hardware. Despite that, the Switch is selling as well as ever, the Series X and S are selling better than the Xbox One was, and the PS5 would be outselling even the high standards set by the PS4 if not for the fact that they are hardly ever available for retail.

One thing these discussions often focus too much on is the internet speeds in North American, Europe and Japan, forgetting that gaming is a huge industry is South America, and the rest of the Asia-Pacific. Many of those places don't have the internet speeds to support high fidelity streaming (heck, Australia is a first-world country and PS Now was never offered due to the middling internet speeds).

If I had to guess, I'd say we will get a 10th gen of consoles, but perhaps they will be focused less on a pure increase in raw power. Perhaps they become more "streaming hub" devices that can also support local storage and rendering, and which integrate the PS/Xbox/Nintendo user interfaces and storefronts. I wouldn't be surprised if they were entirely digital consoles and you had to by an external disc drive, or if the "standard"-priced console was the disc-less one and a "Pro"-type model is launched alongside it with a disc-drive. Perhaps the "standard" model becomes a streaming-only device, and the "Pro" model is the one that supports local storage and rendering?

 

[Linus815]

I still think we're 10-15 years away from streaming being the de-facto choice for gaming. I have some of the best internet speeds available in the UK but even I get a considerable amount of hiccups on GFN (380 tier) and even more so on XCloud.

It's easy to say that casuals will lap it up eventually, but i don't think it would take long before the average FIFA/COD player starts to notice input latency and packet loss when streaming vs playing locally once it becomes common knowledge.

Click to shrink...

beacuse internet speed doesn't really matter THAT much. It's essentially a netflix stream. Even 4k on stadia or GFN is like what, 30-40mbit? So as long as you have a 100 mbit connection, the speed is more than enough.


The problem is latency and the stability of said latency.

Ping times themselves are hard to improve in a significant way anymore. There's a pretty hard limit on that, because of physics. So, the only way to meaningfully solve lateancy is by deploying servers closer to eachother. So, if I live in Scotland, I don't want to connect to a server in London, because that'll be 45 ms lateancy, but ideally I want to connect to a server located in scotland that's actually near me. I found Stadia to feel significantly better when it went from 40 ms to 5 ms. When it launched in my country, there were no actual servers IN he country, we just connected to German servers, so getting around 40-50 ms was normal. Once they deployed servers in my country, it reduced to 5-10ms and it actually made a difference in how responsive it feels, especially with mouse/kb.

But, obviously, Europe is relatively easy to solve due to the density. But places like Africa? America? Much harder. And honestly it probably starts being outright not profitable pretty quickly once you start spamming servers in rural areas.

And then there's the consistency, which is close to impossible to guarantee. Big companies with online services tend to do individual contracts with major isp's to ensure there's enough bandwith on the international lines but even then, bottlenecks happen all the time. Sure you may have 1-2-5-10gbit connection to your ISP but your ISP can't guarantee what speed/latency you get once you leave their network. It's just up to so many factors.

 

[Sanctuary]

Fall 2027 should be the time when 10th gen starts.

Click to shrink...

Can we start the 9th gen first before predicting when the 10th will begin?

As far as the topic question is concerned, I hope there's a 10th gen console, because as soon as it becomes all streaming or cloud based, I'm done with future works.

100% not a chance that streaming will replace physical consoles next generation. The infrastructure to make it viable is nowhere near good enough in large portions of the world and won't be there even when the next machines come out.

I'm in the UK, just outside a city centre and in 2022 I can only get around 22-23mb download at absolute best.

Click to shrink...

I remember seven years ago when getting away from Time Warner @2mbps and getting 20mbps seemed like a huge deal. Over the course of the years that speed has increased steadily, and I'm now at 165mbps which is actually faster than I need since practically nothing actually downloads that fast due to server bandwidth. But I'm also stuck with a 1.5TB monthly cap, so there's that...

 

[Yorker14]

Honestly, it's hard to say. Console generations have typically last 7 years lately, so we could likely expect a PS6/Xbox [whatever they decide to call it] around 2027. Which would mean that generation could be planned to last until 2034-ish.

I find it hard to imagine that in 2030 we'd still be gaming much as we have been since the 90s. So there's definitely a part of my brain that assumes huge change will have taken place in the console landscape by then.

That being said, towards the end of the 7th gen everyone many people assumed the 8th gen either would never arrive, would arrive very late, or would be a flop. Instead, the 8th gen was Playstation's second most successful after the 6th gen, and whether you want to count the Wii U or Switch as Nintendo's 8th gen console, it was either their best generation or one of their worst.

So far this generation, consoles have endured a global pandemic delaying many games as well as a chip shortage severely limiting the availability of the hardware. Despite that, the Switch is selling as well as ever, the Series X and S are selling better than the Xbox One was, and the PS5 would be outselling even the high standards set by the PS4 if not for the fact that they are hardly ever available for retail.

One thing these discussions often focus too much on is the internet speeds in North American, Europe and Japan, forgetting that gaming is a huge industry is South America, and the rest of the Asia-Pacific. Many of those places don't have the internet speeds to support high fidelity streaming (heck, Australia is a first-world country and PS Now was never offered due to the middling internet speeds).

If I had to guess, I'd say we will get a 10th gen of consoles, but perhaps they will be focused less on a pure increase in raw power. Perhaps they become more "streaming hub" devices that can also support local storage and rendering, and which integrate the PS/Xbox/Nintendo user interfaces and storefronts. I wouldn't be surprised if they were entirely digital consoles and you had to by an external disc drive, or if the "standard"-priced console was the disc-less one and a "Pro"-type model is launched alongside it with a disc-drive. Perhaps the "standard" model becomes a streaming-only device, and the "Pro" model is the one that supports local storage and rendering?

Click to shrink...

Long story short: I think we get a 10th-gen which relatively resembles how we've understood console gaming for a long time, but with a lot of concessions and support for streaming and cloud-based gaming.

I am less certain about whether we get an 11th-gen and expect significant changes to have taken place by then.

 

[ciddative]

Of course consoles will continue, as well as physical media. Internet cost, infrastructure and restrictions are still fucked in certain parts of the world for cloud gaming to be the new standard

 

[Jacknapes]

A lot of people don't have access to reliable enough internet (at the moment) to be able to support cloud-based gaming. A lot of the UK's internet comes through older copper cables, which is shared between many different providers such as BT, Sky and Talk Talk. As far as i'm aware (correct me if i'm wrong here), Virgin Media is the only one (that i know of) that uses it's own network of cable, which is a lot newer than what is currently in place.

Data caps need to go as well, i know we don't have it so much in the UK compared to the US.

I can see at least one more generation of physical consoles before moving into cloud-based/streaming boxes a generation later. Maybe the next generation will be a hybrid model of both cloud/streaming and download/physical media.

 

[APOEERA]

As long as we have areas of the country still on dialup/DSL and counties dragging their feet about paying for broadband infrastructure and ISPs capping bandwidth, we'll always have physical media for consoles. It won't take off until we have a nationwide broadband network (like what was done in the 1950's to build the interstate highway system) and more affordable internet.

 

[Khasim]

Unless Xbox pulls a Don Mattrick 2.0 and makes the next Xbox cloud-only, no, not happening within the next 2 generations.

 

[alexdotgames]

My prediction for the 10th generation is that

- XBox will discontinue making generational consoles and move primarily to their peripherals, streaming devices and small scale consoles (definitely no more discs) - i.e. a "play anywhere" as long as it is Windows/xbox
- Sony will focus hard on creating high end consoles in the absence of a main competitor and continue on releasing discs for the games (discless versions likely optional/cheaper), however they will move away from generational versions but will introduce incremental upgrades with a focus on backwards compatibility
- Nintendo will continue creating new consoles that will be hit or miss but will continue to be the main innovator in the gaming space
- Streaming as well as VR will occasionally pop-up but not be the main way to play for the next decades
- There will be new Windows handhelds (or 2-in-1 stuff) that will more diversify the gaming platforms

Most interesting but maybe not very likely however would be a push for ARM from Microsoft/Windows in the laptop sphere, that would very much upend a lot of the gaming platform ecosphere.

(That is there will be a 10th generation but there will not be a 11th gen, is what I'm saying)

 

[degauss]

Diminishing returns. They will be 2-3 more powerful, but not look much different to the end user. PS5 XSX are kinda peak console.

Nitendo will continue to dominate their space with significantly less power and it won't matter.

Maybe if as a species and we collectively get our environmental asses in gear suddenly performance "per watt" will matter a lot more, and Nintendo/mobile will be sitting pretty.

Streaming though? Yuck. Speed of light ain't getting any faster. I can't see improvements here to anywhere near the same extent. I'm very skeptical about it all, for various reasons. Seems like ecosystem building is the primary driver, and not "what is the best gaming experience" or the world in general.