Is it realistic to say, in another 50 years, home consoles are here to stay?

[Diarrhea Day-Lewis]

While it's impossible to say for certain, so many things have been "the future"

for everyone who says streaming is the future, note that at one point PCs we're going to kill consoles, consoles kill PCs, mobile kill consoles, etc. not everything will end up like Arcades. VR has been "5 mins to midnight" for like a decade, whose to say streaming won't be the same (as in makes a sizable chunk of the market but by no means is the main way games are experienced)

there are similar roadblocks for streaming (what controller? ISP price/speed? Price of game access? No used games?) like VR experiences.

of course consoles haven't been around for 50 years, but also nothing has really been viable threat to consoles for what, NES in 1985? So for 35 years consoles have evolved and maintained relevancy, I find it hard to doubt them even if they have peaks and valleys, for another 20-30 years. Anything can happen of course.

and technically, consoles have been around since early 70s, with the market getting bigger and bigger until I believe the Fairchild Channel F in 1976 which had swappable carts. But more or less, console gaming is 40ish years old in the form we know today and almost 50 years old dating back to the originals that didn't have changeable games

 

[8bit]

No consoles on a dead planet.

 

[DaleCooper]

That's a good year to aim to live to - 2077, would be happy with that.

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I would be in my 90s by then, so I'm not putting down any bets 😄

 

[Deleted member 91227]

Hard to predict that far into the future. But I doubt it. Surely streaming/cloud tech will have dealt with the lag/latency problem by then and internet capacity and availability will be widespread. Publishers will move that way as soon as they can as it ups profit by killing off the second had market, rentals and lending. I'm personally all for it as I almost never revisit things and quit buying music and movies (books as much as possible I use the Overdrive via my library and Kindle Unlimited) and would be fine doing the same with gaming. Already cutting way back on purchases and spending more time on Gamepass, PS+ and Epic freebies etc.

 

[Goddo Hando]

last gen was supposed to be the last console generation... so the answer is yeah probably

 

[Deleted member 8468]

I assume in 50 years we will have proper brain-computer interfaces. Pretty tough to predict how any of that will look implementation wise.

I'd like to think we'll have gamepass streamed to our brains for a beyond-VR type experience. At least I hope so, because I'll be 85 and probably not doing much else by then.

 

[Martinski]

No thread about the future will be without the doom and gloomers on ERA lol.

 

[Billy Awesomo]

50 years? Honestly I think Consoles died in like the 7th generation. With the amount of installing and updates I have to throw into modern consoles I might as well be playing on PC now. :/ Nothing about "modern" consoles is easy. No more plug and play, now it's plug, install for several hours (this may vary based on your internet connection) and then play. Not a fan of it at all (Yet I find myself still buying "said" consoles). I feel like a better point of discussion is when we stop calling consoles, "consoles" anymore I think and what they really are modified PCs? Not really sure here...

 

[BlackJace]

Can y'all edgelords knock it off with the "will humanity be here in 50 years" takes?
Wow, how profound

 

[LinkStrikesBack]

Imagine where technology was fifty years ago.


There's simply no way to even begin to imagine what will or will not still be around, or it what form fifty years from now.

 

[Efejota]

thinking about the future like this makes me think of how noticeable it'll be for me when all those iconic developers die. I never cared that much for famous musicians or actors because I didn't grew up with them like I did with gaming.

Regarding the future, I guess I'm more curious about preservation.

 

[Martinski]

Can y'all edgelords knock it off with the "will humanity be here in 50 years" takes?
Wow, how profound

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I'm pretty sure people said the same in the 70's and 80's too, maybe even more when there was a overhanging threat about nuclear war.

 

[Dekuman]

50 is along time. Consoles are safe for the next 20

 

[Samiya]

In 50 years the planet will be on fire and civilization is collapsing from the repeated crises caused by climate change and political instability

if environmentally damaging games hardware still exist at this point then expect climate change to be much, much worse.

 

[ClearMetal]

I can't imagine consoles will be around in 50 years in their current form as an external device that has to be plugged into a television or monitor.

At some point all the console's functions will likely be absorbed into this general multimedia hub that offers internet, television, gaming, VR, etc., much like what happened to radio and how watching movies and series has changed the last decade.

 

[AViewtifulMind]

50 years is a very long time. Even if console generations are going to get longer, we'd still be talking about at least five more generations after this current one. In this industry, you have to think in much shorter increments than 50 years.

 

[FirLocke]

Might just all be in the controller by then. Hopefully changes in sustainability will allow us to see the day.

 

[Zom]

I hope my old ass is alive to see whatever tech has to offer.

 

[BennyWhatever]

My 50 year prediction -
TVs, assuming they're still around, will be powerful enough that we won't need consoles. TV manufacturers will come with ecosystems and you can buy/stream games straight to them.
Sony and Microsoft will probably still be around and will make TVs. I bet Apple joins in on that too. Nintendo will be mostly software based but might still have something you can hold in your hand.

 

[Maligna]

Plot twist: in 50 years, advanced A.I. driven monstrosities will be playing humans for entertainment.

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In Russia, game plays you.

 

[Aerial51]

The World will look so drastically different in 50 years that it is impossible to predict what will be around by then and what not.

 

[diakyu]

The super rich that won't have to deal with the end of the world will be vibing with some advanced VR

 

[hanshen]

I don't agree with that doom are glooms are just edgelord hot takes. How can you predict the future of home technology without considering the fact that there might not be homes?

 

[DarthBuzzard]

The idea of connecting a physical TV to a physical console in 50 years won't make any sense.

I'm sure local processing will still exist, just because it's so useful and reliable, but how popular it is remains to be seen - and at most they will be seen as peripherals rather than the platform itself.

 

[delete12345]

I don't agree with that doom are glooms are just edgelord hot takes. How can you predict the future of home technology without considering the fact that there might not be homes?

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It never occurred to me to ask myself, if we don't have homes in the future, we might call the consoles, "personal consoles."

 

[RROCKMAN]

If the rest of the world can get its act together about the internet in 50 years then sure consoles will be gone

If not then nope

It's that simple

 

[Rygar 8Bit]

Hasn't even been 40 years since the NES and things have already changed drastically. Hard to predict this type of stuff that far out. I could see everything being whatever digital things we have in the future.

 

[Ra]

Can y'all edgelords knock it off with the "will humanity be here in 50 years" takes?
Wow, how profound

Click to shrink...

Concern over global warming is edgelord territory for you? We are on a collision course with destruction, does sticking our heads in the sand bring any benefit?

Furthermore, assuming we get that together, 50 years is an incredible amount of time. Humanity will have undergone massive changes between now and then as technology becomes a greater part of our lives. We are already a neural network, the synthesis will only become stronger. Sitting in front of a TV is going to seem prehistoric in a couple decades or so.

 

[kirby_fox]

I think there's a good chance they don't the more I look at it.

We're starting to see and hear about a lot of small fish acquisitions in the developer space. If we look back at similar media industries, unless there's a breakup at some point to slow this down, most of the media is all made by a handful of companies. Look at the movie, TV and music industries or even the phone industry. Big players slowly ate up smaller ones to get bigger, and eventually you're left with just a handful of companies controlling everything.

If we're on this path and continue down it, I can see it being less about selling a console and more about selling the game to as wide of an audience as you can. I can't say how exactly that will be done, but I think the consoles being a point of entry fee that is often expensive will hinder what the owners of these IP want to do. Add that these consoles are starting to become harder to even produce, looking at our current issues right now at the beginning of this generation, and it might be easier to find alternate ways to get the media out to people.

 

[calder]

In 50 years the river pirates are going to be attacking the last fixed settlements trying to steal enough wheat to trade for black powder with the proto-cannibals of the foothills and you want us to guess about home electronics?

I vote... no there will not be video game consoles.

 

[Xiofire]

With faster and lower latency internet becoming the standard across the world, streaming will almost certainly take the place of in-home hardware.

 

[Tagyhag]

There's no way to make an educated guess that far out and how quickly technology advances.

My shot in the dark is that streaming will just take over almost everything by then.

No thread about the future will be without the doom and gloomers on ERA lol.

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Right? Those people should stick to doomposting in Etcetera. Forum is almost unbearable with how nihilistic it is now.

 

[Not Spaceghost]

I think the "concept" will probably be around in some form but if in 50 years everyone has access to max speed internet for free / low cost from any point on the globe i can definitely see game streaming being the norm.

 

[Magic Mushroom]

Concern over global warming is edgelord territory for you? We are on a collision course with destruction, does sticking our heads in the sand bring any benefit?

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There is every reason to be concerned. But the world nor humanity will end in 50 years time, there is not a climate scientist worth a damn who believes that. The fatalism and defeatism is just as dangerous as downplaying climate change

 

[julia crawford]

Consoles? Maybe.

We? Nah bro

 

[Whipwhopper]

In 50 years video games will only be played in a building called an "arcade"

 

[cakely]

It's been almost 50 years since we are introduced to the concept of home consoles or home entertainment system on the floor, back in 1970.

50 years gone by, and by 2020's standards, home consoles are the mainstream devices for playing non-PC video games.

Is it realistic to say, 50 years into the future, in 2070, we still using home consoles?

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There is literally no way to predict that.

In 50 years we could have another innovation as world-changing as the internet, or the microcomputer. We just have no idea.

 

[Raiden]

Impossible to predict, not a single person from 1970 could have predicted what we have now. Some wild guesses here and there sure, but that's it.

 

[ToddBonzalez]

50 years is a long-ass time.

 

[ShiningBash]

What we have now is already dramatically different from the Colecovisions of the past with online-connectivity fundamentally changing everything. Even modest technological improvements will change the "home console" concept.

Sure, we will probably have something you can play in your home, but a device that's permanently connected to a TV relying on locally-stored media? Not a chance if we overcome a few processing limitations, power draw requirements, and mobile connectivity challenges.

 

[Adventureracing]

No thread about the future will be without the doom and gloomers on ERA lol.

Click to shrink...

I'm pretty sure people said the same in the 70's and 80's too, maybe even more when there was a overhanging threat about nuclear war.

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The world may not be coming to an end but right now the future is looking pretty bleak unless we start changing soon. This isn't doom and gloom, that's the stark reality we face right now.

 

[Mido]

We will be playing via Neuralink in our Mars home pods.

 

[EagleClaw]

I don't think in 50 years people will have some box in their living atrium to play games on their social media wall.

 

[EvilBoris]

I literally can't imagine what games will be like on 50 years

 

[Bonfires Down]

Don't think so. Unless everything is streamed the hardware will simply be integrated in your TV.

 

[WestEgg]

Nintendo recently said they were positioning themselves more as an entertainment company than a video game one, so it seems like they are doing their best to prop up their IP, since it will be the most valuable thing they have in a post console world. Things like the theme park and upcoming Mario movie feel like a test run with their flagship IP for what they may be doing in the future. No, this isn't me saying Nintendo is going third party, nor do I think game consoles are going anywhere, but in the world of electronics, Nintendo is super ancient, and likely has many strategies to account for how the industry will change over time.

 

[BlackJace]

Concern over global warming is edgelord territory for you? We are on a collision course with destruction, does sticking our heads in the sand bring any benefit?

Furthermore, assuming we get that together, 50 years is an incredible amount of time. Humanity will have undergone massive changes between now and then as technology becomes a greater part of our lives. We are already a neural network, the synthesis will only become stronger. Sitting in front of a TV is going to seem prehistoric in a couple decades or so.

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Thank you for reminding me about global warming. I totally forgot!

Seriously, the doomposting about that stuff is completely tangental to what the OP asked. If I made a thread asking about predictions about the next PS and XB consoles, I should expect the same answers here? Come on. It's fatalistic and nihilistic to bring up impending doom whenever the slightest opportunity presents itself.

 

[Ra]

There is every reason to be concerned. But the world nor humanity will end in 50 years time, there is not a climate scientist worth a damn who believes that. The fatalism and defeatism is just as dangerous as downplaying climate change

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I didn't say the world is ending, I just reject the idea that thinking it may be very different in 50 years if we don't course correct soon is not hysterics or fearmongering.

 

[DarthBuzzard]

Impossible to predict, not a single person from 1970 could have predicted what we have now. Some wild guesses here and there sure, but that's it.

Click to shrink...

 

[EinBear]

It's impossible to speculate what technology will be like in 10 years time, never mind 50. The only certainty is that Nintendo's online system will still suck.