More support for streaming games
Gaming-on-demand is something we can all look forward to as an easier and faster way to get a hold of our entertainment -- not to mention a cheaper way, too. A lot of people choose to get a GameFly subscription because they would rather pay 15 to 22 dollars over the 60 or 120 bucks that they would dish out for one or two new games a month. And if streaming-game platforms like OnLive catches the attention of many developers and becomes something big, GameFly will see it as somewhat of a competitor and will probably launch their own instant streaming service. And unless they want to sink, you better be sure that GameStop will jump into the mix as well.
The other group that can really benefit from this would be the growing group of independent game developers that release their content for cheap on Xbox Live, PlayStation Network, and PC. They’ll use as many outlets as they can to get their games in front of as many people as possible -- this means putting their products online, on as many consoles as they can, and maybe on OnLive if they can.
Continued support for outside products
Netflix, Last.fm, Facebook, and Twitter: These are all on Microsoft’s list of reasons why someone should join Xbox Live. When they first announced Netflix and Facebook for XBL, gamers cried out, “Why should I care?" As time went by, many started to use Netflix instant streaming on Xbox 360, and now it’s on PlayStation 3 and Wii, too. It would be a smart move for the big three to continue their support of this service as a way to give their customers another reason to turn their consoles on.
The big three will do what Nintendo pointed out was important to gain consumers years ago: make your home console something that just about anyone in the family can use. Wii has a feature to check your news and weather, and Sony has something similar with the PS3's “Life with PlayStation” feature.
While PlayStation Home hasn’t garnered the attention Sony had hoped for, that might change in the near future if they start giving you more options to play around with in this virtual world. XBL users are able to watch a film and chat with anyone on their friends list at the same time; as soon as Home gives you this option, it will become more popular.
Apple joins In the hoopla
No, this isn’t a prediction of an Apple console...that’s just ridiculous.With the growing number of games you can find in the App Store for your iPod, iPhone, and iPad, it’s obvious that Apple knows that gaming is relevant! They know they can make good money off of gaming, and this is only the beginning. Stuff like Steam now being available on the Mac is only the beginning of hardcore gaming on the platform; if it picks up, it’ll be a matter of time before you’ll see Games for Windows and Mac Games competing like many of today’s console exclusives. And a new phone coming from Microsoft seems to be a clear competitor to the iPhone, and if it wants to compete, it better do what the iPhone does, including playing your favorite portable games.
Video games can be pretty capricious in terms of how it will evolve. It’s still a young industry compared to all of our other entertainment out there. The community is still rapidly growing, and great games are coming out every year.
I’m curious to see what the next big step will be as far as controlling your video games go. What will come after motion control? Brain waves? Ridiculousness, you say. But then, who saw the Wii or Natal coming 10 years ago?
Great analysis!
Hey Fozzy - most of these looks like press images, which is great, but where'd that first image come from?
Thanks Shoe :)
Demian, I borrowed it from a co-writer of mine from resumeplay.net -- he had previously used it for another article and I thought it would be perfect for this.
A lot of your pictures seem to be broken now. I wonder what happened. But I fixed everything up....
I wouldn't worry about casual gaming taking over the market. When games like Halo or CoD sell 10 million copies, developers will continue to make them. Motion controls may end up being a novelty. It certainly seems that is the case for the Wii which becomes a dust collector very quickly.
The concept of motion controls is accessibility. This has appealed to the non-gaming crowd, but accessibilty isn't the only factor preventing them from buying games. I think uncanny valley prevents many from becoming engaged. Video gaming is still geeky since you have to use your imagination to look past uncanny valley.
So, my take on the future is that we will still see innovation with hardware as we have always seen in the history of video games. We've seen many novelties come and go, but the evolution of the traditional controller and graphics will continue.
The future is the cloud. Why make a loss-leading console when you can stream games to a device and avoid a significant portion of manufacturing, labor, and physical plant costs. This would bring about the "one console future" where we call could play together instead of in the walled gardens of Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony. This is good for gamers -- the software should be the focus, not the hardware.
I have to call you out on this point: "Stuff like Steam now being available on the Mac is only the beginning of hardcore gaming on the platform; if it picks up, it’ll be a matter of time before you’ll see Games for Windows and Mac Games competing like many of today’s console exclusives."
Firstly, there has been hardcore gaming on the Mac for 20 years -- Steam hasn't changed anything except that now Valve games are available (or soon to be). I recently wrote an article for Australian Macworld on why we can't think of Steam as the holy grail for Mac gaming; developers and publishers still have to take a big risk in putting games on the Mac, and, unlike with the PC, Steam for Mac is not going to revolutionise digital distribution on the Mac platform -- we've been buying and downloading games online since the mid-to-late 90s.
Secondly, exclusives are bad for everyone, and are becoming a thing of the past on consoles. Why would they appear on computers? Every developer with sufficient resources makes their games available for both Mac and PC.
And finally, there is currently no support from Apple for games on the Mac, and the momentum is shifting more and more towards iPhone and iPad, so it is naive to think that Mac gaming will suddenly explode. Apple are a "mobile devices company" now -- they aren't likely to change their approach to Mac games any time soon.
In the future, I predict they'll have controllers for your feet, and we'll all be sitting around wondering why we used our hands for all those years.
Why is the idea of an Apple-branded console ridiculous? We said the same things about Sony and Microsoft at one point in the past...
Why is the idea of an Apple-branded console ridiculous? We said the same things about Sony and Microsoft at one point in the past...