Whether we're ready or not - and looking to general sales figures for the PS4 and Nintendo Switch, the sentiment would be a resounding "why now?!" - another console cycle is kicking off later this year.

Granted, it seems to be coming entirely from Microsoft, who after a disastrous generation of lacklustre first-party offerings, hardware rejigs and godawful brand messaging, are washing their hands of the last six years and starting anew, dropping an all-digital Xbox at E3 2019.

I'll get to breaking down everything we know about the next systems in the pipeline, as sufficed to say, the next generation of consoles is going to look drastically different than what we have now, with the most insane thing being, that they won't "look" like anything at all.

Confused? You should be. The industry is making like Ghost in the Shell (the original) and slowly becoming nothing more than data. To adequately break down the whys and wherefores, it involves dissecting trends we've seen emerge this generation, some choice interview snippets from those at the top, and a lot of connecting the dots.

It's not all as spurious as you think though, and sufficed to say, the end of the next console generation, will leave gamers in a truly fascinating place.

Source: https://whatculture.com/gaming/8-terrifying-facts-predictions-about-the-future-of-gaming

8. Fact: Lootboxes Are Dying, But Recurrent Spending Isn't Going Anywhere

Has the problem this generation been with loot boxes, or microtransactions? The gambling-adjacent mentality, or the devaluing of what it means to purchase a video game?

It's something for the comments to debate out, but the industry certainly isn't going to start removing recurrent spending methods, and in fact, we're already seeing a more "palatable" approach to monetising the consumer on top of that retail price point - that of reducing randomised elements, but keeping in-game storefronts.

Contrast the "online gambling casino" feel of Battlefront 2's launch day status to something like Devil May Cry 5, where you can pay to resurrect your character upon death. Both are pretty scummy being you've already paid your "entry fee" (the price of the game itself), but the latter doesn't have randomisation, and as such, has seldom been dragged through the muck whatsoever.

Now, it's worth addressing that throwing money at a random number generator makes an EXORBITANT amount of coin. Activision brought home $4 billion dollars of microtransaction revenue across 2017, and though that's resulted in both them and EA existing on their own islands today, that amount of money won't go unnoticed.

Lawsuits levied EAs way for their handling of Battlefront 2 helped put a stop to the worst of this stuff, but you can all but say goodbye to buying a full game in one go.

7. Fact: Single-Player Games Are A Calculated Risk

The gaming industry is bigger than ever today; far larger in scope and appeal than any other point in time, and that goes quadruple for the amount of revenue being made.

Thing is though, a lot of that revenue is coming through third-parties, and through "Games as a Service" titles like Fortnite, Apex Legends or GTA Online.

Yes, a God of War, Spider-Man or other dedicated single-player experience still makes a ludicrous amount of cash, but it's nothing compared to the literal billions I mentioned in the last point, or something like GTA Online's $5 million a day.

When it comes to single player games, various factors are now at play:

1. Does the publisher/developer in question favour monetisation over a finite story with finite mechanics?

2. How well has development been planned, and does going over budget significantly now impact a post-launch recurrent spending model? If that is the case, how much does it affect the story being told?

3. Why is the publisher/developer in the industry at all? If it's only for the money, single player stories simply don't have the means to make as much cash as any 'Games as a Service' release.

Thankfully, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Ninja Theory's Hellblade set out to prove you could make a triple-A looking game with a modest, controlled and calculated budget. The dev pulled that off and Hellblade stands tall as an example of how to "do single player" without breaking the bank on the dev or consumer side.

Going forward though, with so much money up for grabs if your "service game" finds its audience, we're seeing far, FAR more companies roll the dice, hoping for the biggest rewards.

6. Prediction: No More Consoles

For Sony and Microsoft, the former have stated there is a need for one more generation of hardware, whereas Microsoft are investing heavily in cloud streaming technology for the future beyond that, to bring you the "Xbox brand" anywhere from phones to Smart TVs.

Ubisoft's Yves Guillermot spelt this out, noting that “There will be one more console generation and then after that, we will be streaming, all of us.”

Personally I can't see Nintendo going down this road. They started out making playing cards, and have long held true to the fundamental mentality that video games are to be thought of almost as "toys" or interactive entertainment, with a necessary part of that being controllers and other hands-on methods. The Switch is something no one saw coming, and Nintendo Labo is the latest example of that mentality.

It's great to see.

Large problems also exist in an infrastructural sense i.e. if your respective country has the WiFi bandwidth/capacity to stream titles from a cloud server to whichever device is at hand, but the seeds for all of this are already planted...

5. Fact: Turning PlayStation/Xbox/Nintendo Into Apps

An "all-streaming, all-access content model" is what Microsoft was attempting back at the beginning of this generation. All the talk of owning the "digital rights" for each title, eliminating pre-orders or trading, checking in with an online database every 24 hours to maintain authentication? It was a misstep in the execution, sure, but think about how many digital games you now own the license for.

Exactly.

As you've likely noticed this generation, there's a "cross-pollination" of ownership. Many PS3 games are also playable on PS Vita and PS4, or vice versa. Likewise, 360 titles or Xbox Live Arcade releases are listed as playable on Xbox One, all with one purchase of a license for each game, accessible anywhere.

Like how owning a movie on your Amazon or iTunes account lets you watch it anywhere you can find a connection, games are striving to do the same.

The likes of PlayStation Now, Game Pass or Nintendo Switch Online consolidating past Nintendo memberships into one service? It points to a future where we access archives of content from all sorts of past systems for a regular fee.

Don't get me wrong, companies like Nintendo should've been offering their catalogues for YEARS, but taken with the idea of tethering a bluetooth controller to your Smart TV or streaming through your phone, it does create a world where we think of "PlayStation", "Xbox" and "Nintendo" the same way as Netflix or NowTV

4. Fact: Triple-A Games On Your Phone

We're already seeing this in motion with Sony's latest PS4 update letting you beam your PS4's feed to an iPhone, controlling it with 12 on-screen buttons straight through the touch screen.

Personally I find the idea of controlling something like Red Dead 2 or Spider-Man through a phone ridiculous - especially seeing as the "shoulder buttons" are just awkwardly sitting on the side of the display - but I digress.

Sony putting the idea to the public is clearly a way to test the market, much like how PlayStation TV planted the idea of pairing a controller to your TV, it was just the wrong place at the wrong time (being associated with PSP games over anything else).

Point being: Sony invested heavily in Gaikai streaming technology for the PS4, and Microsoft have done the same with their own xCloud brand. Nintendo are likely waiting this one out, but we're definitely going to see an attempt to stream full triple-A releases directly onto your phone screens across the next generation.

3. Fact: All-Digital Storefronts Monopolise Price Points

We've been hearing for years now that "brick n' mortar video game stores are dead", and although many outlets have found second winds thanks to investing heavily in the retro market or adapting themselves to more of a "video game cafe" style setup, when was the last time you went into a dedicated video game shop?

The vast majority of us choose accessibility and convenience over anything else, and purchasing digitally is the best way to scratch that itch - especially when it comes to preloading for a midnight launch.

To that end - and I'm guilty of this too - we're susceptible to paying inflated prices for a day one play, or not doing the physical legwork to get around whichever figure is being thrown up in front of us.

In the UK at least, the only other place you're going to for a physical video game outside of dedicated shops or a GAME/CEX/Grainger Games, is a supermarket, and they treat game prices like any other product.

In the end, the death of physical sales as a primary way to purchase video games means the industry sets and maintains the prices, and that's bad for the consumer.

2. Fact: Mobile Gaming Gets Bigger Than Ever

All the microtransactions, recurrent spending and siphoned off DLC approaches to games? Yeah... they largely came from the mobile space, as once publishers realised you could monetise the ENTIRE process of playing through something, each subsequent product has been hacked and sliced into as many pieces as possible.

It's a very tricky, fundamentally anti-consumer balance to get right, with the latest example being Games as a Service, however, mobile games as the focus from big-tier publishers is yet to fully make its way to the West.

See, over in China and Japan, mobile gaming is far more accepted for your average gamer. For over a decade the infrastructure of Japan and China in terms of internet access and signal strength is far more stable than the west, and that's led to many easterners watching TV on their phones, on the go, far more often than on a larger screen.

All of which is to say, mobile gaming is taken far more seriously in these regions than the running joke it is in the west, and the numbers for potential customers are sky-high.

Already we've seen Fortnite and PUBG release feature-complete mobile editions that have gone down a storm, and it's a mentality Activision/Blizzard are getting in on with Diablo: Immortal.

While Pokémon GO showed the power of a mobile game done right, expect to see a LOT more triple-A mobile games in the future.
cc: Gidigamers, Lucemferre, Mobilegees

1. Prediction: A Conglomerate Approach To Franchise Ownership

For a hot minute there, it really seemed as though Sony were making moves to purchase Take Two (parent company to Rockstar and 2K), in a move that would've given them access to everything from GTA to Red Dead, NBA to Bioshock.

Thankfully that didn't happen, but it's not the first time a major conglomerate has tried to buy out a notable studio.

For the last few years, Ubisoft have been staving off a hostile takeover from Vivendi, a French conglomerate who sought to take over Ubi's various franchises going forward. Again, that has been resolved, but remember that going forward, we're entering into an era where video game catalogues are presented on streaming or all-digital archive apps/platforms.

It would massively benefit the likes of Sony and Microsoft to "lock down" catalogues like Rockstar's or Ubisoft's, if only to have a month or two of exclusivity.

There's too much money at stake for complete ownership (at least, I think there is), but a world where PlayStation advertises "And next month, we're hosting Rockstar!" is analogous to Netflix purchasing exclusive streaming rights to the likes of Friends - or other beloved properties - at least until another buyer comes along.

Think about it: Once the streaming services are up and running and all that first-party content is expended or made available, Sony and Microsoft will turn to third-parties, and their libraries will go to the highest bidder.
Lalasticlala Seun Cao

It is already pointed out on a previous post about Google Stadia that all that no-console-only-streamed-games sh!t isn't gonna happen on a world scale anytime soon. Probably maybe never cuz, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it"
The Internet bandwidth power required to accomodate a wide range of users is barely available in any country and would be barely available in most countries even in the future. It is doable but, the cost of Internet would be far more than cost of living itself.
Consoles are gonna be around for a long ass time. VR could be a threat but, cloud gaming... Nahhhh!

Mobile devices have AAA titles and are gonna continue to have AAA titles. They will also continue to grow fast more than TV games. Why? They are wayyyyy cheaper, easier (come at me) and easily accessible.
The point is they would never be able to compete with the computing power of TV game consoles. You cannot go around physics. Heat is the major enemy. Even if a mobile device is able to run a TV game with the same graphic quality as it's partner on the TV-game side of technological advancement, it would melt in minutes. Let's not even talk about PCs
And throughout the history of advancement there has never been a time that device creators went from a big display to a small ass one. That means bigger screens are always more desirable. And what would make someone to outrightly move from a 32" to a fvcking 6" or from the feals of a vibratable controller to a massage trainer is beyond me. Mobile games are gonna keep their fans and TV games are gonna keep theirs.

Microtransactions are my major fears about the future of gaming "all that other bullsh!t, is coming today and going tomoooooo...roow" I read that the best fortnite player have spent upto $12,000. TF
And yea, exclusivity is also not a good thing for users. Or better yet too much of it. Monopoly is always bad for the gamers. I've always disliked that thing. No game will make me change my platform of choice dai. I may have a complimentary device but, my first choice remains.

PS: Game wave come in phases. BR will soon be obsolete. Developers are just lazy nowadays.

h mmmm

LucemFerre:
It is already pointed out on a previous post about Google Stadia that all that no-console-only-streamed-games sh!t isn't gonna happen on a world scale anytime soon. Probably maybe never cuz, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it"
The Internet bandwidth power required to accomodate a wide range of users is barely available in any country and would be barely available in most countries even in the future. It is doable but, the cost of Internet would be far more than cost of living itself.
Consoles are gonna be around for a long ass time. VR could be a threat but, cloud gaming... Nahhhh!

Mobile devices have AAA titles and are gonna continue to have AAA titles. They will also continue to grow fast more than TV games. Why? They are wayyyyy cheaper, easier (come at me) and easily accessible.
The point is they would never be able to compete with the computing power of TV game consoles. You cannot go around physics. Heat is the major enemy. Even if a mobile device is able to run a TV game with the same graphic quality as it's partner on the TV-game side of technological advancement, it would melt in minutes. Let's not even talk about PCs
And throughout the history of advancement there has never been a time that device creators went from a big display to a small ass one. That means bigger screens are always more desirable. And what would make someone to outrightly move from a 32" to a fvcking 6" or from the feals of a vibratable controller to a massage trainer is beyond me. Mobile games are gonna keep their fans and TV games are gonna keep theirs.

Microtransactions are my major fears about the future of gaming "all that other bullsh!t, is coming today and going tomoooooo...roow" I read that the best fortnite player have spent upto $12,000. TF
And yea, exclusivity is also not a good thing for users. Or better yet too much of it. Monopoly is always bad for the gamers. I've always disliked that thing. No game will make me change my platform of choice dai. I may have a complimentary device but, my first choice remains.

PS: Game wave come in phases. BR will soon be obsolete. Developers are just lazy nowadays.

Agreed.....But hardcore gaming on mobile?? Forget it!

Ceekay212:
Agreed.....But hardcore gaming on mobile?? Forget it!

Yea, it has it's moments. I spoil my screen because of mobile BR. Now I'm on by force break

I try to be hip to this theme and I dont believe in it. There are many scary predictions about gambling future, but online gambling activity on the site like https://ipayzz.com/live-casino-american-express/ never died and you can rely on me. Protect your personal info on a gaming forum and dont play for big money.