Do you think consoles will be obsolete in 5-8 years?

[Mistgrim]

Yes consoles are a dying breed, but at the same time the world is full of non-techies so dying won't be anytime soon

[spandy34]

I think the pay what you want model will eventually win out (steam boxes)

Sony and Microsoft will have origin/steam like clients on them and will be upgradeable

[Jaybird]

interesting perspective: a console will transform into a "desktop". it will probably still sit by the tv but will have the ability to expand to other tvs or devices. so people would inherently be buying a desktop thinking they are buying an all-in-one console. 

[spandy34]

interesting perspective: a console will transform into a "desktop". it will probably still sit by the tv but will have the ability to expand to other tvs or devices. so people would inherently be buying a desktop thinking they are buying an all-in-one console.

I know right!

Your console of choice will pretty much be your favorite drm flavor.

All it will take is just one of the big 3 to build one with removable gpu

[Giddyguy]

To this forum, yes, but to the average person they are not yet

Exactly! I think most people don't even know you can game on PC other than LOL and StarCraft...

[Guerrero]

I don't think they are obsolete because they are still being produced and being used

Obsolete: no longer in general use

Obsolete: no longer produced or used
 

[Albatross]

Die? No. They won't die. A lot of people buy systems, consoles, because they cannot afford to purchase a decent gaming rig. And then there are the console purchases for family use and those for children.  Consoles have their purposes and so do computers.

 

(I don't understand why PC gamers are so adamant about hating on consoles or people who use them, but whatever. lol)

[RedGalaxie]

so everyone realizes that these new Steam machines are basically home consoles, right? It's one of the biggest names in PC gaming shifting towards consoles. I don't think "obsolete" is the term I would use. 

[GeathX]

As much as it may annoy people on here, I feel that PC gaming in its current form (If game streaming takes off, you know it will come to PC as well ) need consoles to be viable for game developers. New consoles periodically lift the base line of a gaming machine quite considerably every 6 or so years. If we look at the Steam spec survey data, a game developer would be looking at a machine with a dual cpu, 4GB ram (maybe even less) and Intel HD 4000 for graphics system. Yes 8GB is has a larger % but only slightly, so if a game was to be developed that require more than 4GB min, they would loss a large potential buyer base, let alone the 64bit requirement. Steam Boxes don't change this either, as the customisable hardware still leads to developers having to target the weakest system. 

 

Over the last couple of months though, we have seen that gaming base line brought up to a much higher level. 8 core cpus which could be in the range of a i5/7 when fully utilized, 5-6GB of ram (variances with what is actually available to devs on the consoles) and graphics systems in the range of....7770 to 7870. 

 

Now some of those specs might seem pathetic to some of the peoples rigs on this site, which they are but compared to the average gaming system out there, the consoles are actually pretty powerful. You are going to get games that are heavily multi-threaded, not because a developer can, but because they HAVE to, to be able to use all the power in the new consoles, which should then carry over to the PC, and actually have a reason to have more than 2 cores for gaming. Mantle could play a very large roll in pushing PC gaming forward even more so, but it is probably safe to say that AMD has only been able to make this move because their CPUs and GPUs are in every next gen console.

 

 

For the NEXT generation of consoles though, I don't think we will see a huge jump in performance. It may depend on how game streaming plays out and how average internet speeds increase. For a country that as almost universal high speed dependable internet, you might not need something more than a VitaTV that can receive and decode a h.265 or newer highly compressed codec at 1080p60, using very little bandwidth. There could be 2 systems from Sony or MS, one that has all the new hardware for the games to be run locally at a premium and a much smaller streaming box that is considerably cheaper and just streams all games.

[mr moose]

so everyone realizes that these new Steam machines are basically home consoles, right? It's one of the biggest names in PC gaming shifting towards consoles. I don't think "obsolete" is the term I would use. 

I tried saying something along those lines mucho earlier in this thread and then I got flamed hard for it,  People just seem so automated in the hatred for consoles that they get all angry when you point out that consoles are probably not going to go away and if anything pc's are more likely to evolve toward a more console orientation.

 

It's really funny though how many people in this thread have changed their tune from "consoles are dead" to "consoles will technically not die" especially since MS announced streaming won't happen anytime soon and then went on to point out what a few of us have been saying for awhile now.

[R4STABAN]

No

Latency will be too great. Internet streaming will not be a thing of live gameplay will not be a thing within this short time frame.

[The Syndicate]

I think there will be consoles but not how we picture them today. like they will be little Gigabyte Brix that run everything in the cloud using nVidia Grid and online cloud storage.

anyone else agree?

[ultimatemythbuster]

I say no because I think they will be obsolete before then.  Our interpretation of what a console is will change.

[mr moose]

  Our interpretation of what a console is will change.

Then that will not be the console becoming obsolete, it will be us becoming delusional.

[MooseParade]

I don't see consoles dying anytime soon. There's too big a fan base. If anything the steam box will fail in its current form. People still want something they can buy in one unit, plug it in and start gaming.

[Erebus305]

My PC is/will probably be more powerful than the PS5 or next xbox so ya.....

[skywake]

I think it's worth being more specific with your definitions. You can't say that a console is something that's just for gaming because they all do other tasks now. You can't say that it's a device built for gaming without also including the "non-console" examples people bring up like SteamOS, NVidia Shield and so on. You also can't say that it'll die because portable hardware will get powerful enough because if that portable hardware is built with gaming in mind you'd have to call that a console.

 

So I'd say no. Purely because I still see people wanting to sit down in-front of their TV with a controller to play games. Will consoles look the same? Will the unit under your TV be portable? Will it be in software rather than a specific piece of hardware? Maybe, but I don't think any of those things necessarily mean that it's not a console.

[tacticalpanic]

most people i know kick off at the through of a game update , nevermind driver updates , steam updates , OS updates.

 

the problem with tablets pluged into a tv , is even if we asume that companys made AAA titles for android/iOS , and they had as powerfull processers , storage is much more exspensive in that form factor , games are like 20 to 40GB these days , people are moaning that 500gb isint enough , and then we come to internet connections , most people would still prefer to buy a game boxed with a disc than download that much.

[StevenTCShearer]

No there will still be a market for them. Yes to many PC gamers they are not necessary but the average "gamer" only plays on consoles. I am still shocked that this question is being asked. PC gamers have claimed for the last few years that the seventh generation consoles would be the last and so far this is proven to be incorrect as the PS4 and Xbox One are flying off the shelves, they have already demolished the amount sold in the previous gen at the launch window.

However, with that said, will there be actual consoles for the ninth generation of consoles? I do not know. Also I believe that this will be the generation that more consoles players will start to play on PC! 

[NERV]

Honestly, as long as there are still console exclusive titles, I do not think they will be going anywhere.

 

Just recently I bought a Launch 60GB PS3(5 games & 2 controllers for $160, plus it can play PS1-PS2 games) to play these exclusives. 

[mikeman902]

with millions of 12 year olds spending there parents money on there Xbox, no they wont be. But with new technology's like you said, I think big console companys will eventually be putting out 60FPS on 1080p. plus its not like they are going bigger on purpose. when the next generation of console come out, they will be compact, fast, and quiet. But they won't beat PC gaming

[meritmaster]

 

 

With mobile chips becoming more and more powerful, do you think the days of gaming consoles are coming to an end? With chips like the soon to be released Tegra 6, the graphics performances said to rival that of the Playstation 3.

 

Personally, I think that within a couple of years, you'll have more power in your hands that you can take anywhere and plug into a TV. More than likely, people will choose to have a portable system over a big box.

 

Article: http://www.digitalstormonline.com/unlocked/the-end-of-gaming-consoles-and-rise-of-mobile-and-pc-gaming-idnum112/

 

 

I don't think it's called Tegra 6, and it's real name is K1, but i may be wrong. It's true, i mean just look how long ago tegra 4 came out! It was not long ago at all, and that was like having an Xbox on steroids. Consoles are outdated the day they come out, but so are most peoples gaming machines. 

[-ism]

Who cares what happens to consoles were all PC gamers.

I hope shield-like devices or tablet things take over. That would be nice.

[NtCreateThread]

I believe that consoles are slowly going away due to the overall cost.

 

A lot of people say that it's cheaper to get a console then a gaming rig, which is true if by gaming rig you pretty much mean bleeding edge hardware. On consoles there's a lot more paying after the initial purchase then on a PC, for example you have to pay for online multiplayer on a game you already bought which adds to the overall cost.

 

In addition to this you can not even use basic online services without for example XBOX Live (I am not sure about the new PSN), can't use Netflix unless you have XBOX Live. (just one example).

 

And then to finish everything up there's the game prices. While this might matter depending on the region where you reside, console games are more expensive than PC games and I am not talking about triple A titles only. On steam you can get some nice offers & cheap games to play which consoles just don't have.

 

Everyone who has a console in the house pretty much has a PC (not necessarily with the latest hardware and all that stuff), if you combine this with streaming services, we will reach a point where it will make more sense to use the money you pay for a console & yearly subscription to just upgrade your Desktop & stream games to your TV. Just as a final argument., consoles are intended to have a life cycle of more than 5 years, in 5 years the hardware that the current consoles have will be dirt cheap.

[ItsSacred]

It honestly depends on how you look at consoles.