Consoles Are Going Extinct, Says David Jaffe

[GuppyShark]

Can we get a moratorium on this BS subject?

[Bluefire]

Well they have almost 20 years ...
If they did it in best possible manner I dont see what the problem would be.. (for console gamers)
Pc like latency of <10ms
Fiber from house to local exchange <1ms
Local exchange to state exchange <10ms
State exchange to natonal exchange <20ms
National exchange to data center <1ms

Current average console latency on a tv is >40ms ?
Will pc gamers notice ? Yes
Would a console gamer ? Probably not.

Will we actually get that kind of hardware in this country HELL NO..
Do console/tv developers care about our market.. HELL NO..

[shlaimon]

probably because it's not really feasible in general...

Hopefully with the completion of the NBN (LOL) It will encourage more server hosts to have servers here in Australia, the price for 100mb servers that use alot of data is like 500$ a month!!! What im hoping is that the NBN will make these connections more common and lower the price so companies like blizzard will want to put servers here, and most likely cloud streaming, THEN MAYBE, JUST MAYBE it will be toleratable.

I still dont like the idea of streaming games though...who wants to add more lag..

[Shinanigans]

I don't think this is really how it's going to end up after the next generation of consoles. I think something like this is way off in the future.

10 years [expected life cycle for next gen] in the tech industry is way off in the future. Streaming is coming whether you like it or not.

[James Pinnell]

Many of you aren't thinking out of the box.

Context:

Back in 1992, we were still putting cartridges with a tiny chunk of RAM into plastic boxes with no internal or external storage. In most cases, this was manually tuned into the TV with an RF lead.

SEGA was one of the largest developers of console hardware in the world, and the dominant force in the US for the same thing.

Flash forward to today: An increasingly large number of games are being downloaded directly to hard drives. SEGA don't make any hardware at all anymore, just software.

This is a perfectly reasonable assumption to make - especially if/when Sony/Nintendo and Microsoft realise that making software for a unified platform (don't laugh, SEGA making software for Nintendo was equally hilarious 20 years ago) is more more profitable and easier to distribute.

We're also assuming that TV's and Panels won't become more modular and upgradable, rather than the reasonably dumb flat panels that exist today.

Also - Why is everyone assuming games will stream and not download temporarily onto an inbuilt SSD or something similar?

[Ploxum]

I seem to recall a certain amount of animosity and accusations of 'doucefag' when /steam/ was announced. I was pretty skeptical of it as a means of game delivery back in the early 2000s.

I'm gonna keep my mouth shut on this one.

[TheD]

Cloud gaming is a bunch of hot air.
Gamers are still going to have to pay the cost of the hardware in the server, that rules out any kind of super high end GFX (that could not be done with a midrange PC). (Onlive uses Nvidia 9800s!)

Latency is going to be very high even with a close by server, the video has to be compressed, that takes time.

Compression of the video makes it look horrible, the only way to fix that is by using a huge amount of bandwidth (2 Gb+) due to the fact that video encoders do not do a very good job when they are forced to encode frames in real time and that you need about 4Gbs for raw lossless 1920x1200 (a small amount less for 1080p) and about half that for compressed lossless.

Last mile internet infrastructure moves at a lot slower place than hardware and software, 1 or 2 GB links will not be common for many, many years.

Lets not even get into the freedom could gaming will take away.

[Bogus]

I think it's funny that some ppl say it won't happen in x-years time because of what is happening today.

kind of like thew argument for not needing the NBN "because I can already send email and read the interweb pages just fine right now, why would I need it quicker?"

[TRB]

[quote="Bogus"
kind of like thew argument for not needing the NBN "because I can already send email and read the interweb pages just fine right now, why would I need it quicker?"[/quote]


Its actually nothing like that at all.

[Bogus]

[quote="Bogus"
kind of like thew argument for not needing the NBN "because I can already send email and read the interweb pages just fine right now, why would I need it quicker?"

Its actually nothing like that at all.[/quote]

Actually it is.

[Bluefire]

Well if they setup our NBN correctly ... there wouldnt be an issue really..

Pc latency of <10ms
Fiber from house to local exchange <1ms
Local exchange to state exchange <10ms

-NSW state exchange would be hosted inbetween Griffith and Nyngan NOT Sydney
-Vic state exchange would be hosted near Bendigo NOT melbourne
etc ie center of state not capital.
-National exchange would be hosted in Ghan (just south of Alice Springs)

State exchange to natonal exchange <20ms
National exchange to data center <1ms


Current average console latency on a tv is >40ms
Will pc gamers notice ? Yes
Would a console gamer ? Probably not.

Will we actually get that kind of hardware in this country HELL NO..
Do console/tv developers care about our market.. HELL NO..

[Bronze_D]

Also - Why is everyone assuming games will stream and not download temporarily onto an inbuilt SSD or something similar?

Because that is not cloud gaming... if the game's data and asset (even just a cache) is on your local device then to make use of it you'd need to do the processing locally which basically means the same thing as a local console or PC.

the whole point of cloud gaming is that the processing is done on their data center, not on your device... which is why you cannot buffer it.

it is it's primary advantage AND it's primary weakness at the same time.

The advantage is that you do not need any sort of powerful GPU or CPU in your device to play since you only need to process the streamed compressed video which is much easier to do, allowing this to be done on mobile devices and others that cannot pack the kind of processing power the PC or console pack due to their limited weight and size.

The disadvantage is naturally that you are saddled with the extra latency from the device to the data center where the actual processing is done and you are dependent on the network state to utilize the service.

This is unlike the video service on demand where you can buffer it.

[Lumen Melano]

Also - Why is everyone assuming games will stream and not download temporarily onto an inbuilt SSD or something similar?

A bunch of stuff that is all correct.

This isn't the same as situation as what people have posited in this thread. Latency is and always will be the issue here, video compression and resolution will absolutely become better (although it doesn't appear to be at the rate at which displays are increasing). It is latency that can only get better to a point, you can't transmit data than the speed of the medium it is traveling through will allow (ie: fibre and copper.

The only way to mitigate that is by building more data centres around the place to decrease the distance data has to travel, but the population density of the urbanised world is only sufficient for those in urban areas. Regional users don't make up a big enough market to warrant the investment to build those regional data centers.

Now James you may be right about some sort of unified console/device that can stream content locally but like Bronze_D said that is not cloud gaming.

[TheD]

Well if they setup our NBN correctly ... there wouldnt be an issue really..

Pc latency of <10ms
Fiber from house to local exchange <1ms
Local exchange to state exchange <10ms

-NSW state exchange would be hosted inbetween Griffith and Nyngan NOT Sydney
-Vic state exchange would be hosted near Bendigo NOT melbourne
etc ie center of state not capital.
-National exchange would be hosted in Ghan (just south of Alice Springs)

State exchange to natonal exchange <20ms
National exchange to data center <1ms


Current average console latency on a tv is >40ms
Will pc gamers notice ? Yes
Would a console gamer ? Probably not.

Will we actually get that kind of hardware in this country HELL NO..
Do console/tv developers care about our market.. HELL NO..

The NBN does not work like that, all data has to go to the ISPs network POPs in the capital cites.

And the idea of putting a major exchange in the dead center of the country is one of the dumbest ideas I have ever heard. (and lol at 20ms).

[DXPetti]

Small games for when you are on the move
Docking station (to TV) + Wireless controller + Streaming service w/ Big games for when you are at home.

That's pretty much where I see everything heading. Heck, Sony already has their toe in the water with Playstation Mobile + PSN

kind of like thew argument for not needing the NBN "because I can already send email and read the interweb pages just fine right now, why would I need it quicker?"

Its actually nothing like that at all.

Actually it is.

Foresight is a quality not found in most