Gaming is hurtling towards unavoidable transformation. With the average processing capabilities of everything from phones to USB dongles increasing at a rapid rate, the day of traditional consoles is coming to an end.
Historically, the videogame industry has been characterised by change. Be it new hardware, new forms of distribution, new types of games or new ways to interact, this is not a medium with a habit of standing still. The only thing that is certain about its future, therefore, is uncertainty.
What will the games, the hardware, the interactions and the means of consumption look like in three, five and ten years from now? Will we still be plugging HDMI cords from a console to a TV, or will such an idea seem retro in 2020? Will we even need a specialised box to play games from at all? Perhaps the medium will follow the lead of films and music and migrate to the proverbial cloud, as we're starting to see with the likes of PlayStation Now and OnLive.
Knowing that things are going to change is the easy bit, but predicting exactly how is difficult. Brian Chambers, senior producer at Crytek, struggles with exactly this. "What I can guarantee is that things are going to change in the future, that much is obvious." Chambers tells us. "This industry has a history of shifting and moving often, so I can’t see that changing. New hardware will likely come out that looks different and changes the way we access our games, but things are changing so much in so many different ways that it's hard to predict right now what those changes are going to be precisely.
“I remember hearing five years ago that all boxed retail games were going to die out and that everything would be soon going digital. That hasn’t happened. Yes, there is more digital now, but retail isn’t dead at all.
“A lot of people I've spoken to about it believe that it is going the way of fewer platforms. Will everything eventually be streamed across the internet and land on your screen via an all-in-one box in your house? I'm not so sure about that."
Others disagree with Chambers, firmly believing that an all-in-one box is going to infiltrate our homes and render the current console ecosystem redundant. Even more dramatically, many of these same people suggest that the current console cycle will be the last of the traditional model.
The benefits for the player within such a reality are obvious. A move away from platform-holders competing for a space in your living room will eliminate the increasingly vitriolic culture of exclusive games appearing on a single system, either indefinitely or for a limited time. It would also save us from having to shell out for new systems regularly, enabling us to spend that money on content.
"This may be the last cycle ever, yes," determines Michael Pachter, Wedbush Securities' influential analyst. "The publishers can all make PC games, and people with Chromecast, Amazon Fire, Apple TV or a Roku can connect their PC to their TV wirelessly. I expect that publishers will offer a PC network for multiplayer at a lower price than $50 or $60 annually, and so gamers will have no reason to buy a console... A zero-console future is likely."
According to Pachter, one of the reasons this future has not already come to pass is that publishers are unwilling to buck tradition and work together to create a new financial model that is isolated from typical consoles. However, that's not to say that someone won't attempt to put such a plan into motion.
"It will probably be Activision to buck tradition," predicts Pachter. "The publishers will likely have to pool their resources and create a single PC network with revenue sharing based upon games played. The movie exhibitors already do this with on-screen advertising through National Cinemedia, a joint venture where exhibitors share in revenue based on eyeballs seeing ads."
Such a system would make sense on the surface, working in a way similar to Netflix in that users pay a fee to consume as much content as they desire, revenue then being split between publishers and developers. Not everyone is as adamant as Pachter, however, in thinking that this will be achieved without consoles as part of the landscape. At the least, a diverse range of hardware will be required, whether it takes a recognisable console form.
"I suspect there will be [another generation of] consoles," says Lewis Ward, gaming research director at IDC, “but it’s also true that the difference between traditional game consoles and PCs, and probably even tablets and smart TVs, over the next decade will get semantic from a gaming angle.
"At some point the difference in computing and rendering power will be quite small and it will become more about the platform behind it, social capabilities across these devices and monetisation model differences."
When it comes to the current console hardware giants throwing in the towel and moving exclusively into content creation, Ward believes such a thing is not close to happening. “It’s possible, but that’s a very long way off from my perspective. It’ll be at least 2018 before any such announcement is even conceivable."
“If Wii U continues to struggle. I could see increasing pressure on Nintendo to focus on software, but I see no reason why Sony or Microsoft would want to give up. Owning the living room is strategic for both companies. I have zero expectation that one of them will bow out of the console race in the next decade. Competition is healthy for these companies and good for gamers in many respects. Competition leads to innovation, and exciting new gaming experiences are what gamers ultimately want... and will pay for."
Stagnation and laziness is one of the concerns regarding a single-platform future for gaming, with companies relying on tried-and-tested successes rather than exploring new means of expanding and challenging the audience. Not only that, but a single system of play raises questions over ‘gate-keeping’. Who, in other words, determines what we can and cannot play?
With multiple providers competing with each other to attract as many users as possible, there is some reason to take risks and do something that the opposition is too timid to attempt.
It's these ideas that often provide us with positive change, Microsoft’s back tracking on second-hand Xbox One game sales being a recent example. Competition helps keep platform holders honest and, to an extent, fair.
"It would be simpler to have a single platform," agrees Dragon Age: Inquisition producer Cameron Lee when asked about whether he would prefer to focus on making games for a single platform. "But then you get into a situation where, if there’s a monopoly, problems are going to come up with the types of entertainment you’ll be allowed to make. It would be... very restrictive.
"I think having more options for the player is important. It’s important for us to make sure that we don’t get locked into one particular route and type of game. I think healthy competition is the best way to go. For that reason, I think consoles will continue. It’s hard to predict this kind of stuff, but I would expect them to be around for a long time to come."
From the game developers that we’ve spoken to, the message is clear: there will be more consoles after this latest cycle. Stan Just, producer on The Witcher 3, says we’re not getting any closer to a single-format future and that he gets the impression “that there are going to be more and more new platforms coming - whether that’s new consoles, Steam Machines, mobile devices or even things like Oculus Rift." BioWare Austin manager Jeff Hickman agrees: "Consoles are not going away and I think there will be more consoles after this generation... What those consoles look like is [another] matter."
That is the million-dollar question and the one that every investor, game creator and player wants to know. Those that we’ve spoken to tend agree on the generalities of what these consoles are going to be. They’re going to be access points, devices from which your games can be accessed either via an online storage or directly from a disc or personal hard drive. It’s this ability to access content that the hardware wars of the future will be won.
In this sense, Valve is taking the fight directly to the likes of Sony and Microsoft with its upcoming Steam Machines. By giving you an easier means to access your PC games from the comfort of your own couch, why would you need another home gaming device at all?
"Steam Machines are an attempt to wholesale lift the PC gaming ecosystem and set it down in the living room," continues Ward. "It’s been possible to play games on the living room's big screen using a PC for years, of course, but Valve is taking a much more unified approach to this than any company before it."
Pachter fails to see the real value in such a box, though, especially in the face of internet-connected devices capable of streaming content. "Steam could be the thing that connects PC to TV, but the truth is, something like Chromecast is entirely sufficient and a lot cheaper. I see a migration to this kind of proprietary network happening, with people playing games either from the cloud or simply from their existing PC connected to a TV over Wi-Fi."
When viewed within the framework of a future proprietary network, the idea of a Steam Machine seems archaic and different from a modern console in only the most negligible of ways. It remains a box designed to play games from a specific library, it is not an all-encompassing access point from which we can enjoy all games.
“It’s going to be increasingly more important going forwards into the future for devices to be less specialised, not more or equally specialised than they already are," explains Hickman. "We’re already seeing it now in that some of the games I own can be played on my PC, my phone and my console. That’s going to be the future and devices [will] have to adapt to take that into account, because it’s what people want."
Sony has taken steps in improving its distribution model, both with its crossbuy options and the upcoming PlayStation Now. In line with what many of those we’ve spoken to have been saying, PlayStation Now represents a streaming service that enables you to access your games from one of many devices, whether it's your PlayStation, your Sony TV or your PS Vita. While this is a step forward, it is still a far cry from what a centralised streaming and/or downloading system could potentially provide.
Through PlayStation Now, you are limited to playing Sony games through Sony products - it’s nowhere near as attractive as the multi-publisher network put forward by Pachter. Far from engaging a genuine formatless future. PlayStation Now is an attempt to strengthen the Sony formats. It is not an attempt to diversify and modernise how we consume games.
What’s most interesting is the fact that many seem to agree that moving away from specialised devices represents the future, but how we ultimately get there remains an issue - as demonstrated by the lack of publisher support for platform-agnostic game streaming. "From a development perspective, the opinions about how we access games in the future changes dramatically depending on who you talk you.’’ says Chambers. “If you could stream all of your games to the device you choose then that would be great. Ultimately, though, the designers themselves don’t really care how you get your games.
“The designer just wants to make great games, and so long as you can access them in a way that works, then that’s good enough. Same goes for creative directors, animators and other creative people in the industry. "As far as the business model goes, the question is very different,” Chambers continues. “If streaming enables you to update content quickly and regularly and get access to older games, then it becomes a different financial problem. It might be considered a good option because developing new games is expensive and if you can get people to buy old ones or update existing ones then that makes money.
“On the other hand, it might be considered a disadvantage because people might not buy new games so much. There are always going to be people that want to play new games. It’s hard to say if something like a wide-reaching streaming service would be an advantage or a disadvantage, because there are so many types of games and so many people that want to play them.”
But there’s one thing to always keep in mind, however: “The playing of good games is the most important thing, no matter how you access them,” says Chambers. ”I know what I do to access games, and I can safely assume that what I do to access them in five years is going to be different. All I hope is that the way I access them doesn't result in any detriment to the game, be that through the business model or anything else.”