Depending on when the next generation truly arrives (not Nintendo's next console, b/c tech wise they're basically playing catch-up to the HD twins), will determine how download focused the console is. Internet will be common enough, and speeds will be high enough in 10 years for download-only to be a possibility.
I'd imagine the next generation will retain Blu-Ray/HD-DVD capability for backwards compatibility, people who have blu-ray movie collections (Sony probably doesn't want to abandon them completely next gen), and people who don't have fast enough internet to download top of the line games (many people still have dial up in the US now, for example). I bet probably ALL new releases will be available for download off the PSN Store/Xbox Live with their next-gen consoles, even if physical media is still being produced. The next-next-gen will certainly be download only though.
The only place cartridges will have is as extra memory to store games. They'll be distributed digitally.
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Do you guys think BluRay will last, or will fail like the old LaserDiscs ? The only people i know who watch bluray movies are PS3 owners, even Move marketing remembers the consumer of Bluray.
Say what? Blu Ray players are fairly popular as far as I know. And people interested in BR movies should just spring for a dedicated player. The PS3 is a serviceable BR player but the prices of far superior Blu Ray machines have fallen.
No, it was more then that. First of all Cartidges back then were expensive and had very small space in comparison. 8GB now seems to be all that is needed and technology has made cartidges much more cheaper and hold even more space. Also blu-ray is the same as cartidges for the N64, an expensive medium with no real advantages. It also didnt help Nintendo, similair to Early PS3 sony, that Nintendo pretty much screwed over third parties and there were very few ports. Also Sony bought most of the third parties too.
Bolded the part where I disagree: 1. If cartridges were expensive back then, then why didn't Nintendo or Sega use Laserdisc as a console back in the fourth generation? Furthermore, prices were expensive back then as well, yet it didn't really affect either company. NEC used cards and aside from Japan, the TurboGrafx-16 did not get far.
2. Really? Blu-Ray, as I said before, can hold up to 25 GB, which is a lot of space for a game and it allows more contents to be put on a movie. Both games and movies benefit from this. I can see all three gaming system next gen using it.
also, if Blu-Ray can hold up to 25GB, sure (idk, haven't researched it myself), but when you look at an SD card holding up to 32GB with lower loading times and no worrying about a drive wearing out or not being able to read it or anything, you start to see how maybe cartridges could be a possibility.
i don't really care either way, myself. i've got a Wii and i've got a DS, and i can keep track of both sets of games just fine. :3
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not to mention that LaserDiscs have problems with warping if stored improperly D:
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Laserdiscs didnt offer any real advantage over the current technologies, pretty much like the N64 cartridges (except for loadings) But now Cartridges can store more data than discs, have quality audio and video, and faster loadings (and no need to 30min. game installing on hard drives)
But they did have an advantage. It's just that the disadvantages outweighed the advantages.
No, because within ten years everything will be downloadable.
I doubt that. There are still people out there like me who prefer a hard copy of a game to a downloadable one.
Industry will make it, not the users. In ten years, surely the internet conections can be sou fast and stable that a download-only console could be possible and ignoring people that love old-fashiones cartridges.
I still doubt that. Thats like saying they will get rid of paper and metal money and replace it with cards. While most people now adays use ATM and credit cards some people still use cash due to the fact that they cant get an ATM/credit card for various reasons. The same thing will apply to digital media. There are some people out there that dont have an internet connection for whatever reason. I can go into several such as lack of an IPS, cost for them, bad connections where they live etc. so because of that there will still be hard copies of media.
I mean come on do you think Nintendo for example is going to want to lose all that money from people who dont have an internet connection? I dont think so. Alot of people out there dont have an internet connection you would be surprise at the number I know I was.
You're basing that on today's environment though. 10-20 years from now an Internet connection will be as common as a landline phone was 20 years ago. Just look at how many more people have an Internet connection now than 1996. Not only that, Internet connections will only get better and better and hard drives on consoles will get bigger and bigger.
Also, your comparison to physical money is not a valid comparison, because while most people do use debit cards instead of physical cash, the balance on the debit card is backed up by physical cash in the bank (at least in theory). The holder of the debit card could, at any time, go to the bank and withdrawl their balance in physical money. I think a better comparison would be casette tapes. I bet in the 80's some people thought they were here to stay, but now you can't buy them anywhere. Like it or not digital downloads will become more and more popular in the future. While I can't say for certain that physical copies of games will go extinct, the market will shrink. There's just no way around it.
You have a valid point there and that might be true the way internet is going. Still I dont see them ever getting rid of hard material such as CDs or DVDs. There will always be some form of hard copy. And yes while the cassette tape did go the way of the dinosaur, cassette tapes arent a good example either cause the media didnt go digital totally we can still buy music on CDs.
The point I am making is that there will still be some form of disc, cartridge, cassette or whatever they want to call it cause some people will not do the digital thing or cant. It might shrink I agree but I dont think it will ever go away.
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All new consoles should have sleek Mac like designs and have around twenty cartridge slots, the size of a DS cartridge, and yo can store multiple games at once. The entire marketing campaign would focus on how cool it looks and justify over pricing just because its sleek. Its about time for Nintendo to follow Apple's techniques.
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They could always go for Custom SD cards or thumb drives. SDHC or SDXC would solve a lot of problems with space but the physical card is way more expensive then a disc. I could see Nintendo doing a custom blu-ray/hd-dvd type like disc that is changed from the standard enough to avoid paying royalties. They did that with the GameCube. Custom built mini dvds that were changed enough to avoid the DVD Consortium. Discs are cheap.
It still comes down to disc or digital and that is dependent on what is cheaper.
OK... there is a lot of inaccurate information in the thread. I will clarify all this information.
A single layered Blu Ray can hold 25gb A dual layered Blu Ray can hold 50gb BDXL disc can hold up to 128gb
The Mini Blu Ray disc are rated at single layer 7.8 and dual layered 15.6
Cartridges are not even an option for HD Next Gen Consoles when Gran Turismo 5 on PS3 sits at 20gb on the disc and a 6gb install to the systems HD just to run properly. The XBOX 360 is becoming second to the PS3 not in power, but in the disc itself. Mass Effect 2 and Mass Effect 3 aren't consider to be the ultimate editions on PS3 (stated by Bioware themselves) because of the PS3 systems power, but because of the BD disc. Cartridges on HD home consoles are a thing of the past and will remain that way.
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Hey guys - listen to the dude talking about digital downloads. That's where the industry - along with CDs, Movies, books and all kinds of other things are going.
And it's a good thing too. We're cramming ourselves into smaller and smaller places in cities, so we don't have the room for all that physical stuff any longer. Internet connections are getting to the point where 10 GBs are fine. Storage is getting cheaper and better quality.
And digital downloadable games are cheaper to make, and benefit start-ups better, than retail games.
There will be a threshhold where the number of people who would perfer physical copies of games to those happy to download games will tip in favour of the latter. Once that happens, sorry you dinosaurs you, but the industry will leave you behind.
Very rarely do companies make good business (or even want to try) out of providing for a minority.
I think we're some ways off from digital downloads - at least for larger games. I have a 15Mb connection and it can easily take a couple of hours to download a retail game release of 2-3GB (legit purchase in case folk are wondering). Undoubtedly this is where we're heading. I know my days of buying packaged media for my Mac are over. Given the low price of DVD though, I'm not interested in film downloads: why should I pay £7 for a film when I can buy it retail for less than a fiver? Especially with regards to tv shows where it's even more expensive!
I can see several advantages to console makers for going to SD card:
1. A kiosk model for game distribution where the user supplies the memory card or buys it at the point of sale. Reduces floor space required for product for the retailer whilst potentially eliminating/reducing that pesky resale market that's so annoying the publishers these days.
2. SD cards will be more expensive per unit than optical media - excuse to raise prices
3. The SD card spec does provide for copy protection ("S" stands for "Secure")
4. Less wear-and-tear on the machines = less returns due to optical drive issues
With regards to backwards compatibility you could easily have an external add-on for those - again, something else to sell to the consumer like, say, white Gamecube controllers with longer cords?
@Sean Aaron... sadly I think the retailer will be eliminated entirely. What would be the use for them anyways when you just download it straight offline. Steam is a perfect example and the prices are ridiculous at what they can sell games for. I do think digital download is the future, just for the next ten years of so, I think its Blu Ray.
Just my opinion though, and that is because of what the industry itself is doing with pushing harder into Blu Ray.
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It is going to be Blu-Ray at some point but DVD is going to be around for a very long time. Kinda like how CDs still have life in them. I think Digital is going to grow along side Blu-ray until Blu-ray fades away. When you have services like Netflix, Last.fm, Hulu, Steam, iTunes, XBox Live Market place, Ect. and we see things like block buster filing for chapter 11 or things like the PC games section shrink in store or the fact that most of us who baught our cds rip them to our computer to store with our digital library and throw our cds into storage we can it is slowly shifting.
Blu-ray is the last major format and digital cuts the manufacturing, shipping, distribution and retail middleman. The cost still comes down to bandwidth and the ISP are going to keep milking that for a long time. Yes 15 mbps connections are common but think about this. The speed has increased by 5x in the past decade. most computer have increased speed by a larger factor. Docsis 3 has been around for years and is capable of 152 mbps and up. We are Limited to ISP's and back bones.
I also have too many Discs. I have 6 binders for DVDs alone and a few boxes of cases in my basement. I'm all for digital. The trading in factor does not matter to me since I don't trade in.
At the end of the day it's not individual consumer tastes that will decide which wins in a physical v. digital distribution battle, because the userbase of digital download users is increasing. Eventually, it will become more profitable to release even a blockbuster game via digital (and perhaps lose a few who want a physical copy), because catering to that few would mean a world of otherwise unnecessary costs in manufacturing and distribution.
We're starting to see this happening already. Why are game manuals either being stripped to 3-4 pages, or removed entirely? Because publishers are looking to strip expenses out from manufacturing and distribution.
Is it going to happen this year? No. But if you're still playing new games 10 years from now, I'm willing to bet good money you'll be playing digitally downloaded ones.
@Sean Aaron... sadly I think the retailer will be eliminated entirely. What would be the use for them anyways when you just download it straight offline. Steam is a perfect example and the prices are ridiculous at what they can sell games for. I do think digital download is the future, just for the next ten years of so, I think its Blu Ray.
Just my opinion though, and that is because of what the industry itself is doing with pushing harder into Blu Ray.
I think it's possible, but it won't be abrupt; you're unlikely to see a console-maker take a big leap like that and risk alienating their biggest distribution channel in case it doesn't pan out. Besides which I think there will be a segment of the population that prefers going to a shop or just for the odd impulse buy (I'm sure a good chunk of game sales in malls aren't planned purchases). It may not big segment, but one that they're not going to bypass unless they see retail sales completely dry up. After all, Amazon still hasn't killed off all the book shops and record stores; everyone doesn't buy goods online. I agree all games may end up being downloads; that doesn't mean they'll exclusively be downloaded in people's homes.
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Topic: Should next-gen consoles go back to cartridges?
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