Ubisoft CEO Believes Future Of Games Industry Is Streaming, With Potential To Reach 5 Billion Players In Ten Years

Maybe, but not yet. Too unstable for too many people.

Ye, this is the future. 10 years might be ambitious. It took longer than that for virtual reality to capture the mainstream imagination. Like anything, the service needs to be perfect, problem free and easy to understand. My mum plays games on the TV box. She doesn't care Beehive Bedlam was a rip off of Puzzle Bobble. So this will definitely appeal to literally everyone. Ye...I can see it. (Still prefer physical games though lol!)

He expects about 45% of the entire world population to be gamers? In 10 years from now? I doubt 10% of the world games more than 5 hours a month. I would even hazard a guess that not even 5% game more than 5 hours a month. This guy is full of it. Regardless if streaming is going to become mandatory effectively.

Not in 10 years. Too early for that.

Maybe way, WAY down the line. But that future isn't now.

Can't wait until every new game is the same level of quality as a Netflix original movie. :/

...really? The current world population is 7.6 billion. 10 years ago it was 6.7 billion. That’s what, close to a 10% increase in a decade, give or take a few percentages? In another decade then, what, 8.5, 9.5 if we’re feeling VERY generous? Let’s average that to 9 billion (which is still generous). So he’s saying out of 9 billion people, 5 billion (more than half of all people) will be streaming video games? In developed countries better raise that number, a lot of countries underdeveloped will not have half its population gaming. No, I think that’s very unrealistic, gaming may be fairly mainstream now due to things like mobile games but I highly doubt it’ll be more than half of the population. Even factoring in mobile games that may be streamed.

Can these lunatics just retire already... their greed will be their downfall. No one will stream for a long time.

Theres only one company that is perfectly set up to accomplish this, and that is Microsofts Xbox. They have the best services available and they just get better and better. Sony has a great console with more exclusives, but thats basically it, they have nothing good setup for the future imo. Microsoft is also buying out developers to add to their roster. Thats why I think the Xbox will dominate the next gen of consoles.

It’s gonna happen eventually, I agree with that. But first we’re gonna need the whole world to get Korea internet speeds before we get there.

Well I don't agree with this dude one bit.

The only type of streaming I'm ok with is from my pc to other devices. I'll run my games on my own hardware, thank you very much

As a lifelong gamer and someone without internet in their home, this future isn’t very appealing.

Streaming WILL be the death of gaming!

Data caps, high price for internet, spotty coverage, low speeds.

NOTHING good will come of this.

Funny this coming from Ubisoft, i play Rainbow Six Siege frequently and their servers go down almost everyday.

https://twitter.com/UbisoftSupport/status/1012742499583119360

They can't handle multiplayer servers properly, let alone a proper streaming service.

Sooner or later this going to happen. All the major developers want it, because it will maximize their profits. These are the guys who want GAAS for the same reason, and they don't give a damn what gamers want as long as the money keps flowing. And let's face it, the money WILL flow, because the vast majority of people are not going to stop buying games no matter what these companies do. Same as with the digital-only predictions.

When Joe Gamer sees the hot new Switchstationbox that doesn't use physical media at all but features the hottest games at the highest resolutions, his reaction is not going to be "no way dude, I stand on my principles", it's going to be "where does the line start?" Same thing with streaming. When the tech can support it, it will happen and it will take over the gaming world overnight.

Because gamers don't actually have a choice. It's not like we can make our own games. You either buy the new thing they are offering or you stop buying new games. Amd how many people here would actually stop buying games if this happened tomorrow?

I predict next gen will see digital sales overtake physical and all new releases will have a cheaper streaming alternative. Then the generation after that, it will be 100% digital with streaming being as common as digital is now. After that? Only a fool would predict.

@OorWullie I agree 100%. The changes could even happen sooner. Let's face it, we are at the mercy of a grand total of three giant corporations, all of which could decide to go digital-only in the next generation. Sony and Microsoft are already pushing VERY hard for digital. Streaming is the next step after that. And if Google do decide to get into the game, we all know they will be pushing streaming.

I could totally see the whole gaming world being streaming in ten years. I don't like the idea, but nobody cares what I like. Even if I stop buying games, I'm just a stubborn old hippie who's pretty much out of everyone's target markets already. And my kids will buy whatever is available and make fun of my old-fashioned quirks.

For me personally, not in a million years, let alone ten.

The only place it's practical to stream games online is at home, so they're competing with home consoles and PCs. There isn't a chance game streaming services are going to take off in the face of that.

Tell me Mr. Ubisoft CEO, how do you hope to get super fast internet into 5 billion homes in the next 10 years?

@ShadJV I believe population growth is generally slowing down and many countries have gone from having a positive growth where a family was on average 2+ kids to negative where for 2 adults in average the family has less than 2 children, so adults aren’t replacing themselves. As such population growth over the next decade should be slower than the past 50 years or so giving them a smaller pool.

I’d say he’s wrong in terms of numbers unless he’s including people doing crosswords every four months, but the timeframe to streaming may not be completely unrealistic given companies are already dabbling in it. Data cost and network speeds will also drastically reduce over a similar period and it’ll need to if more and more people are streaming TV and we want to have 4K as a standard for TVs.

Fixed networks is one thing but also look at the advancements in wireless. Ten years ago to the week the iPhone was launched as a 2G device. We’re now looking at 5G deployments and magnitudes faster speeds and data use. Wireless networks can be deployed and upgraded pretty rapidly and we could be at 7 or 8G by then. Satellite is getter better too rapidly and due to private investment and commercialisation of space transport getting satellites up is becoming much more affordable.

Definitely the infrastructure isn’t there today for everyone to go streaming, but in ten years it may be possibly, but doubtful whether half the world will be gaming.

Nonsense !
Why does the heck he think Streaming is the Future ?!
Streaming is NOT Cool, NOT even the future.
All the Efforts from game developers will be USELESS by streaming only because we Can't OWN the games, they FORBID us to own the games. And after 30 years or more, the games will be GONE like a Wind, Forgotten by Human Foolishness.

Dear Ubisoft CEO, We DON'T Want Streaming games, We DO Want Old Fashioned way. DON'T Forbid us to own games from developers. We better Burn our money in front of YOU rather than playing Stream games. Your idea will RUIN the Future !

Gee... Johnny Hates Jazz had already predict the Future of gaming from their song Shattered Dreams.

“The next big thing is going to be the capacity to stream our games to more screens and the ability to use all the forms of servers that will be in data centers so that we can create the ultimate game which is very alive, responsive to all the actions you do in it, remembering what you have done and anticipating units.”

And this is how the robot apocalypse begins.

When they go complete streaming, you can count me OUT of that 2.5 billion players. I’ll be learning crocheting by then, if the arthritis doesn’t hinder me.

If the future is streaming then I'm severely screwed.

No thanks.

The only thing they're gonna stream in the future is a documentary of how Ubisoft and other companies went down trying to stream games

@Smigit as I said, I was being generous, as higher numbers favor his prediction... lower numbers mean 5 billion are an even larger percentage as of right now 5 billion is nearly two thirds of people. If somehow we hit 10 billion in a decade this would be half of people, which is once again ridiculous.

Honestly, I see one of three reasons for his insane guess. 1) He’s completely unaware of the number of humans on the planet, which he really should know before he starts using the word “billions”. 2) He’s unaware of how many people are in underdeveloped countries - the most realistic explanation but still a bit concerning when he’s making public statements (and honestly doesn’t account for much, a lot of people do game but in your average developed country I wouldn’t say half of the population does). 3) He grossly overestimated the popularity of gaming - again it’s a huge demographic that is growing rapidly but the numbers are just too high here.

He’s talking about ‘potential to reach’, not actual expected number of gamers. My guess is the big boys will do this, but the Indies won’t be paying to maintain massive servers, so they’ll make physical/digital to satisfy the rest of us

@Tyranexx

Not that I'm a believer, but if all the promises of 5G come true alot of the world would be alot closer. That could conceivably fall in line with a 5-10 year prediction. 5G promises gigabit extremely low lag connections. But it'll probably be oversold and slow to get to many markets.

I mostly play retro games these days. I may never buy another console anyway.

Why is everyone so opposed to this? Change is good and it only means growth for the industry. And yeah, in ten years it could totally happen, look at Capcom streaming resident evil; it’s already happening. That’s a long time, especially in the tech industry.

It is happening sooner or later whether we like it or not (and I don't like it). It is already happening now, just look at music or video.

The age when you don't own anything and must rent/license everything is coming at an alarming pace. Even now, with digital games you don't own them, you are just renting them for as long as the servers are up.

It sucks, but the days of physical media are reaching their end.

Just to put things in perspective, Candy Crush Saga has been downloaded 2.7 billion times. So yeah, when CEOs are talking about "potential to reach", numbers in the billions are not out of the question. Of course, the number of unique users who are actually playing the game is probably an order of magnitude smaller. But these numbers aren't as outlandish as some people seem to think. I'm pretty sure the CEO of one of the world's most successful gaming companies does in fact know how many a billion is.

@Denisaur
"Why is everyone so opposed to this? Change is good and it only means growth for the industry. "
Not All the changes are good.
Some of them will lead to Abbysmal and Nightmare.

Nothing is more disgusting to me than being forced to stream a game as the only way to play it.

@Anti-Matter no change is worse

In a world where internet connections everywhere are super-stable and fast and allow for seamless streaming of high-fidelity content, I actually wouldn't mind too much. But that's not the world we live in. This would be wildly prohibitive for wide swaths of the developed world.

So I don't see this succeeding anytime in the near future.

No more special edition games then for collectors where you get a amiibo or whatever in game package

Stupid. Not for me Guillemot. When that becomes a reality u can leave my money behind. Nope. It’s not ownership as it is now but, if I wanna play offline I can still play my games when I want. Of course streaming games is inevitable, sadly.

@JasmineDragon If they had to pay a service fee to access Candy Crush I doubt it would had been downloaded so many times. The problem is infrastructure, and comparing video game streaming to anything related to downloading games is just ridiculously far off. Streaming video games requires a top notch internet connection if you want to do anything sophisticated in 1080p. If you are getting into future resolutions like 4k the requirements just keep going way up, and it is not like video where you just need to download, video games require very fast uploading if you don't want to experience terrible lag, and if you are streaming a 4k game expect your data use to skyrocket.

Basically, the internet infrastructure would need a complete massive overhaul and internet companies would need to become far more generous in order for this to work.

The day gaming goes 100% streaming is the day I’m done. I’m even wary about going 100% digital.

“Oh look, the internet is down.”

No ta.

I think the main problem with this concept is the fact that AAA video game companies will keep pushing the graphics of games to their utmost.

Streaming pixel-art games today is doable, even with 3rd-world-country-Internet speeds. But streaming 4K games? Maybe in 10 years...when AAA games are already at 8K resolution or higher.

Maybe AAA game makers can take a cue from Nintendo and focus on other things instead of graphics, but I seriously doubt they'll do that. To them higher graphics = improvement. (Not saying it isn't!)

So no, I don't think this is just an internet issue. Rather it's also the current model of AAA game design being incompatible with streaming.

Although it is a great probability in the future, I see it quite poor in these aspects:
-The copy of the game will no longer be available "when we want", in fact, they can even apply the right to remove the game if they want, which is the first point against streaming.
-When referring to "when we want", the other point comes, a great (and super stable) connection to the internet is needed, and even if the technologies of the future can be very "reliable", it is not always 100% reliable and less so certain countries.
-AAA games become very complex in all aspects (and worse if they do not optimize them), and that leads to data / memory / space, which, when sent over the internet, is likely to be overuse of bandwidth and this It is a problem that I have not seen fix in the future.

Well, even that streaming has its benefits as eliminating the "memory space" used to have it physical or digital and eliminate constant updates (especially bug fixes); still there are things (like the ones I mentioned) that, for me, I do not like the idea of using Streaming to play video games, even if it is the future that many mention.

Told you....it will be even earlier than expected... you'll see

No thanks. The minute that gaming becomes an all-streaming industry, it will be the moment that I will stop gaming on modern consoles. There are thousands upon thousands of games, released over the course of over forty years. It wouldn’t be that hard to find something to play/collect. 😁

@GrailUK
"It took longer than that for virtual reality to capture the mainstream imagination."

Virtual Reality still hasn't captured the mainstream imagination, and it likely won't anytime soon at its current price and available software.

Unfortunately this is the future.

It’s also the reason why publishers are pushing for open platforms.

Step 1- Unite the existing online community
Step 2- Bring it to more ‘screens’
Step 3- Goodbye dedicated gaming hardware

Depressing times. I can only hope the uptake isn’t as quick as the publishers want it to be, much like physical v digital.

What utter nonsense, first the world's internet infrastructure isn't even close to making digital downloads comfortable for everyone or even streaming movies in 4K for that matter, it won't be ready on just 5 years. Then we have to consider that the new wave of consoles are coming out in about 2 years and are these going to magically disappear in favour of streaming to your TV or phone?

Then the number of gamers, well at the moment there is what 80 mil PS4, 35 mil Xbox, 20ish mil Switch, 70 mil 3DS, now according to a study there are 1.8 billion gamers and 56% play on console so we seem to be missing 700 million in console sales somewhere and so we can assume that the 1.2 billion pc gamers is bollocks as well. Then we have mobile gamers who are so interested in games they can't be bothered to buy a single one or indeed something to play them on.

This is just nonsense from top to bottom, particularly the numbers and can you think of anything more horrible than an "ultimate" game made by Ubi-liveserivcesoft? Guess whta the ultimate game has probably already been made, I've been gaming for around 30 years and games haven't increased the amount of fun I get out of them.

@SomeWriter13 you didn't need the brackets, you were right in that better graphics doesn't make any improvement to enjoyment from any game. Frankly most AAA games bore the hell out of me in a way that no 8 or 16 bit game ever did

Bunch of muppets, latency if the probleem for streaming games, not possible. I would be willing to bet this tech is at least 30 years away for mainstream users.

@ShadJV Part of the plan is to up the population with a new annual Ubisoft series called "Let's Mate 2019".

HOW MANY billion? That's... nonsense. That's basically half the population...
But anyway, no. Not in 10 years. Hopefully it never happens even past then.

I think one day maybe, but we’re just not there yet technology wise, and I don’t see us being there in 10 years either - when we live in a truly globally connected world where everything is online with around 100% uptime then let’s talk

@westman98 Agreed. My underlying point was mainstream acceptance of technology is much slower than it's actual progression lol.

@carlos82 I agree with you! Without graphics as a crutch, older games had to be creative. I remember someone on NL commenting that most AAA games are essentially "interactive movies" and I share that sentiment. I enjoyed The Last of Us because of the story and graphics, but the gameplay was nowhere near as fun as Nintendo games, and it didn't warrant a repeat playthrough.

If you believe this guy, playing video games will be a pretty tedious process in the future.

This won’t work for portable systems, since you’ll need to have internet to stream a game. The Switch for example is meant to be played ”anytime, anywhere with anyone”, but there’s not internet anywhere. What if you’re playing in a forest? Or outside a restaurant? Or even in an airplane? It’s not possible.

The day gaming becomes a streaming only service is the day i quit gaming for good.

I embrase it. but i'm not a collector type.
for those people it will be hard to accept, but they are gamers and won't stop gaming.

the idea you can play via internet games in the highest setting, and be able to play almost every game, and not having al those plastic covers in my house is a great evolution.
but thats me, i like progression, always have.

great opportunities for nintendo btw, because they make great games themselfs, unlike sony and microsoft.

if streaming becomes the only option and their wont be digital or physical then i will stop with videogaming.

So.... modern MMO's have a wait queue just to log on during busy times and that is only involving 1000's of users at once yet you think you will be in position to provide service to 5 billion gamers in 10 years? Highly doubtful

@PALversusNTSC You can already buy digital. So that's not an argument for streaming.

The difference is that now you get to decide what games you own and want to play. With streaming it's the publishers deciding what games you're allowed to play. Look at Netflix. How many films disappear every month? You want to play x game? Too bad, they don't offer it anymore. Maybe another time in the future, but there's no telling when that will be.

The fortunate thing is that films are quite easy to come by through not-so-legal means, but that's a lot more difficult for games, especially when they're tied into some DRM nonsense.

@Level_Up Not that I disagree with change can be a good thing, but it's not always a good thing. I have decent internet, and you probably have decent internet, but people who live out in the sticks, don't have access to internet or maybe just can't afford internet. The idea of having ALL videogames be streamed basically says "#$%! you" to all those people. Like I'm working at GameStop currently and if there's ANY game that's online only we have to warn people before they buy it cause not everyone has internet or fast internet. While I would love a future where everyone has an easy access to it, it's getting more lost to people as time goes on.

Streaming games only?!

Ewww.

Yes. This will happen doing the next 10 years. For sure!

Why are people so much against streaming?

I mean, eventually this will be the future of gaming, no matter what you guys are saying about it now.

How many of you do still buy physical media's for movies or music? Do most of you not use streaming services like Netflix, YouTube or Spotify etc.?

Ok, so many of you are living in backward countries like United States with poor internet infrastructure. But even you will have much better internet connections in 10 years!

And for places like Scandinavia, South Korea or Japan, the Internet infrastructure is already good and ready enough for a game streaming service.

It makes a lot of sense for big companies as Google to already start investing in such a streaming service now, if they want to be the Gaming Netflix of the future. Or it could be to late for them?

When streaming will be the ”next big thing” i will probably stop playing new games and play all the old goodie rest of my life.

@NGamerCole

People who don't have any Internet doesn't have any Netflix or Spotify subscription either.

That some people can't use these services doesn't mean that they are wrong, or that they won't happen. The same goes for a Game streaming service.

As long as such a service is just a great alternative for the few with a good enough internet connections, then I can't see the problem.

And the market for physical consoles and games will not disappear over night, as long as there is enough demand for it.

Well, I guess we know in which direction Ubisoft will be going.

10 years for Nintendo to stream games seems unlikely, though. Add at least a decade for them to catch up. We don't even know that their paid online service will be worth it yet. Or even work well.

Anyway, I don't like streaming. I buy CDs, DVDs and record TV to hard drive.

Just looking around in a comment section like this makes it clear that there are too many people against streaming for it to become that popular in 10 years.

Apart from that, streaming has latency problems and I am not sure if they can ever be fully resolved, because of physical limitations.
I mean, there are even people that notice a lag when playing with a wireless controller compared to a wired one. Streaming a game inevitably has a much MUCH worse latency than that, no matter how fast your internet connection is.

And about the 5 billion number: That is just ridiculous.

I agree it's the future but I don't like it. I still don't even stream music. Just another subscription payment that benefits the provider more than the consumer.

At this rate I'll have to sign up one day though and games subscriptions will be plentiful unfortunately.

If we do get to keep the option of actually buying games and keeping them I'll be there...

Is Ubisoft going to provide high speed internet across the world to make this happen?

and here was me thining his thoughts on future whre micro transactions and making never ending grind in games to try force you buy them on top of his $60 games $30 season pass etc etc. My vision is no longer buying there games.

what people also forget about streamin services most allow you to download and watch offline as well. netflix great when you go away in this way

So you have to have fast Internet and a worthy device. So no consumer hardware manufactured by the big 3, cuts their cost dramatically, and like PC now, it's ALL on the consumer to have the right hardware. What of 3rd parties? Unless they're on the big 3's servers, they could probably be on their own servers, eliminating the pay-to-put-your-game-on-our-system profit the big 3 currently enjoys from 3rd parties. And then there's the effect on companies like GameStop and GameFly... big changes would be needed to make this all work in harmony. I guess we'll see in 10...

@Kirgo
You really think that comments here on a Nintendo site tells anything about what the generel gaming consumer wants?

I see most Nintendo players as traditionalist who likes to collect physical things, and old school stuff. I am one of those types as well. So it's no wonder that most users here are against streaming of games.

But the new young generation of gamers, that is currently growing up with iPads, YouTube and Netflix couldn't care less about all this physical stuff.

As soon as a great game streaming service arrive, that can be accessed everywhere, and is stable and without latency, a lot of people will be interested. And I know a lot of casual PS4 and X1 players who would sign up for such a service.

This is so ridiculous! Even 5 MILLION players in 10 years would surprise me. The technology isn't there, most people do not have fast enough, and stable enough internet to stream a game like a movie, it's just not the same. A movie is a one way street, data is sent to your device and you watch it. And even then, that can be slow at times and depending on your service and network traffic and so on. Gaming would need nearly lag-less input over numerous relays in both direction to and from your device. Unless this guy knows something about the direction internet tech is going, that the general public doesn't, I'd say he is going senile.

@dres "As soon as a great game streaming service arrive, that can be accessed everywhere, and is stable and without latency, " - It ain't happening any time soon. Not without broad, major, upgrades to existing internet infrastructure, and widespread adaptation of that technology in people's homes.

Get that crap outta here.

@NGamerCole I’m sure internet access / speed won’t be an issue in ten years

That population estimate is WAAAY too high.

50 million over next 5 years is a more realistic goal... 5 billion? how many of these people don't even have private bathroom

So... basically, the gaming world of the future would be a "rental-like" experience with people paying to "rent games" for a period of time, up until the provider removes the game from the service (to allocate resources to more recent, more profitable, titles).

Seriously, if gaming go down this road, I can predict a HUGE movement towards retro-gaming, much, much bigger than what we're seeing now.

The ONLY way I would see something like that work, is with a "Netflix-like" model, where you can access a BIG library of games for a monthly flat fee so low that it's a non-issue for most. Meaning, around $15 without any engagement.

Otherwise... my only reaction is... "LOL, good luck with that!". While basic access to the net is growing worldwide, ISPs are more and more putting caps, and pushing a lot against net neutrality. I mean, $60 a month for 15mbps with a 50G cap isn't going to cut it, you know...

I think those predicting a streaming future aren't realizing that things are not going to improve much, if at all, in the upcoming years.

I’m expecting a drug raid on the Ubisoft Headquarters soon.

@sashj Ironically I'd see Microsoft doing better by taking on PC gaming and Steam more than streaming. Just my opinion and I doubt they'd do anything like this.

But they've had the traditional presence in the PC arena since a LONG time by virtue of making still one of the most used OSes out there, and have hardware experience thanks to developing three generations of Xboxes now.

So by this, I mean making a console to basically go and turn PC gaming into console gaming by simply removing the distinction between "console" and "PC" AAA games that are often the same deal... except for the box they run on and saying you don't have the right box when trying to run it on the "wrong" one. Which, as the hardware of console games evolved the way they are... let's just say that except for OSes, the distinction between PCs and Consoles is incredibly slim these last few years.

Plus, as sort of already mentioned, their position in the console making business gives them a lot of visibility Valve's own Steambox never had, and by selling -retail- rather than purely digital games they could ensure to get the "on the floor, at the retail frontlines of prospective new buyers" kind of visibility that Steambox never could get

Basically, playing their card wells, it would be the natural evolution of their sudden support for "crossplatform" games/multiplayer
AND bring PC back to retail by virtue of suddenly turning PC games into "console" games. People without gaming PCs could buy the console for cheaper than building a brand new gaming PC yet still remain able to play multiplayer games with their PC owning friends/etc and so on.

With support and advertising of retailers and so on, they might even be able to put a small dent in Steam itself... especially at a time where many developers are more openly talking about how Steam's own borked algorithm and online store makes it harder to sell anything or even be seen.

And again is where one of the thing that might help a retail-PC-"console" over Steam: Retail stores are basically manual curation at the most basic level one can get. And the more digital markets become increasingly dependent on algorithms and "full open door" policy without anything close to curation... the more this might gradually start to harm the likes of Steam.

@dres Thing is, as @Heavyarms55 mentioned, such a great streaming service is just not realistic in the near future.
I even have my doubts that this will ever be something that works really well, since streaming over the internet without noticable lag is pretty much impossible no matter how good your internet connection is. Though for some games that are not fast paced it might be just lag free enough to be playable at some point.

Apart from that, we are talking about a prediction of 5 billion players using streaming in 10 years, for this number to be even remotely reached it is not enough to just get the new younger generation on board, it would have to be everyone no matter what kind of gamer (not even mentioning the fact that this amount of people would need to have a great internet connection in the first place...). With the amount of Nintendo gamers being against it over here it already seems impossible to me. That is what I meaned to say.

Besides, I do know a lot of ps/xbox/pc gamers as well, that do not care about streaming. Me kinda included, since I am just as much of a pc gamer as I am Nintendo gamer.

There isn't even 5 billion people on the planet that are interested in videogames, sure it is a mainstream hobby nowadays but not THAT mainstream.

@Dpishere I am pretty sure this guy is going senile at this point.

@JayJ And I believe you, I recall that a few E3's ago he was struggling to remember his lines, it made for a very awkward presentation.

This is what you get when a very optimistic, excitable person is shown a new tech concept that they don’t really understand. I don’t fault the guy for being excited about the potential of the concept, but his optimism doesn’t mesh with the real state of this tech right now. I do think streaming could be PART of the future of gaming, but I don’t think it’s THE future. But right now, the capability and infrastructure just aren’t there, and it’s not realistic to expect that to change in the next five to ten years.

Yuck!

No way I'm falling for this trickery. Hasn't anyone watched "Trailorpark Billionaires?" This is the same thing for gamers. Pay forever, have your old saves/games retired abruptly for the new at any time to save server space. Ubisoft and EA are very dirty. Unlike Miyamoto, they only care about getting rich; not making people happy.

@gloom Exactly, streaming is just a greedy way to take away ownership, and charge forever.

I don't think anyone is really thinking about the fact that you will have to pay for every game you have forever. Want to play Chrono Trigger, pay 20-60 US dollar per month, or it will go poof. You can never download, keep, and play at will from a stream. This is a gaming abomination.

5g breaks the back of speed and latency issues in the next 4 years for true game streaming. This doesn't require fibre to the premisses, a slow and expensive process to roll out, just an increased mobile network.

@dres I'm totally fine with the idea of streaming, but not 100% streaming. Even though we have things like Hulu, Netflix, etc, people are still buying DVDs and Blurays despite this. I would love for a future where everyone has good internet, but as long as it doesn't go 100% streaming that's fine. Though I'd still rather buy digital than stream games at that point if we had no physical games anymore.

He's right, the future IS streaming, just like movies and music went streaming.

When that transition will happen though... that's another thing entirely. It won't happen until they can figure out a way for it to be so lag free you can hardly tell the difference between playing a hard copy. Once we have that, everyone will stream.

Of course there will always be a market for actual hardware, predominately with portable gaming which cannot access reliable Internet to stream. And since Nintendo's audience has always been on handheld not to mention the fact they are not a forward company as far is evolving with modern times, it's safe to assume Nintendo will always be making hardware and real, tangible games to be played on the platform.

@Smigit the problem with wireless is... No matter what you do, it's still radio. It's still incredibly latent. And there more congestion at any one node still drops packets like crazy and add latency. Worse,us isps are doubling down in the future if broadband being wireless and abandoning hard lines more and more. Plus ipv6 is a broken mess. So most carriers use ip ipv4 and use carrier nat which doesn't play well with the upload part of gaming.

Here's the thing.... Most use of the internet will work just fine that way. In fact only gaming and VoIP don't work out well that way. So the public will begin happy with wire free internet, and it'll take over as standard. But the more we get into wireless as standard, the less gaming and streaming will be compatible with internet 3.0. radio and gaming can't physically mix well. These guys are behind the curve and think they are ahead. And the internet infrastructure isn't going to shape itself around what 3or4 game publishers would like.

@ConanLives range, interference, congestion, blind spots. And.... Radio is radio. The greater the distance in feet the greater the latency. On the up side 5g has such horrible range you might not get too latent. In the down side more people will be in the dead spots , slow spots, spotty contention spots than good spots. It will be designed for outdoor use for quite some time...4g will be the indoor fallback with lower frequencies. 5g barely penetrates paper in that spectrum!

@Jeaz while it's true that we can't predict the future, there is precedent. Even when the U.S. Congress allocated $650 million in 1991 for research on the National Automated Highway System, 27 years later autonomous cars are still just prototypes.

I think we are overestimating how fast governments implement improvements to infrastructure. Many third world countries only have dial up internet, and even then it doesn't cover the entire nation. Despite the United Nations declaring Internet as a Basic Human Right, plenty of places still don't have internet. And you need 5 billion for this CEO's prediction to be true.

It would take more than a decade to catch up to current internet speeds, which are barely capable of 4K streaming, much less 8K (which you know will be what Ubisoft and other AAA developers will be pushing in 10 years. Imagine machines that run 8K, and then the infrastructure required to stream 8K games...)

It's one thing for developers to create content for streaming, it's another for infrastructure to exist to support that platform to the point where the developers can sell games exclusively through streaming. @Mathieu_B has a point. Developers can't shell out the cash to build this infrastructure, nor do they have the clout and power to do so, anyway. Can you imagine Ubisoft pushing the Chinese government to spend money to improve internet speeds?

Yes we already have Capcom selling a game for streaming (same goes for Phantasy Star) but they'll remain outliers until developers can convince governments all over the world to implement infrastructure, and even then it may be too expensive to afford.

Can you imagine streaming a game for $59.99 per month? How many games can we afford at that price? What if they were at $100 per month, per game? How many would afford it, and how would that affect Ubisoft's earnings? Would 5 billion people really subscribe and stay subscribed? That's more than half the world population.

It might also be a generational issue. Would current gamers be gone in 10 years? I know I'll still be around buying games (even though I'm already quite old for a gamer). Can they convince old school gamers to stop buying physical or single-download games in favor of paid streaming? If not, can they ignore that market? Is it wise to ignore that market?

Ultimately, this is coming from a CEO who may already be retired by the time 2028 rolls around, so I'm not sure if Ubisoft will still be thinking of streaming by then.

@NEStalgia fantastic points!

@Fight_Teza_Fight love how you squeezed third party cross-play in there in your thinly veiled defence of your favourite black box. Let it be said again just in case you understand it: there is literally no reason for games like FIFA, Fortnite, Minecraft, etc. to limit themselves to one platform. If you want to play by yourself and your single platform buddies, fine. You don't get to impose this to the rest of us though.

@dres make it work fluidly without latency, interruption, disconnection, and make it work that way for everybody that can currently play games, and make it $10 a month to play absolutely every game available to play like Netflix and Spotify, and certainly i and everybody else will be first in line to subscribe. We can then also dine on hickory roasted flying pig and ice cream from the river styx.

Those kids like streaming because it's not different from watching a local movie and costs next to nothing for access to everything. Gaming won't play equally, and will surely cost more and it be provided by provider and publisher like cable tv. Plus people are still buying digital music and movies though those streaming services, with ads, links, and marketing in the streaming interface encouraging purchase. Most still stream the movie purchase but movie streaming and music is buffered. Music usually downloads the whole song, and your own local hardware actually "renders"it. More like game pass. Movies either buffer minutes ahead (like downloading it locally) or do what YouTube does and heavily heavily heavily compress video so is so small only a few seconds buffer is needed. But the output doesn't match switch let alone ps5. Games can't buffer at all. If you're not on fiber it can't work well. If you're on fiber it still has a50,50 chance depending on where the data center is. And fiber rollouts are slowing dramatically. This is born in the business suite by people who don't understand the hurdles and rely on on pie in the sky projections. They are hoping the infrastructure will be in place without understanding the business of the companies that would have to make it so. An hour in Comcast tower would change mr. Guillemots projections 180 degrees.

@Jeaz latency over 4g is ok depending on tower distance, but still not suitable for gaming unless you're right next to a tower. You may be, but gaming can't rely on"on this street it's fine and in that street it lags, so if you want to game, move"

@Jeaz unfortunately no, as it isn't available where I am, which underlies the problem I stated. 3G is still standard in 70% of the country, and most people don't even have a smart phone outside of major cities (though this is changing rapidly thanks to the glut of cheap Asian android phones).
4G has begun rolling out, and 5G is coming next year. Still, 4G is very spotty and suffers from latency issues, even with my Note 8. Heck, I struggle to run Uber at times.
While my phone can connect to 5G, I doubt the mid-range Chinese smart phones can, and the smart phone industry is trending downwards as people are upgrading less often. (I myself will probably stick with my Note 8 for at least 5 years, as I did with the Note 3.)
Fiber has begun rolling out here, (I'm using it now). However, less than 42% of the population has access to it. Maybe this will improve in 10 years, but conservative estimates show a target of 60% by 2025.
I'm really impressed whenever I work in other countries, as their internet speeds are much better, but given how uneven development has been in the region, I have serious doubts about reaching the necessary speeds and consistency required for streaming as the primary means of playing games. It will definitely be an option, especially if the Google rumors are true, but if you are being conservative, it will just be one of many options.

Even if Yves is really a nice man (I met him some years ago) I have to say that he's talking only as a CEO !

I mean what he explain is just THE ULTIMATE DREAM for a big gaming company... It's about millions of €/$ saved on each game they will put on the market...

Problem number 1 : you can forget the radio frequencies my dear Yves... ^^

Problem number 2 : there are A LOT OF places in the world where you don't have any connections or so bad connections that it's like not having one.

Problem number 3 : people like me WILL NEVER PAY for a service like that. You want to kill video games, you want to destroy creativity, you want to chop the head off small indies, alright pay for a service like that...

I WILL NEVER PAY FOR THAT ! N E V E R !

@SomeWriter13 Your comment got me thinking of some kind of Netflix service for games, but where each publisher has their own service and charges 100$ or so per month. Just look at what's happening now with streaming for shows and movies, and the number of services that exist: Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, and more. Plus Disney and DC have theirs coming. Now imagine that with video game publishers. It would be a nightmare.

@Mathieu_B what's so scary about your scenario is that it isn't farfetched. Man, that would completely turn me off from those companies if they changed their business model to that exclusively.

@SomeWriter13 You and me both. It's like when people were complaining so much about getting bundles of channels from cable companies when they just wanted to watch a few of them. Then came along Netflix. It's a classic example of be careful what you wish for. Now we are on the verge of being flooded by Netflix clones, and if Ubisoft is to be believed this could be coming to video games in a future near you.

@Mathieu_B at the very least I am hoping market forces come into play. As long as there is demand for the current model, and other companies stick to it, Ubisoft (and other companies looking into streaming) will continue supporting physical and full download options instead of going full streaming.