I wrote this on Facebook after a friend and I had a discussion, that much I mention in the next paragraph or two. But I know a lot of us are gamers of many types. This is about Video Gaming, and I want your opinions on this.
___________________________________________________________________________
Foreward: This is not about Console VS. PC as a subject. This is about gaming and a hypothetical evolution/development of it.
___________________________________________________________________________
Foreward: This is not about Console VS. PC as a subject. This is about gaming and a hypothetical evolution/development of it.
It is my personal belief that console gaming will not survive past 2025 as anything more than a trek in nostalgia, as PCs will become more easily accessible, and polygon based gaming will plateau- if it has not already. Even now, a well textured pipeline is hard to discern from a well modeled pipeline from a certain distance, which is perfectly acceptable in most fields of gameplay.
This idea came from a discussion my buddy and I were having over Skype. From how video games are marketed, and how they should be. The 80s and 90s, with the advent of the home console, were a colorful time. We had mascots like Sonic and Mario, and kids clamored for these things, adults at the time not entirely taken with gaming, but sometimes checking it out in passing.
This period solidified the concept that games were for children, and every time you hear about gaming in the news, you always hear, "Sex, Violence, Children" in conjunction with each other.
In 2007, when Mass Effect hit news channels with its barely softcore porn scenes, Boomers and Generation X threw their hands in the air. "But the children!". What they failed to realize however is that gaming had advanced faster than they, and that not all games are marketed to children. In fact, few are honestly marketed to just young children.
The home console has been the mainstay of gaming for about twenty years. (Sorry PC, it's true.). However, with the abject failure thus far of the XBOX One, under the radar flight for the most part of the Wii U (And an early release that did in several ways, hurt it.), and the PS4 continuing the status quo, alongside polygon based gaming looking like it's near topping out, we're about to witness something interesting within this decade, I believe.
I believe personally, that the reign of the home console, will come to an end. But it will not be PC's doing, oh no. It'll be a newer device's doing. One so easy, children can use it. One so cheap in comparison, one seeing increasingly wide usage, and one that is advancing faster than every other platform on the market...
Tablets.
Tablet gaming. Accessible and simple to all- currently plagued by Free to Play games with little content in contrast to its far too plentiful paywalls, and a lot of fairly simple all but flash games, Tablet gaming does not look very significant at the moment. Lest you look closer.
Consoles, I truly believe, will not survive or make it to 2025. This console generation might -actually- be the last. On top of this, processing power is soon to become irrelevant, with video game streaming becoming a growing concept. Even home computers will not necessarily have to be very powerful if streaming is what you desire. With the advent of Google Fiber, and Fiber-Optic cables spreading in influence, The United States- arguably the largest consumer of Video Games, will have a strong infratructure for internet as early as 2025-8, while not wholesale replacing cable, but definitely a gradual spread that will increase in momentum, should Google's internet reign continue and the demand become stronger.
That is not a tirade, however. That is relevant. When tablets and PCs can stream games as powerful as star citizen, who needs consoles? Who even needs powerful PCs? Hardcore gamers like me, and many of my friends, sure. We like to own copies of our content of course. But hardcore gamers will not ever be the market again, and we have to accept this. Casual gamers have and will remain the dominant one, because they offer the most money. Or is that even true?
Games like Candy Crush, Angry Birds, and Minecraft, the latter of which only barely comparable, dominate the market. They're accessible on almost every system. But what about when Halo, Call of Duty, X-Wing, Star Citizen, and so on, are accessible on tablets thanks to streaming? What about when the internet infrastructures of Japan, The United States, The United Kingdom, and so on, can support every kind of game way play today on specialized devices, through simple, universal devices?
Something amazing happens. That's what. The line between Casual and Hardcore gamer is blurred yet remains visible. Hardcores will often own fairly powerful PCs and likely tablets alike, but casuals will also own PCs and tablets. About the only disparity will be the -type- of tools we purchase. Hardcores are less numerous, but will purchase powerful towers or the parts to build them, and perhaps even make their own tablets, as open source handheld devices are just around the corner, while casuals will purchase all-in-ones and low end tablets, because they do not need the processing power, they do not have the gaming drive, and just want a diversion, and that's perfectly fine.
But what was that about Open Source devices? For years, new smartphones have been coming out, and even more recently, there have been attempts to make the modular computer tower, a beautiful, wonderful concept that makes PCs far more easily accessible and less daunting to the average person to build. Some of these modular PCs are even fairly small, while powerful. But what's the latest and greatest open source device that is actually very likely to come to fruition?
PhoneBloks. To me, one of the most beautiful innovations in handheld device technology. Not from an aesthetic point of view, but from what it means for the market. The backing it received. The proof of concept. The mere idea that we can have a modular phone personalized specifically for our needs is utterly groundbreaking, while perfectly common sense. Now, imagine an open source tablet. The base, the screen, the processor... Imagine this technology applied to Tablets. Suddenly, you have a tablet base that can be both cheap and casual, or expensive, powerful, and hardcore.
And then, apply it to PCs. Apply it to something far larger, far more well known. Need a new processor? There's one ready for you to install, all you need to do is buy it and put it on the base. There's your new powerful Intel 812 Octocore processor right there.
So what does all of this mean?
Casual VS. Hardcore does not die, but it does dim. In time we'll be using the same platforms. In time, our infrastructure will be strong enough thanks to Google. In time, we'll be swapping out parts rather than entire units. In time, consoles will die and PCs, Tablets, will become the mainstay of gaming.
In time, gaming will change, and it won't take very long. With it, how it is marketed, will have to change. When the home console dies, so does the idea that they are simply for children soon after, when you see someone playing Crysis 5 in the subway on their Tablet, when you see markets filled with less handheld and dresser-top consoles, and more parts and devices meant to be added on. The marketing will change because the image will change- because marketing is all about what things appear to be.
And as early as 2025, gaming will be less about the children, the XBOXs and Playstations, and less about the companies pushing their individual products, competing.
And more about us. More about the game. More about what gaming is, what it means to us as people, what it means socially, interpersonally. the same devices you read books on, you watch movies on, you will soon be able to play any single game on.
And when that happens, gaming as we know it will change.
And I think it will change, one hundred percent, for the better.
___________________________________________________________________________
Hope that wasn't overbearingly lengthy. Do comment.
___________________________________________________________________________
Hope that wasn't overbearingly lengthy. Do comment.
