It’s no secret that the gaming world has changed dramatically these past few years. The rise of smartphones has put a major dent in the sales of handhelds, while digital distribution and free-to-play models for online games has changed the way developers and publishers can monetize their titles and reach new audiences.
With the recent trends in the industry combined with the extended life cyles of current generation consoles, it may not be so much of a surprise that NVIDIA’s Phil Eisler believes the next generation of consoles will be the last.
Speaking to Venture Beat, Eisler – NVIDIA’s general manager of GeForce Grid Cloud Gaming – speaks out of his belief that consoles will soon come to an end. His exact words being “they say this is the last console, and I am certainly a believer in that.” Eisler believes consoles will soon be replaced by a relatively young distribution model: Cloud Gaming, which Eisler believes will “get better every year.”
Even as Cloud gaming continues to improve, there is one noticeable barrier standing in the way: bandwidth restraints. Users are generally subjected to bandwidth limits put in place by service providers. Aside from lining the pockets of ISPs, bandwidth restrictions do nothing but limit how much a consumer can use their internet. However, Eisler doesn’t think this is going to be much of an issue going forward:
“Bandwidth is going up. The cost of server rooms is going down. We’re bringing latency down. The experience will just get better and better every year, to the point where I think it will become the predominant way that people play games.”
Skeptics will also make mention of latency, which can hamper the experience of Cloud gaming – a service dependent on one’s internet connection. According to Eisler, many gamers are already used to playing with latency, the kind that’s created by most HDTV’s. By improving the hardware on the server side, Cloud gaming companies will be able to mask the network lag.
“Our monitors that we work with today are under 10 milliseconds of latency. We think that, working with smart TV manufacturers, we’ll be able to cut that time down. It’s going to be possible very shortly to have a cloud-rendered experience that has lower latency than the current console plus standard television experience.”
Cloud gaming has become a popular sensation in recent years. For the longest time OnLive was at the forefront of the movement, before financial troubles placed the company on the brink of death. OnLive’s current situation shouldn’t be taken as a sign of the future of cloud gaming however, as competitor Gaikai was recently bought by Sony, with founder David Perry expressing his interest in bringing the service to Sony’s next console.
As it stands, the problem with Eisler’s statements is that it alludes to a future where the physical medium is dead. Eisler, referring to rumors that the PS4 will use Blu-Ray for 4K resolution, claims that no one wants to carry around discs anymore. While it’s true that digital is a convenient alternative, I’m certainly not the only gamer who wants to keep owning discs, let alone enjoys the feeling that comes with opening a new console. If Cloud gaming does find the prominence Eisler believes it will, then it better be as an alternative to the physical format.
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Follow me on Twitter @AnthonyMole.
Source: Venture Beat
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Besides the fact i do not have internet other than on my phone to get digital games, I love the way opening a new game makes me feel and I personally like being able to open my cabinet and seeing all my games at a glance. If digital is the future then i see no reason to advance.
This is why old generations need to die
How many people in the United States have broadband? According to the broadband bible 1 and 10 Americans can’t get internet that would let them view pictures. Two thirds of schools have Internet that can barley surf the web let alone view something like youtube.
Only 4% of libraries have connections speeds that are faster than 25 megabits. Only 36% of Americans have access to wireless connections that are fast enough to be considered fourth generation, with download speeds of at least 6 megabits per second. 28% of Americans do not use the Internet at all.
There are 239,893,600 broadband users worldwide according to ITU. The worldwide part should really be in italics and bold. Since there are only 6.5 billion people on this planet. According to Blizzard less than 40% of people that bought Diablo 2 ever took it online.
7.1 billion more likely. We passed the 7 Billion mark a few yers ago.
well… thats a loaded statement
Old generations need to die because some gamers happen to be nostalgic and actually prefer owning some hardware that can run independently of a network? Sir, that is the least cogent thing I’ve read all day. No worries though- a bit of formal education should help that issue out for you.
Bro im 18, and i still prefer my own hardware, age has nothing to do with it.
Blake, that is a stupid comment. Many people, while they enjoy technological advancement, still want to have common sense and simplicity as options.
Think before you post…if at all possible.
you are a retard
I’ll always prefer having the physical disc and case. There’s nothing like getting a new game, tearing off the plastic, feeling the smooth shiny case, and smelling the fresh scent of plastic and paper. Mmmmm…
Amen!
This is what I’m all about. I refuse to pay for air.
But you’re not paying for air; you’re paying for clouds!
…sorry. :p
I used to have this same opinion, but Steam changed my view on digital purchases and now I actually prefer it.
I like how this article starts out strong and then crumbles apart at the end as the writer’s own bias comes in and destroys the message.
The writer isn’t allowed to give his opinion? It isn’t like it’s an uncommon one either.
I agree, it was really unnecessary to interject his own opinions. Game Rant, act like a journalism site and report the news, and if you have opinions, post them in the comment section rather than bulking your articles with trash.
Facts plus opinion makes a great article. If you’re saving opinions until the end of an article, I think it’s the perfect place, since you’ve been able to already absorb the facts.
You want copy & paste news only? Then there’s no point of 95% of the sites.
We offer background, analysis, insight and opinion, hence articles worth reading.
The only injection of opinion was the last sentence. I fail to see this “bulk” you are referencing. Trololololololol
Blake and Unbuild…
You DO realize you’re on a site called GameRANT, right???
Methinks a dictionary might serve you well…for Blake, believe it or not, you can get those on- or OFFline.
@ Blake Black & UnbuildTheGame
I like reading writers’ opinions in articles. They usually give you something to think about, and their opinions are often lie with the majority. Without opinion, it’s like a computer generating all the words. Writers’ opinions give articles character.
Sooo… I see you on pretty much every article in the comments section, do you work at GR or do you just comment a lot? Serious question btw, not just Internet troll asshole.
I just comment a lot.
Explain. Please. How was the message destroyed?
I keep hearing that certain things in the gaming industry are dead or dying off. Isn’t Call of Duty the best selling media of all time? One billion dollars in sixteen days compared to Avatars one billion in seventeen days. Blizzard said that Diablo 3 was the fastest selling rpg (I still need some proof to believe that one) on the pc. Haven’t major companies told stockholders about record-breaking income in the last few years?
This is starting to sound like Medicare were one side says the other is going to take it away but hasn’t even tried to do that in the last forty years.
I do like owning physical copies of my media. I even have a nice little blu ray collection going. I just don’t think the vast majority of gamers will care if it’s all cloud-based if the experience is the same or better than what it is currently with physical media.
I have been hearing the whole shenanigans with digital copies for a while now. People saying its better and some saying it sucks bad. Well I hate to be biased and then i don’t but my decision is with physical copies just like magazines. Why the hell would you want to buy a game off the internet. Why don’t you want to have the physical just in case something bad happens? I mean this PlayStation Network you know the company that got hacked for like the longest time! Also the company who has trouble with DLC (and still does lol sorry psn users!) and that is SKYRIM! i mean i can’t take them serious. That this is gonna be the best idea for them on making a console basically made for digital and not be physical? My final thoughts is To each is own but this s*** is not gonna fly with me so whatever buy your piece of s*** digital copy and be a robot of the new order.Ill probley end up like NEO finding out the matrix and I will shut out from today’s piece crap technology control See you after the cycle returns i am gonna go hoard older consoles and go buy awesome hard copies to store for the Armageddon!Or just move to Colorado or California and get me a medical card!
I just dont see the next gen being the last. I do think changes are needed though.
I highly doubt this. This isn’t going to happen until 30 MBPS internet is available worldwide, and even then I doubt it’ll work.
I mean, there are these things called “data allowances” that a ton of people seem to have. Not to mention that games are going to keep getting bigger and bigger to the point that downloading games is going to take ages.
That, and I think a great majority of gamers prefer physical cartridges/cds/boxes/manuals/etc over digital. Besides…can’t get all that sweet Collectors Edition statue stuff digitally.
uhhm idk about everyone else, but i like owning my own console and computer and stuff…i’m fine with digital distribution, but i still want my own console to play on, not some company side computer doing everything…
“…I’m certainly not the only gamer who wants to keep owning discs, let alone enjoys the feeling that comes with opening a new console.”
However, many also felt the same way with CD’s & music and look how that has gone with people. There’s a new generation coming who is very much used to getting things through games through an online store as well as downloading music, tv shows, movies and other media online.
That said, while I do agree the future of server side games is coming, I’m not convinced that it is will arrive in time to kill console in the next generation. The current internet infrastructure in most major cities wouldn’t be able to handle everyone streaming videos of games at once.
“many also felt the same way with CD’s & music”
Good point. I was actually thinking about this the other day. Personally, while I am a fan of physical media, I have found myself purchasing more and more of my music through digital avenues. However, all of my games are bought as physical media (unless they’re digital only, of course)
My reasoning being that I know that music will be around for a long time. Someone who bought a Michael Jackson vinyl can still buy the music on CD, and then again digitally. With games, whether or not legacy content will continue to be made available to future generations is more of a question mark and I feel more comfortable buying it in physical format knowing that I can still play it whenever I want.
It’s reasons like this why I feel digital should be used to compliment retail, and not replace it. Best of both worlds and all that jazz
.
Yes, it’s great to have digitally-obtained songs on my iTouch, but it pissed me off royally when songs I had put on there from my CDs conveniently disappeared from my playlist when I performed an upgrade. In fact, two songs I had bought ON iTUNES also disappeared and are no longer even in the store. Having my hard copies of games lets ME control my access, not Apple, Sony, EA Games, etc.
Consoles will probably adapt even more than they already have before they end up discontinued. And even then, that’s only if there’s a sizable enough market for software-only gaming.
What if something happens to your ,whatever that piece of equipment that is playing the game, is damaged? Corrupted? What about space? Would we have to re-download a game that we want to play because we had to remove it from the medium for a new game? I also play my console a lot without internet connection. I also enjoy having a hard copy of things such as video games. They make the Hard Copy Disks seem like such an encumbrance, but I do not mind. Shoot, I still have my Gameboy SP with all the game packs!
Those things happen, but are usually pretty rare *knock on wood*, and when they do happen they are almost always fixable. You can prevent some of that as well.
Same could be said about cloud gaming. What if you wanna have a huge gaming party, and you have a good 10-20 friends over, when you log on a realize – crap! Their servers are down/having problems/under maintenance, or whatever.
Yes, one can find faults with current hardware, but one can also find as many with cloud hard/software as well.
You say these things are often preventable. You mean, perhaps, like saving your work/progress/backup to a…disk/disc???
Hmmm…
You say that like the sp is old… I dont have the oldest systems but i still have my ps 1 and 2 and 2 snes. Two original gameboys, and a couple of colors. And 2 n64s lol.
I too prefer disc instead of download when it comes to console gameing. 2 reasons.
1. after you buy the game you can pop it in and off you go.
2. “I’m sorry this game reqires 10 gb of free space and you only have 1gb.” THATS BECAUSE ITS ALL USED UP WITH SAVED GAMES AND DLC YOU JERK!”
…im with the majority of you….with the physical copies….its always fun to go on midnight releases & receiving your copy with other fans of the game…….
I don’t see this being the last generation, I see the future generation(s) showcasing necessary change.
I’m not a fan of everything going digital.
Like other commentors have said, there’s nothing as satisfying as opening a new game and physically holding your purchase in your hand, and having your entire collection on a shelf where you can see it.
It’s a lot like the current shift to digital comic books – most true comic book fans just don’t want that.
Then there’s the whole issue of theft/damage… I don’t know the Ts & Cs of all insurance companies, but I’ll bet that the most of them won’t pay for your games if they’re on your console (and your console gets stolen or burnt to a crisp in a fire), whereas if you have a physical collection, the chances are much higher that you might be able to claim on those discs.
…AND of course, HDD space is an issue as well for hardcore gamers.
If everything is going to shift to cloud gaming and digital distribution, I think it’ll be a long while before that happens though. In countries like America, Britain and Australia, broadband internet isn’t that expensive and the speed is very high, but in developing countries, we’re still a long way away from that – but that doesn’t mean we don’t play games… so the studios will loose a lot of money from foreign markets if they make that shift.
I’d happily buy a game digitally if it’s an arcade game (or just a small game) or if it’s an online-only game, but I’ll always prefer a physical copy/disc – it’s just better IMO.
I believe this statement, only if Google’s Gigabit internet is a USA wide available service. As it stands Our internet is too slow, and progression to faster speeds has been too slow (When compared to other areas of tech related advancement). Google has a article somewhere where it shows the advancement of ISP tech which shows something like a 5% improvement over a 10 year period. This graph also shows other generalized area’s of tech which show huge amounts of improvement over those same 10 years.
With the progression to even higher standards of HD (4k or 8K), content per game is surly going to go up. As it is we can’t support it. If we see some government involvement in forcing the ISP’s to drop the BS data caps and to force them to improve or dissolve (Kinda like the Obama forcing the Auto makers to improve the MPG), Then we may see some improvement.
As it stands we wont see this come to pass. There’s too much money to be made by AT&T/Comcast, what they see is this, Services like Steam/Onlive is huge amounts of data going back and forth, and with overages costing us $10.00-$20.00 per a set amount of bandwidth over our limit of say 200 gigabytes (in my case 125 gigabytes limit). These companies only see the bottom line, and the bottom line goes up as People go over, they have no incentive to improve services.
We will see a Gen after the Next Gen.
“Eisler believes consoles will soon be replaced by a relatively young distribution model: Cloud Gaming.”
“Eisler – NVIDIA’s general manager of GeForce Grid CLOUD GAMING.”
OF COURSE he’s going to say stuff like this! Why would he say anything to the contrary? That would be like Jack Tretton saying “Hey, that new Wii U sure looks like a lot of fun.” or Ronald McDonald telling kids to eat at Burger King. LOL! That’s his JOB!
I really don’t think consoles are going anywhere anytime soon. As long as there is a need and a demand for physical medium, manufacturers will keep providing it. However, when you think of the advancements in technology and the longer lifespans of consoles, the PS5 and the Xbox 1080 probably wouldn’t be out until, what, 2021, at the earliest? Lots of things will have changed by then. Maybe, our Alien overlords won’t even allow us to play video games. Maybe, I can just hop in my DeLorean and go back to 1985 and play games in the arcade like God intended. Who knows?