Wednesday, September 29, 2010

No New Consoles?!


Well that's news to me! According to Michael Pachter of Pach Attack in this article, anyway. I'm with the author of the article on this one. From what I've heard about cloud gaming services like Onlive, it's not feasible now, or any time within the foreseeable future. I think Pachter is a smart guy, but I also think he's wrong on this one.

I can't be the only one that find this notion hilarious. With every new console generation people start bellyaching about how PC gaming is dead. So in the future we're all going to be playing our games over the internet, on someone else's computers? I doubt it. This just seems like one of those Beyond 2000 shows where they predict that in 10 years we will have robot butlers and submarine cars.

What I do think we'll see is the definition of 'console' become more blurred. As devices like the iphone and ipad become more and more powerful, and are capable of running games that rival any current handheld. I also see PCs and consoles becoming more integrated. Right now I have my PC and ps3 networked, streaming video and music between them and transferring files through FTP.

It's a great setup and enhances both of their functionality. The new ability to watch netflix on the PS3 is also a neat feature. I'd like to see more of the flexibility of PCs transfer over to consoles in the future. Like how we've had skype and other sweet VOIP apps on the PC forever, but they still can't get voice chat or a decent party system working on PS3. Not to say I want consoles to become PCs, because they certainly have their own appeal. Buying a game and knowing it will work without spending $200 on a new video card is nice...

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