The 8th generation of gaming is finally here. Nintendo released the Wii U, Sony announced the PS4 and Microsoft will eventually announce the future Xbox system. The 8th generation started in November 2012 and it isn't looking too well. Sales are down for Nintendo, The PS4 could possibly be overpriced, the next Xbox may feature "always online" technology and gamers are just frustrated. This 8th generation could possibly be the last generation of gaming consoles before a new competitor stomps on everybody in the business. Sony and Microsoft will push their next consoles to the limit, but Nintendo will most likely join this next universal console with great pleasure. Nintendo knows that they'll never survive if they keep on making hardware and Sony knows that every PlayStation system is losing them millions of dollars. Valve, Nvidia and Intel can easily solve this problem by releasing one universal system with every game ever imagined. Yes, it's 2013 right now and Valve has already announced a Steam gaming device, but this is still one of their early inventions. In 20-30 years, Valve will have something absolutely incredible on the market. Will it feature disks? What about USB drives? Keep on reading.
1. PC Gaming is king whether you like it or not!
Not everybody likes to use their PC for gaming, but don't think that this is anything new. People all around the world purchase gaming PCs simply for the processing power and memory. This is nice until your console runs out of games. In the next 20 years, the PC will be an entertainment hub. Laptops will provide people with a nice workspace while desktops will become the center of the living room. Of course, in the distant future, desktops may not even exist anymore as they will become part of the television. Nvidia is already working on something like this with Valve and Intel. Gaming consoles will no longer exist and gaming will happen within the TV itself. There is no need for memory or storage upgrades as technology will advance so much that we will have more than enough of everything. Right now, as of 2013 and 2014, gaming consoles are extremely far behind in power.
2. Three different consoles to play three different games is too much!
For this, Steam is the ultimate answer. Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo won't join forces, but they'll release heavy amounts of software on devices that are compatible with Steam. Origin, a gaming service that is similar to Steam, is ultimately a flop in the long run. When people say this will cause a "lack in innovation" due to all games being released on one universal system, these people are absolutely wrong in every way imaginable. In the future, one universal PC-like platform will be released and can support most accessories from the past 15 years such as Xbox 360 controllers, Wii remotes, PS3 controllers and more. Sadly, anything that can't be connected via USB or bluetooth like the N64 controller will be trashed for life until a third-party company decides to release golden age peripherals. I'll talk about this later, but one universal platform will run all games in the future.
3. One box to rule them all. Is it possible?
It's absolutely possible, but not right now. Due to the dramatic increases in processing power as well as storage and memory, if one universal box were to be released right now, an upgraded version would be available in less than 3 years. This is a big dilemma for developers. Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo, as of this very moment, would never leave the hardware business. Power these days are very little even though it seems vast and enormous. Once 1TB of video RAM is available for developers, we'll finally see one box that will overtake the entire gaming industry by storm. This system, as I mentioned before, would be able to be compatible with any gaming controller that can be connected via Bluetooth or USB. Disks will no longer be available, but if this happens, there will be no "used" gaming market. To defeat this issue, games will now be released on high-capacity USB drives. Each system can handle up to 20 USB drives at once for easy game-switching. Also, if you end up being tired of the game, just pack up the USB drive and head on down to your local Gamestop store and redeem it for a good $20. Each USB drive will have some form of security to stop bootlegged copies.
These are 3 reasons, but there's still much more to discuss. This future box will possibly be developed by the likes of Nvidia and Valve. Intel may join the team as well. With these 3 companies working on a platform, they'll completely own the market. Games, released on USB, will range from $3 - $40 and people will eventually ditch disks. Other than the USB option, gamers will also have a decent 500TB SSD to store all their favorite games which are no more than 400GB each. This system wouldn't make sense in today's world as everybody is looking forward to the next PlayStation and Xbox systems. Nintendo is obviously in deep trouble, but they'll pull through. On this next system, the only 9th generation system, Nintendo will dominate the gaming industry with it's amazing software. Also, Nintendo may release a separate handheld since nobody else has ever been able to dominate the handheld gaming market besides Nintendo, but smartphones will always pose a major issue. There's still so much that could be predicted in this future universal system, but it's far too early to talk about a system that isn't coming until the late 2020s.
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