Ex-Xbox man predicts death of consoles

By Ellie Gibson Published 28 March, 2008

Within the next five to ten years.

Sandy Duncan, the former boss of Xbox Europe, has said he believes consoles will disappear very soon as everything gets "virtualised".

Speaking to ThatVideoGameBlog Duncan said, "The industry is fundamentally driven by technology. I think dedicated games devices, i.e. consoles and handhelds, will die [out] in the next five to ten years."

Duncan was with Microsoft for 15 years before leaving to co-found YoYo Games. Having established the Xbox business in Europe he knows a few things about launching new hardware, and observed there are huge risks involved. He predicted that as companies attempt to reduce these, there will be "a definite 'convergence' of other devices such as set-top boxes".

"There's hardly any technology difference between some hard disc video recorders and an Xbox 360, for example," Duncan stated.

"In fact in five to ten years I don’t think you’ll have any box at all under your TV; most of this stuff will be "virtualised" as web services by your content provider."

Picture of Ellie.

About Ellie Gibson

Since joining Eurogamer in the mid 2000s, Ellie has written about subjects as diverse as the fall of Gizmondo, the rise of Hollyoaks actresses in Red Alert games and the noise a bear makes under NSFW circumstances.

Read more articles from Ellie by visiting the Ellie Gibson archive page.

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Comments (95) Latest comment 4 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • DUFFMAN5 #1 4 years ago

    Don't see it
    People like owning physical property. I do at any rate, still enjoy buying dvds/cd's. I do think that eventually you would/should be able to download all and any games, no matter their size.
    Edited by 1 at 28/03/08 @ 12:30

  • Lagto_Soa #2 4 years ago

    Too many shades of the Phil Harrison 'vision'. You lose.

  • Grunk #3 4 years ago

    you still need a box somewhere

  • systems #4 4 years ago

    He's not saying that games consoles won't exist, he's saying you will have one master device and then if you want to play games on it you unlock the games function, if you want to watch BD you unlock the BD function, if you want to record TV you unlock that etc.

    I think that's a very clever idea. Then you don't have to have all these different variants of consoles or other hardware. The different manufacturers will all make their own version of the master device so competition will still be good.

  • Schiraman #5 4 years ago

    He makes some interesting points. Not sure about the time-frame, but it does make sense to predict more convergence of similar devices and a shift towards online services and downloadable content.

  • monkie_king #6 4 years ago

    Yeah, if he's proposing the game runs and renders on a virtual machine out on the network, and you just have a glorified terminal at your end, then he's being a dick. Unless something extremely drastic happens to ping times in the next few years.

  • Dezm0nd #7 4 years ago

    He's the ex-boss for a reason!!

  • dsmx #8 4 years ago

    Haven't sony already taken the first steps towards this unified vision then?

  • monkie_king #9 4 years ago

    systems: hey, thanks for reading the article. That sounds like an even worse idea, like some sort of Nuon thing. Might have a hard time persuading Nintendo and Sony to go for a generic platform, since they make the money principally on license fees and not hardware.

  • GamesConnoisseur #10 4 years ago

    Even if everything 'converges' there will still need be for a standardisation, and the actual hardware to be able to translate various data into gaming, movies, music and so on.

    Having no 'box' doesnt mean will do away with everything involved, PC is a good example and the need for codec for movies download, but what form of 'codec' will be needed to be in place for gaming download to work? Flash is too limited in my view but future generation of this kind of software, yes possibly but that is perhaps assuming everything would be in bitsize and casualised? Will TV remote be standarised for gaming along the Wii remote? Will we ever see the like of FFXIII, Lost Odyssey or other large gaming data?

    Interesting possibility as there will always come a 'watershed' moment where complicated system usually gives way to a simplified and people friendly (just look at Wii's success), but I believe we will still see one more generation at least after current gen, still too much money in it otherwise!

  • Olemak #11 4 years ago

    Well, that's certainly possible. Transmitting just the keystrokes (or button-presses and stick movements) to the server, and stream the image back, requires surprisingly little in the way of bandwidth and proceccing power. So it is technically viable, I suppose, and it kils piracy dead, in the same way MMORPG's do - so that's a nivce incentive for the publishers to opt for this route.

    It is, however, a very vulnerable tech model. Even just a little bit of lag fubars everything; what is acceptable latency when using a server-side word processor is unplayable for a game requiring 30 to 60 Frames Per Second. So that is pretty risky, and probably not viable at all for customers not living on top of a fiber optic cable. But maybe everybody will do just that in 5 to 10 years. As well as having flying cars and jumping around on cybernetic legs of course.

    My guess is that no-one will be playing games at all in 10 years time, but will just access nirvana directly by means of trancendental auto-manipulation of karmic pleasure sentres, which will upen up the chakras and in be lots better than any computer games. Well. that is my prediction, anyway.

  • L0cky #12 4 years ago

    His timeframe is all wrong. Nothing about the current generation of consoles indicates that any of the three players will not be working on the next gen. In order to meet his longer term timeframe, something seriously wrong will have to happen for everyone next time around - not likely.

    And technically, the only way to ditch a 'complex' box/physical console of some kind will be to have a unified IO/Video interface that simply trades input for video, having a game entirely running from a remote server. Even on the fastest Internet2 10gb connection, the latency would be unnacceptable.

    Today's multiplayer games are playable because a lot of the game can be done in realtime on the client's side. Once you put character control, movement, aiming etc on the server the lag would be horrendously apparant.

    Use Remote Desktop to get an idea. It's functional for work, but wouldn't be in any situation where responsiveness matters.

  • peterfll #13 4 years ago

    Definitely will happen in the next 5 - 10 years. Because:

    1. The whole world will have super-duper broadband with no constraints and outage
    2. A backend server capacity to handle million of concurrent players will be in place
    3. All manufacturers, developers and publishers can all migrate to a completely different business model.

    All within the next 5 - 10 years. Sorted!

  • kangarootoo #14 4 years ago

    "Virtualised"

    The word virtual has been abused heavily over the last few years. These days it seems to either mean "3D" or "online". Tomorrow it will mean "slightly happy" and "nearly turquoise".

    Anyway, I can see where he is coming from even if his choice of words clearly drives me bonkers. I predict a subscription based future for games. That is my prediction, you heard it here first, etc.

    Pay a scaling flat fee per month, play any game you want within your allocation. Film rental has this model already. Pay-per-play would still exist, but it would simply be one of several subscriber options.

    Frankly, the box that makes this happen is irrelevant. The technology won't be key, it will be the service that makes the difference.


    "Yeah, if he's proposing the game runs and renders on a virtual machine out on the network, and you just have a glorified terminal at your end, then he's being a dick."

    Welol its a bit of a leap to start assuming all sorts of hard plans. The only suspect thing was the last sentence. Thats what I am talking about with the word virtualised. It means nothing and just causes confusion.

  • kangarootoo #15 4 years ago

    "1. The whole world will have super-duper broadband with no constraints and outage "

    That was sarcasm right? Cunning, dry witty sarcasm.

    Lets assume for a second it wasn't.

    NEVER going to happen. What does "no constraints" mean exactly?

  • penguin_overlord #16 4 years ago

    I agree in part. I think the future lies in software, rather than hardware. The console industry is an odd one because it has lots of conflicting and incompatible technologies and as the recent Blu-Ray/HD-DVD war (and all the similar format wars before it) have proven, consumers want a single platform. Having different consoles has only lasted this long because each has exclusives but as they become rarer (or less important) it is possible you will see a single platform in future that is manufactured by more than one company.

    I certainly don't think that the market is big enough to have three different consoles in the long term. Although sales of all are healthy right now, we can already see a degredation in the sales of the 360 that even the recent price cut has been unable to halt.

  • Gaol #17 4 years ago

    I also predict the 'death' of all consoles within 5 - 10 years. All 360 consoles that is, hur de hur.
    Edited by 1 at 28/03/08 @ 12:55

  • Xerx3s #18 4 years ago

    Ha, yes, you companies would like to see that eh? Well you can shuff that where the sun doesn't shine.

  • jack_klugman #19 4 years ago

    What does "no constraints" mean exactly?

    Download caps become meaningless.

  • hobo57 #20 4 years ago

    5 to 10 years?

    Can't see it either. The internet in its current form (and unlikely to change in 5 years) simply couldn't handle the demands of a such potentially large bandwidth requirements to stream GT5 7 (or whatever version). It's struggling now under the weight of bit-torrent and video streaming sites.

    Though what I thnk would be better is a single common or open console platform that Sony/ MS / Nintendo (unlikely to happen) to unify all platforms and bring development costs down - developers then wouldn't have to develop for 3 hardware types as at present.

    Anyway ... back to reality.

  • barnard666 #21 4 years ago

    AT least you wouldn't have to install games, that wouldbe taken care of at the server end. I dont think it will come as a surprise when it happens.

    I am waiting for MS office to become a remote web based application, The funny thing is they tried all this back in the 80's when the Internet first started, guess what the internet made it totally unusable...You'll still need processing power at you end, otherwise you'll press jump, and you character wont jump till the server has been pinged...which will never be instant unless relativity gets changed or something.

  • peterfll #22 4 years ago

    Yes, thanks jack. And no lag. And all those other issues that affect performance and availability. Oo! And price! And... and...

    @kangarootoo - I am da witty masta

  • quantumsheep #23 4 years ago

    Used to work with the guy, and he's certainly a clever businessman and a very nice bloke to boot.

    However, I can't right now see these predictions coming true unless they give away the box with your subscription. A bit like how modems get given out 'free' with most new internet connections.

  • MENTAL1ST Verified Senior Software Engineer, Picsel UK Ltd. #24 4 years ago

    @Kangarootoo - "Virtualised"

    Presumably he's talking about Virtual Machines in the same manner as with Java on mobile phones, which provides a common platform across many different devices, manufacturers and operating systems (even if the games are 95% shit). Or, indeed, the interactivity services of the Blu-Ray and HD-DVD formats.

    I think that quite possibly this vision for the future is fairly accurate, except perhaps for the timescale. I'm certain the next generation of games consoles will still be proprietary, but as for the one after that, i couldn't say. This is probably going to be the only way that Dennis Dyack's standard platform vision will occur.

    Indeed, given Sony's recent success with barging a standard platform into peoples living rooms using the PS3 as a lever, I wouldn't put it past them (or Microsoft) trying to do the same thing in the future.

    In fact, it'll be Microsoft, and it'll be XNA & Silverlight and the .NET framework and all that.
    Edited by 1 at 28/03/08 @ 13:16

  • defdaz #25 4 years ago

    Bless him.

  • chrisjm #26 4 years ago

    'Transmitting just the keystrokes (or button-presses and stick movements) to the server, and stream the image back, requires surprisingly little in the way of bandwidth and proceccing power.'

    not currently true. the processing and cost of the hardware is huge.
    latency is also a massive issue even if you own and control entire network (i have worked on a commercial system which does exactly this) as your not just getting a small response back, your sending a small key press, processing bigger game data, encoding even bigger video data and then streaming that video back.

    i cant see it happening in the timescales mentioned, not to rreplace consoles. yes to improve tv games for casual players but they are v different markets.

  • TheNinkyNonk #27 4 years ago

    "There's hardly any technology difference between some hard disc video recorders and an Xbox 360, for example"

    Agreed, but there's a big difference between a company selling two boxes that do two different things and it making less money by selling one box. There's also more for the customer to lose if a fault occurs in said box.

  • mazzl #28 4 years ago

    all you need is a server that stream the gaming image to you're tv. and a signal back to the server for control.
    so technically you will only need a small settop box, a very fast connection and a controller. nice :)

    except for me being a geek and wanting to own the console

  • FooAtari #29 4 years ago

    5 years no. 10 years maybe.

    Stick a Freeview receiver in a PS3 and you nearly have what he describes. I think convergence of devices as much as I hate it is inevitable.

    As for digital distribution. MP3 eclipsing music sales is just the beginning IMO. If it can happen with music it can happen with film and games. Can anyone say Steam?

    I think this is quite interesting (written in '95)
    <a href="http://www.newsweek .com/id/106554
    ">http://www.newsweek .com/id/106554
    </a>

    Never say never.

    Edited by 1 at 28/03/08 @ 13:54

  • menage #30 4 years ago

    Wasn't the internet creaking already?

  • DimiLoco #31 4 years ago

    It will probably happen but not that soon. Maybe in 20-30 years.

  • promoted2001 #32 4 years ago

    What if you live in the middle of nowhere and placing the cables etc isnt feasable? Consoles will always exist, people like stand alone games machines. Many people still use consoles offline and a decent amount of games probably cant get their heads round the internet etc. Maybe in over 50 years this might happen.

  • promoted2001 #33 4 years ago

    Quote from that newsweek article:

    You don't know what to ignore and what's worth reading. Logged onto the World Wide Web, I hunt for the date of the Battle of Trafalgar. Hundreds of files show up, and it takes 15 minutes to unravel them--one's a biography written by an eighth grader, the second is a computer game that doesn't work and the third is an image of a London monument. None answers my question, and my search is periodically interrupted by messages like, "Too many connectios, try again later."

    He must be a moron, wikipedia it!

  • jack_klugman #34 4 years ago

    peterfll - Sorry, I didn't mean to sound so smug. It is a bit of an ambitious statement. But a nice idea.

  • IronCladChicken #35 4 years ago

    Ex-Xbox man states what everyone else has been predicting for the past five years

  • Les #36 4 years ago

    "There's hardly any technology difference between some hard disc video recorders and an Xbox 360, for example,""

    Except of course that each HDD video recorder comes equipped with a HDD... :p

    But convergence has some ways to go. Most important one being creating a user interface that's easy enough to access all those separate functionalities. PCs can already take care of all entertainment needs but dedicated devices are still popular because they're easy and better looking.

  • Tweakmonkey #37 4 years ago

    5-10 years is ridiculous. Flip a lot of us will still be playing PS3s then!

  • seasidebaz #38 4 years ago

    ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

    that's what i did when i read that.

  • Madafunkola #39 4 years ago

    I think it's more likely that consoles will replace everything else - already they play movies (DVD/BD/Download) and soon TV (PlayTV/BTVision) and can surf the internet. Seems to me that the console is more than capable of muscling the other set-top boxes out.
    Edited by 1 at 28/03/08 @ 14:08

  • grantc7 #40 4 years ago

    Sounds a bit poo

  • Sevens #41 4 years ago

    "Virtual ownership is a hard concept for many people to swallow, and so it should be.
    Virtual ownership as opposed to physical possession is a far narrower and more limited type of property, its fundamentally inferior."

    Very well put, Arbiter.

  • Olemak #42 4 years ago

    Downloads over physical media, yes. But I get the impression that's not what he's talking about. If anything, the current consoles excel at downloadable content; everything on XBLA being a prime example, the online release of games such as GT5 Prologue another (althoug it's not really working yet :p).

    He must be talking about virtualisation. I guess you should never say never, or there is a risk of saying something incredibly stupid that way, like Bill Gates famous "640 K is senough memory for everyone" and so on.

    But I feel pretty confident saying "no way in a 10 year perspective".

    On the other hand, the year 2020 is officialy The Future, of Philip K. Dick and William Gibson science fiction, so who knows what will be possible.

    I don't really feel that the internet or the gaming industry has changed all that much in the last 10 years, really - hard to see how the next 10 will change everything, in the same way the last 10 year hasn't.

  • DB2k #43 4 years ago

    jack of all trades... master of none.

  • Darren #44 4 years ago

    Well already the Xbox 360 and to a greater extent the PS3 are striving to replace the DVD player and Hi-Fi system and PCs are becoming more console-like (Media Centres) and consoles more PC-like so this evolution into one unit is already happening, although Nintendo seem totally oblivious to it!!! LOL

    I'd imagine that Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony are all working on their next consoles already for release within the next six years so this 5 to 10 year prediction seems way off to me...

  • zuljin #45 4 years ago

    @systems
    "He's not saying that games consoles won't exist, he's saying you will have one master device and then if you want to play games on it you unlock the games function, if you want to watch BD you unlock the BD function, if you want to record TV you unlock that etc."

    Did you just describe a pc? :D

  • peterfll #46 4 years ago

    @Jack - no worries I took you at your world and my thanks were genuine!

    :-)

  • dr_shambles #47 4 years ago

    What happens if your net connection is down? My local exchange had issues over the bank holiday and couldn't get online for 3 days.

    Somehow can't see people accepting that if their broadband goes offline they can't play COD4.

    Think online distribution is great for XBLA and PSN, but can't see it overtaking physical sales for many years. Unless the Government stick a penny on income tax (which they will never do) and give us all shiny optical networks then we're still stuck with laggy services.

  • bionutz #48 4 years ago

    I've got two words for it: bullshit :). But I mean it.

  • TriggerHippie #49 4 years ago

    This is the kind of story they used to run on Tomorrows World.

  • Moz #50 4 years ago

    5 to 10 years sounds a little tight on time.

    but then again 28.8Kb modems where only out in 1994 so in 14 years we have come a long way So another 10 year and maybe we will have fast enough net connections to do this. How ever i'd expect we'll have another gen of currentl style consoles before then.

    I also think that convergence is alot further off then that. Nintendo, Sony and MS will wont to keep their own identities for some time to come, if thats in the form of the actually hardware or separate servers with their own subcription charges is to be seen.

    This could start to happen in 10 years but i don't personally see a mass market take up of such a model happening till quite some time after.

  • dsmx #51 4 years ago

    If ISP's have any say we will never see this service, they'll complain it eats up too much bandwidth. With ISP's in America already complaining about torrenting can you imagine the amount of bitching if this service happened?

  • miiiguel #52 4 years ago

    What's the thing with this buisness and "predictions", I mean, everyone is "predicting" something...

  • Les #53 4 years ago

    "I'd imagine that Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony are all working on their next consoles already for release within the next six years so this 5 to 10 year prediction seems way off to me..."

    Of course they're working on them but whether they will really materialize within the next 6 years is the question. Releasing a new power house of a console by either MS or Sony is not necessarily the answer to challenge the dominance of the Wii (one might argue it will very likely not be the answer). They'll have to come up with an answer but maybe that can be achieved by extending the capabilities of the current consoles via accessories, etc.

  • miiiguel #54 4 years ago

    penguin"Although sales of all are healthy right now, we can already see a degredation in the sales of the 360 that even the recent price cut has been unable to halt."

    Source? Or that is wishfull thinking ?

    edit: nevermind..., just a read a post from you stating some clever things about why gears sold "somewhat well...", ok..., forget it. lol.
    Edited by 1 at 28/03/08 @ 15:33

  • Lim-Dul #55 4 years ago

    Hmmm - most of you guys (I mean the disbelievers) apparently haven't heard about Moore's law if you think a prediction of 5 to 10 years is unrealistic...

    As to the "physical property" mumbo-jumbo etc. I think the 15 million Steam users or the >10 million WoW users might disagree with you... Hell, take XBLA, the Virtual Console etc. - it's happening on the consoles already. Note that I'm speaking of "virtual property" here, not the fact that everything will be streamed in 5 to 10 years.

    If you think the world ISN'T moving away from the retail distribution model which is more expensive both for the publisher and the end customer and towards digital downloads (all the "I don't trust virtual property" arguments notwithstanding) then you must have been sleeping in a cave and not been reading any computer-related news. ;-)

    10 years ago I was using a 33.6 modem - now I'm sitting on a 10 mbit connection without upload/download limits - IN POLAND! I don't know what the world and the internet will look like in 5 or 10 years but I can assure you that we will have made AWESOME and UNBELIEVABLE progress when it comes to computers... Moore's law has been correct for over 40 years - why should the next 5 or 10 years be any different, especially since doubling the amount of transistors and thus effectively the processing power has never been easier than with multi-core processors (although the software has yet to catch up with the multi-core trend in most cases).
    Edited by 1 at 28/03/08 @ 15:35

  • miiiguel #56 4 years ago

    Anyway, this is Microsoft "wet dream" innit ?

  • Les #57 4 years ago

    "Hmmm - most of you guys (I mean the disbelievers) apparently haven't heard about Moore's law if you think a prediction of 5 to 10 years is unrealistic..."

    Unfortunately, Moore's law is countered by another one: What Intel giveth, Microsoft taketh away... ;) Meaning improvements in hardware are offset by increased complexity of software.

  • DanWhitehead #58 4 years ago

    I think it's more likely that consoles will replace everything else - already they play movies (DVD/BD/Download) and soon TV (PlayTV/BTVision) and can surf the internet. Seems to me that the console is more than capable of muscling the other set-top boxes out.

    I think this is the point he was trying to make. If a single box of technology can play games, and play movies, and access the internet, and store your music collection, and store your digital photos...at what point do we abandon the old-fashioned habit of calling it a "games console"? The convergence is already here - and gaming has pioneered it - so it could be a matter of time before the idea of exclusive game platforms dies out. This would free up developers from wasting time on ports and being tied to exclusivity deals. Hardware companies could fight it out based on who makes the most attractive hardware, software companies succeed by making the best software - not by aligning themselves with the dominant format.

    Given the huge losses that Microsoft and Sony have had to swallow just to establish the current generation, it's not that unlikely.

  • MENTAL1ST Verified Senior Software Engineer, Picsel UK Ltd. #59 4 years ago

    I was going to make one of these 'X years ago' type statements. I plumped for 15, then looked at the Wiiipedia page for gaming events in 1993.

    But, back then we got:

    Virtua Fighter
    Doom
    Secret of Mana
    and SimCity 2000

    ... all of which we're effectively still playing in refined forms today.

  • oupe #60 4 years ago

    not. gonna. happen.

  • MENTAL1ST Verified Senior Software Engineer, Picsel UK Ltd. #61 4 years ago

    have I understood his claims all wrong

    Unless something 'magic' happens and network bandwidth becomes cheaper than local processing, there will always need to be a box. The only way it will be the case that there is no box under the TV is if the box is built in to the TV. But since you can get TVs with digi-boxes in, ones with hard disk video recorders in, SD card slots and even DVD players (and VCRs if we go back a couple of years) that isn't all that far-fetched.

  • MENTAL1ST Verified Senior Software Engineer, Picsel UK Ltd. #62 4 years ago

    Hardware companies could fight it out based on who makes the most attractive hardware

    I still maintain that none of this will happen until advances in hardware become pointless, and we hit some power vs production effort equilibrium. That might only be 10-15 years off, especially since we're going more-processors rather than faster-processors in computer architecture right now.

    But when a time comes when even a AAA high-production values games can afford to waste hardware capacity by running on top of a Java VM or the .NET framework, then we'll see cross-manufacturer licensing and standard 'proper' gaming platforms emerge.

  • Daymare #63 4 years ago

    "In fact in five to ten years I don’t think you’ll have any box at all under your TV"

    This is what he said. Erm, what does he mean by that? So he's not talking about an unified console but about a giant, super-computers that providers will have, that will process hundreds of different games played at the same time and streaming them all back to us in real time? If I won't need any "box" to play a game, somebody sure as hell will (and a veeeery powerful one too), if they'll want to deliver next-gen gaming to thousands of gamers. And that's before we start thinking about bandwidth.

    In 5 - 10 years?!

  • Freek #64 4 years ago

    And we'll travel to work in flying cars from our nuclear powered homes!

    You heard it here first.

  • orakio #65 4 years ago

    The success of Steam proves he has a point.

  • MENTAL1ST Verified Senior Software Engineer, Picsel UK Ltd. #66 4 years ago

    @Daymare:
    ...giant, super-computers that providers will have...

    I think it's been proven fairly well that distributed systems are more effective than centralised ones. If that is what the guy is talking about then he is just plain wrong. But a different interpretation of his words, as I made a few posts ago, might make the whole thing more plausable.

    i.e. Games platforms become sufficiently standardised and cheap to produce that they end up embedded in TVs like today's DVB tuners.

    The notion of the web as a server-heavy thing isn't very accurate. The web depends on increasingly powerful client-side computers to decode and render HTML, process javascript, flash or .NET VMs. What will happen is that people's appreciation of the nature of the games machine will disappear, and so the 'box' will disappear.

  • zedzee #67 4 years ago

    "Having established the Xbox business in Europe he knows a few things about launching new hardware"

    Yes, but he's not been successful with that, has he?

    I mean, XBox - come on. Can we take anyone involved with the first console (and some would argue the X360 as well) seriously?!

  • miiiguel #68 4 years ago

    "I mean, XBox - come on. Can we take anyone involved with the first console (and some would argue the X360 as well) seriously?! "
    I would go a bit further, and say MicroSoft as a whole. FAILURE; Poor People! Bankrupt every company, very bottom of success list on Forbes..., suckers!
    Edited by 1 at 28/03/08 @ 17:03

  • Weezer #69 4 years ago

    Yeah, 20 million Xbox 360 global installed base, a vital foothold in nascent digital distribution and a hugely active online system.

    What a dismal failure.

  • miiiguel #70 4 years ago

    yeah.. I mean, I hear all over MS flops this and flops that..., then we see Forbes, and games chartz, and multi-bilion dollars aquisitons... Shit, where all that money comes from? Do they sell cocaine or something?

  • Les #71 4 years ago

    "Yeah, 20 million Xbox 360 global installed base, a vital foothold in nascent digital distribution and a hugely active online system.

    What a dismal failure."

    Exactly. Billions of dollars invested and only 20m units shipped in 2.5 years and little over 10m online users. The share of digital distribution revenue (video, music, etc.) is negligible with little hope of improvement. A true financial catastrophy. Of course they entered a difficult market though Nintendo was able to transform itself from the loser of last gen into the star of this one for only a fraction of the cost...

  • miiiguel #72 4 years ago

    1st Nintendo platform: 1977
    1st Sony platform: 1994
    1st MS platform: 2001

    And yet, why with such catastofre, they are actually the platform that sells more games/accessories/merchandising ? Anyway, why do those crazy, unsuccesful ppl at MS continue with this "catastrophe" ?

  • hahayou #73 4 years ago

    Well, there were even smaller hardware differences between an xbox, cube, PS2, dc and my pc (circa 2001) - unlike an HDD recorder they all have 3D accelerators. Yet I still own 4 boxes from that list.

  • kingmong #74 4 years ago

    I know it's not new and it's not clever, but I call bullshit on this article.

  • miiiguel #75 4 years ago

    Les, "only 10m Live users" ~ 500.000.000 Euro/year, just in yearly fees... Pocket money?

    You must work at the US Federal reservation, because I can't even imagine that amount of money.

    Edited by 1 at 28/03/08 @ 18:34

  • ChocNut #76 4 years ago

    /Lex mode

    WROOONNNGG

  • djcool3005 #77 4 years ago

    I think this is just a load of bollocks. No way in 5 to 10 years is that gonna happen. And why would Sony, MS and Ninty all suddenly become best buds and make 1 platform for all games. I wish it was like that because then you don't have to go out and buy all 3 of them to play all the games that you like (I own a PS3 and a 360. My sister owns the wii). If he's talking about moving all gaming to Massive servers that can control everything then thats not gonna happen because why would you go online to play a single player game. He can go shove his prediction up his arse and go back to sucking his dick. FISSION MAILED.

  • Mavrik123 #78 4 years ago

    Well it is already goin that way with the amazing feature of Xbox live that has unlocked so many possibilties from downloading demos etc to downloading full on HD movies. So it is progressing so much that it most likely going to go that way, and just now Xbox have a good base for it with Live it is one of the reasons i would never get rid of my xbox its such a good feature.

  • UncleLou #79 4 years ago

    Les, "only 10m Live users" ~ 500.000.000 Euro/year, just in yearly fees... Pocket money?

    You must work at the US Federal reservation, because I can't even imagine that amount of money.

    You're confusing Live with World of Warcraft. Although Blizzard earns more than that.

  • Daikon #80 4 years ago

    Can you say 3DO? Or Phantom?

  • Daikon #81 4 years ago

    The reason consoles are so popular is because the games just run.

    Too often you buy a PC game, and after installing it you realize your gfx card is just not good enough, you need more memory or a faster processor (or - heaven forbid - are required to upgrade to Vista).

    I haven't played any PC games since Civ4 and that ran like treacle on my 3 year old PC. And no, I don't plan on upgrading every year.

  • G3org3 #82 4 years ago

    I can't imagine two years from any box i ve bought calling a friend home telling him i got 30games and 20movies and a trilion mp3s
    and when friend comes over sees only a shelve with a tv and a large HDD under it...its just plain wrong.

    I want boxed items i want a way to transfer and show them off i like seeing what i own
    everything i bought from PSN no matter how cool and impossible to find anywhere else
    is something that while i enjoy i always wish i could find it in physical form.

  • chronom4n #83 4 years ago

    I predict the death of this man in the next 5-10 years. now that would be something else eh?!

  • IronCladChicken #84 4 years ago

    "In fact in five to ten years I don’t think you’ll have any box at all under your TV; most of this stuff will be "virtualised" as web services by your content provider."

    I'd guess what he means here is that the entire game will be hosted remotely - you'll log onto, say, EA's site, see the list of games you currently own/subsacribe to choose the one you want to play and go.

    It wont download the game, just stream the running title from the host server- It'll be like playing a game on a dumb terminal linked to a mainframe.

    Since the publisher controls/runs the hardware - There wil be no need for seperate consoles.
    Since the publisher controls/runs the hardware - There wil be no need to develop multi-platform releases.
    Since the publisher controls/runs the hardware - You wont need to worry about upgrading hardware every five years

    However,
    Since the publisher controls/runs the hardware - You may be locked into one or more subscription models
    Since the publisher controls/runs the hardware - The publisher will control what titles are available (and when they stop being available)

    This is a pretty logical evolutionary progression for home entertainment - especially asit becomes more mainstream.
    If you think owning the box is important - just look at the music industry over the past 5+_ years - Nobody seems to have a problem downloading albums as opposed to buying/owning them on CD.

    Like I posted before, this is hardly a new idea - Sony talked about the same thing long befopre the PS3 was released (they suggested the PS4 would'nt need a drive slot because everything would be streamed)

  • Moz #85 4 years ago

    @Lim-Dul As to the "physical property" mumbo-jumbo etc. I think the 15 million Steam users or the >10 million WoW users might disagree with you... Hell, take XBLA, the Virtual Console etc. - it's happening on the consoles already. Note that I'm speaking of "virtual property" here, not the fact that everything will be streamed in 5 to 10 years.

    Firstly how many of the 15mill steams users and 10mill WoW actually bought the games and expansition online, I know that most of the WoW expansion release have people cueing outside shop to buy the physical disk. Everyone who has bought a physical copy of Half-Life 2 has had to sign up to Steam. So thoughs 2 figures are useless at telling how many people are will to pay for games on data downloads.

    As for XBLA, VC, PSN and small games on Steam, they are all just that SMALL games that doen't cost that much. Full titles are 10GB plus. Downloading these is just not viable (at the moment) for both band width and storage space reason. And while store and bandwidth are increasing game size is increasing.

    Though I degress as the guys actually talking about having a thin client based system. Which while this would help bandwidth and storage problems stretches the ownership issue further as you don't even have a digital copy of the game on your local drive, so if you net connetion brakes you can play games, if the server is down you cant play your games, not even single player. And if the company that you bought the game from goes bust you no longer have access to play the game every again!!! This is why ownership is important to people because they want the secureity of being in control of what they have paid for.

  • Foxclose #86 4 years ago

    "virtualised" as web services by your content provider = Xbox dead in 5 - 10 years!! ;)
    Edited by 1 at 29/03/08 @ 12:29

  • old_skool #87 4 years ago

    Convergence is already happening, not just in consoles. The cellphone industry has been rapidly moving towards convergence . Within the space of 5 years cellphones have become multimedia devices. I look at my LG Viewty and this thing can play movies(divx), music , radio and games. On top of that it can browse the web, view docs, powerpoint files, pdf's, can access my e-mails. And it has a 5 Megapixel camera which takes pictures that doesn't look all that bad and can take good quality movies.

    The gamesindustry could probably end up following the model of the cellular industry. Many handset manufacturers and most games work on most handsets. As far as physical ownership I think the cellular industry coupled with Xbox Live,PSN,Steam and Virtual Console already proves that digital distribution works. People downloading java games don't complain about having a disc.

  • bad09 #88 4 years ago

    The one machine idea would be cool, as a gamer I'd love to play all games from one machine (it would be a lot cheaper to!)

    The idea "virtualised" content? Well that leaves me cold and is not something I would like at all, I like to own what I buy for use whenever I want not when content providers, internet connections or servers allow.

    Am I the only one fed with all the download is the future bull that every knob end suit seems to come out with lately? Yes I know it worked for music but there is a big diiference - portable MP3 players!!! That's what made people switch to downloading music nothing else....

  • fightman2 #89 4 years ago

    fair play, this guy's talking some crap. people want product, they dont want downlads and virtual shit. we've had this so many times from these cunts - once they make their cash their brains get disconnected from reality and they spout all this virtual crap.

    piss off xbox man.

  • onyx_elite #90 4 years ago

    People have been making wild statements like this for yeas. They're never right. It's like the guy who said the PC wouldn't catch on, it's pure, idiotic speculation.

  • VMerken #91 4 years ago

    Hahahahah.

    The internet, it's like tubes, you see. Tubes will govern us all.
    Edited by 1 at 29/03/08 @ 17:23

  • Decap #92 4 years ago

    Oh shit, a cow just flew right past my window!

    I really dont see that happening. D:

  • Moz #93 4 years ago

    @Old skool Xbox Live,PSN,Steam and Virtual Console already proves that digital distribution works. People downloading java games don't complain about having a disc.
    ignore poster

    These prove that digital distribution works for small 5 minutes games that cost the same as a bear or 2. PLus have you read the article or the other posts? He's talking about having the content run off a server so you never have a copy of the game not even on a hard-drive!! So a company can remove access to a game at any point.

  • dryden555 #94 4 years ago

    He's not wrong all of you doubters. The hardware and software tech to virtualize is already here and local storage capacity is cheap (i.e. hardrives and flash) . As long as internet bandwidth to homes continues to inceases, there is nothing stopping this from happening. Thw downside is businesses will be micro-transacting everything you want from this one box.

  • MGG #95 4 years ago

    The same conservative points made very single time, and they all seem to assume that the only thing changing is the "lack of physical media".

    Can you not see that this could be a huge step forward for gamers? For once, try not being cynical about Big Business and think about how this could be great for gamers. No longer having to be slaves to the Next Gen. No longer playing games that are too ambitous for your current hardware. Cutting out as many of the middlemen as possible. Lower prices. Dare I say it, more money to developers, thus meaning talented teams can stick together for longer, giving more chance of producing good games.

    In 10-15 years time, 98% of us wont care that we no longer have pyhsical media - hell, I don't now.

    And as for those of you talking about ping times etc, as the main idea seems to be that the servers will be ran from say, your ISP, then this problem will be largely redundant. I know where I live my connection to the ISP is excellent - its everything beyond that that is the issue.

  • Juxxxer #96 4 years ago

    Hmm...

    What if your 'box' is only data/video transmitter between your TV and 'xbox' and your 'virtual xbox' is sitting in a server room of your cable or ISP company. And you just 'rent' time from you xbox. For example my xbox is not used about 70% of time. And we all need to sleep. Maybe someone else can use 'my xbox' when I'm sleeping... Doesn't that make my use of xbox cheaper? At least HW.

    Then you have some account and all your bought games are just listed in you account details. No need to transfer physical media anywhere... which also makes things cheaper. But of course there is new greedy players to take our money, so it's not sure everything will come cheaper.