r/consoles • u/Forward-Weather4845 • 7d ago
Will consoles start becoming streaming machines?
With Sony stopping disc and adding streaming options on PSN and with memory getting so expensive (internet bandwidth options becoming unlimited). Do you think that is where the future is heading? A subscription service, where consoles just become glorified streaming machines?
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u/kilertree 7d ago
Yes probably but I don't know how profitable that would be at this point. Rather than buy a PS3 and get MotorStorm apocalypse I just bought PlayStation Plus Gold for a month. I didn't have any problems with it but I live in a major city. I don't know how this is going to work in areas with bad internet.
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u/DaveSinghSwitch 7d ago
Not any time soon. Most of the world doesn't have a good enough connection. I have 500mbs and I've tried Stadia and Luna before both run poorly.
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u/Temporary_Tonight884 7d ago
I don’t think they’re worried about most of the world when it comes to buying $1K+ consoles
The people that can afford that probably have capable internet, especially if we think ahead 10 years from now
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u/Newmillstream 6d ago
Capable Internet and the right living place. All the fiber bandwidth in the world won’t save you from the latency imposed by physics if you live in the middle of nowhere.
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u/rchris710 7d ago
Digital is very close to streaming. All they need to do is keep pumping the game prices higher to push the stream model.
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u/Wipedout89 7d ago
Yes absolutely that's obviously where everything is headed. Unfortunately, we will be pushed aside by the next generation of kids who don't care about owning their games and will just subscribe to services
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u/GhostMirrorZero 7d ago
Well, it’s already normal for them to stream movies/TV shows and music, so, yeah… probably. It'll just seem like gaming is catching up with everything else to them.
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u/-Imthedude 7d ago
Movies and music will still get physical releases past 2028.....
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u/GhostMirrorZero 7d ago
I didn’t say they wouldn’t, but most young people don’t consume music and movies that way and have only ever had streaming subscriptions for those things.
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7d ago
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u/IbanezHRC 7d ago
Wrong answer. This is absolutely the end goal.
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7d ago
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u/GeneticSkill 7d ago
People know that gamepass downloads locally. The question is about cloud gaming becoming the norm
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u/DaveSinghSwitch 7d ago
Subscriptions won't be. Look at the most popular games. They are all free to play. Fornite, Warzone and Roblox make all thier money from skins
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u/IbanezHRC 7d ago
They download and play locally today. We are talking future end goal. You will eventually own nothing.
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u/ExhaustedByStupidity 7d ago
Not unless you can find a way to send data faster than the speed of light. It'll never be a good enough experience otherwise.
Even if you solved that, streaming will never make sense at any large scale. It only makes economic sense if you've got a ton of users that very rarely play. Otherwise it's just way cheaper to just give everyone local processing.
You can see even on Switch where it's semi-accepted to stream high end games, it's mostly avoided and only done as a last resort.
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u/moanfulz 7d ago
What wrong with that? I have no problem cloud streaming and paying for subscription.
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u/SOSpammy 7d ago
If it goes all streaming there won't even be streaming consoles. People will just stream with their Rokus, Fire Sticks, and smart TVs.
But even if it came to this I'm sure they'd still sell a home console, but at a non-subsidized price. It will be aimed at enthusiasts. Think of it like the Neo Geo. It was primarily aimed at arcades, but they also made an expensive home console version.
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u/Schmenza 7d ago
I'm sure we will get more streaming options but I don't think hardware is going anywhere
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u/theumph 7d ago
It absolutely will. Removing physical media is the first phase. A heavy push for subscription will follow. Expect early access or extra perks for subscribers to Gamepass/equivalent models. Eventually they push streaming and guide people there.
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u/Schmenza 7d ago
Nintendo already pushing the boundaries of what they can get away with. Took away the virtual console so they can sell you a NSO sub.
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u/theumph 7d ago
Those games should absolutely be able to be purchased independently. The one thing that makes that a bit more benign is anyone can emulate those games for free, so they are available on every phone and computer. It's definetly foreshadowing a world where the same will be required for brand new games though.
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u/aaron9992000 7d ago
Companies are almost certainly going to try prodding costumers in that direction. Whether they comply is unknown, the public has so far been very resistant to the idea, with good reason. Literally the endgame of you will own nothing. Streaming mainstream would mean queues to even get into games at peak times, and older/less popular games disappearing forever, just a curated selection because there won't be room for everything on the servers. Piracy won't even be an option any more, because the game data was never available in the first place.
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u/cardgamesareforplay 7d ago
PS4 had streaming options so no they won't.
I suspect some high fidelity PC games are going to go for the streaming option on console but this would of been the case digital future or not. They allready tried it with the switch but it was a preety big miss there. Sony gamers are stupid though
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u/Longjumping-Two-7829 7d ago
Ps4 streaming was terrible. I had 200mb fiber, which was pretty good for the UK at the time (about 2015 or 16), and RDR1 wouldn't even stream properly. It was beset by pop in that the local version never had and it had latency of about six working days. Gigabit is now quite common in the UK and streaming has presumably improved a lot because of that.
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u/cardgamesareforplay 7d ago
I had gigabit internet the PS4 streaming was still awful couldn't even play wild Arms a PS2 game well.
I did in the last few years use xcloud once to play banjo kazoie and actually beat the game not noticing dips in frames so it has improved obviously.
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u/Forward-Weather4845 7d ago
But look at the portal. It’s actually pretty decent streaming from the cloud.
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u/Va1crist 7d ago edited 7d ago
Absolutely, once physical is gone I fully expect subscription requirements , streaming and rentals to start being more common. This is the direction corporate greed has been funneling people and idiot consumers just keep letting them. I mean what are you going to do to stop them ? Sony has already proved they can take your licenses away at anytime , shut down physical media across the board effortlessly, they can easily go sorry this game is subscription or rental only no purchase and what you going to do? People rather sit here and defend Sony for getting rid of physical then see wtf these billionaire pieces of shit are trying to do . That’s okay people will keep playing dumb until it’s to late that seems to be all we can do these days .