Will the PS5 be the next Wii?

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JustBeingReal said:

bunchanumbers said:

More than likely, that won't happen. A physical console option might just be the PS4 as the last physical console they make. Sony doesn't want to waste billions on more hardware that will be obsolete within a year. All that money is wasted. As a digital console, they won't be held back by hardware limitations anymore. We won't have to worry about fps and resolution being limited by hardware anymore. It will be the games the developers want to make without trying to cram it into a obsolete box. Developers, Publishers, and Sony wants this.

Its going to happen sooner or later, so you might as well as accept it. Attachment to physical media is less of an issue every day. MS messed up in that they released a physical console. If they didn't and launched Rio from the start it would probably be a different story. They also wouldn't have less power than the PS4.

Actually more than likely it will, because there's no precedent for anything else, there's no example of a cloud based system being used for everything in a games console and as I keep saying there's just too many issues with going all out cloud based, the internet and much bigger investment up front being required than in physical local hardware.

Being obsolete is relative, Sony aren't competing with PC, they're competing with other consoles, which doesn't require endless upgrading your physical hardware, rather just optimization of your API and development tools to get the most out of your hardware, brute forcing it, with every increasing processing and RAM upgrades has never been the way it's done, it just becomes more an more costly over time, as your servers needs upgrading, maintenance and increasing the size and volume of your server farms to provide for users needs.

FYI most gamers, that aren't the kind that frequent forums like this don't care about resolution and frame rate, they actually care more about where their friends play and what games they want to play, hence why the PS4 has sold like it has.

You've ignored the very nature of the cloud processing actually still requiring cost of a subscription based fee for each user to play on this system, they buy a console, they know they have the system and that's that, they pay for this server access, the fee can be increased whenever the platform holder wants, because they control the hardware, people won't go for it!

It will only happen if customers let it, if it's not providing the same seamless experience as they've been used to every generation before and providing a step up in that area (which can't happen with a cloud based service, because of the inherent limitations of the tech), then it won't happen.

 

What you're forgetting here is that Gaikai and On Live have had a presence in the PC space for years, but it's never taken over, it has it's users, but not all PC gaming is done on it, in fact only a fraction of overall PC users even bother with it, this is the exact thing you're suggesting will take over consoles. Best case scenario PS Now has it's presence in Playstation's ecosystem, MMOs get additional features using the cloud, but the physical hardware is an integral part of the console experience.

Any cloud presence will take more than a single generation for people to put their faith in it, most likely it's just going to be PS Now, used for PS3 game hosting throughout this generation, with some little additions to some games for PS Plus users. Taking over everything to do with rendering all of every single game isn't happening, especially considering a large number of users still don't even use the internet.

PSNow is the beginning, its laying the foundation. 10 years from now will be a different story, especially if Net Neutrality laws stay and things like Google Fiber push into the market. 

Really there's no reason only PS3 games can be on PSNow, PS4 games could be on there just as easily too. The fact is the tech does work more or less. 

And I'm pretty sure most gamers connect to the internet, hell even Nintendo says that the majority of their game systems are online.