@bdbdbd

Basically when we get to the point where we are using reliable quantum computers for gaming we reach a physical barrier. You cannot encode data to anything smaller then an atom. Which basically ends the concept of generations, and thus we will truly be at the end of diversification. Which should be in thirty years. At which point we will probably be using just a single computer for all things.

Consoles will have basically vanished as there will be a standard design forced by physical limitations. Simply put there would no longer be a line between personal computers, televisions, and consoles. The point is that the line of consoles will come to an end in a few decades as that wall is hit. So the question is pretty futile at the point where your using blocks of quartz for game storage, because every design will be exactly the same.

This is a very real concern for the world economy. Which is heavily based upon the doubling of power every eighteen months. Reaching a point where improvement is no longer possible. Meaning the chain of obsolescence will be broken permanently. One would say it is both the greatest dream, and the worst nightmare. The economic climate is forcing the progression, but everyone knows there is no pot of financial gold at the end of the rainbow. Just one manufacturer producing the technology to ever diminishing demand.

@Dodece: I think you misunderstand quantum computing. It's not a replacement for the computers we use, it's more like a different paradigm to accelerate some specific problems (which aren't terribly applicable to gaming engines AFAIK). You probably won't ever be playing games on a Quantum Computer and if you do, it's probably not due to performance considerations.

@Dodece: Are you now sure that you know what you're talking about?
Quantum computers do offer bigger processing power, but at the moment their performance is dependant on the number of qbits it can process at a time.
Basically learning how to use quantum teleport would offer big increase in performance, compared to "1st generation" quantum processors, since basically their problem still is the speed of light. Processors today already are kind of "hybrids" due to them using light tunneling (and the flash memory uses the same phenomenon, btw).

Considering the storages even today are using electrons, i think you're a little late with the atom comment. We have other options too, such as quarks (there's twelve different types of them) and while time passes, i'm willing to bet there will be even smaller particles found.

@NJ5: The quantum computers do offer increase in processing power, i would say it's the way the tech has to go if it's wished to keep improving.

I think that if Nintendo were to start using cartridges again, their competition would have a PR field day with it.

Hold on, quarks aren't particles per se. You can't separate them from a hadron because as you do so enough energy is used to create replacement quarks. Essentially the only way to pull them apart involves creating new matter, a highly energy intensive operation and you don't even isolate the quarks. And if they can't be isolated, how do we use them to compute any better than a hadron?

In some problems, not all of them. If you want to factor numbers you get an exponential speedup. If you want to invert a function you get a quadratic speedup. For many problems you get no speed up at all AFAIK.

Quantum computing is overrated (as far as current knowledge shows).

I think you guys are confusing applicable current technology with technology that is currently in its true infancy. When I am talking about quantum computers. I am talking about data storage at the atomic level, and structures built at the atomic level. I am not discussing any particular quantum properties such as tunneling, cryptography, or entanglement. Which would be useful for computing.

I am merely talking about true physical limitation such as imparting a spin to a single atom, and a different spin to another single atom, and using those to store data. The reason crystal being preferable is that it is highly symmetrical. Basically we are talking about technology that doesn't yet even work.

Speaking to reading Quarks. I think a fellow named Heisenberg has something to say about that and his uncertainty principle. Let alone those lovely people at the worlds atom smashers. The laws of Quantum mechanics forbid this being a viable source of data storage, and the fact that to do so means the atom in question must be smashed. Well I do not foresee a conceivable need of computers ever needing the physical assets or energy to do so.

Really that boggles the mind. Reading something that has a set state cannot confer any real data. Unlike an atom which can have two spins. A bottom Quark for example has a single state, and it must be there. In other words there cannot be an absence. Were there an absence the particle it constitutes would not exist. Not only is it not feasible in that it violates many known laws of Quantum mechanics. There would be nothing to gain by reading a subatomic particle that is unalterable. Like a sheet of paper you could write nothing on.

You know before we go any further down the rabbit hole it is worth saying. That we are discussing a field with dozens of contenders approaching the concept from radically different angles using entirely different quantum properties. Before anyone else chimes in take a moment to reference exactly which concept it is you are referencing. There isn't just one Quantum computing. There are like twenty. Some theoretical, some mathematical, and some physical.

I was discussing physical lattice work used to store data. Such as Nitrogen Vacancies found in diamonds. Which would allow for a regular form of data storage, and other components produced through nanotechnology. So before anyone else jumps in, and we are arguing about nothing. Please cite exactly what you are alluding to.

@Dodece: I wasn't really discussing it from the physical data storage perspective which I know almost nothing about. My comments are solely from the computational perspective, and they're appliable to any kind of quantum computer as far as I know (Shor's algorithm and Grover's algorithm were the two I specifically mentioned; AFAIK two of the very few useful quantum algorithms which have been devised so far).