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[J-Snake]

I think it is now fun to speculate about what next generation of game-consoles is bringing us before it is too late.

Are you exited what future brings us? Or do you want current consoles to last longer? Or do you hate consoles anyway?

If you are more the hardware-tech geek don't hesitate to post your opinions. You can also suggest your own hardware set-up for next consoles. Do you think ps4 shall still rely on cell or are there better processors for gaming. Just discuss all your beliefs and estimations, don't be afraid to tell something wrong, just tell your opinions.

I personally think next gen should still remain the traditional set-up, it mainly needs more ram and a better graphics-card. I think the graphics card will still have the traditional architecture, best suited to exploit frame-buffer-concepts for visual effects like shadow-maps.

But just my estimation, what do you think?

[Average Software]

I love consoles, but I don't like the direction they've gone in.

I would like to see three major things:

1. A return to cartridges.  With the capacity of flash memory chips, I think it's time to drop optical disks.  They're too fragile, and long term lifespan is shaky.  Out of my 50 or so Sega Saturn games, I'd say at least 30% just don't work anymore, and I took pretty damn good care of them.  This would also reduce and probably eliminate the number of moving parts in a console, which should drastically increase its reliability.  My roughly 30 year old Atari 5200 still works perfectly, my 13 year old Dreamcast is slowly dieing.

2. Go back to just being a game console.  When I buy a game console, I just want something I can pop a game into and play.  I don't want a goddamn media center,  I don't want to have to make user accounts,  I don't want to fiddle with system settings.  I don't want hard drives and firmware updates and all that bullshit.  Insert game -> play.  It's pretty simple.

3. Get off the damn Internet.  Many people won't agree with this, certainly, but I don't want to have to deal with the Internet.  If I want to play a game on the Internet, I have a computer for that.  Once a console is on the Internet, suddenly everything needs it.  Keep the net off of my system.

[HernanZh]

2. Go back to just being a game console.  When I buy a game console, I just want something I can pop a game into and play.  I don't want a goddamn media center,  I don't want to have to make user accounts,  I don't want to fiddle with system settings.  I don't want hard drives and firmware updates and all that bullshit.  Insert game -> play.  It's pretty simple.

I agree! I don't like all these menus and the updates.

[vdek]

I love consoles, but I don't like the direction they've gone in.

I would like to see three major things:

1. A return to cartridges.  With the capacity of flash memory chips, I think it's time to drop optical disks.  They're too fragile, and long term lifespan is shaky.  Out of my 50 or so Sega Saturn games, I'd say at least 30% just don't work anymore, and I took pretty damn good care of them.  This would also reduce and probably eliminate the number of moving parts in a console, which should drastically increase its reliability.  My roughly 30 year old Atari 5200 still works perfectly, my 13 year old Dreamcast is slowly dieing.

2. Go back to just being a game console.  When I buy a game console, I just want something I can pop a game into and play.  I don't want a goddamn media center,  I don't want to have to make user accounts,  I don't want to fiddle with system settings.  I don't want hard drives and firmware updates and all that bullshit.  Insert game -> play.  It's pretty simple.

3. Get off the damn Internet.  Many people won't agree with this, certainly, but I don't want to have to deal with the Internet.  If I want to play a game on the Internet, I have a computer for that.  Once a console is on the Internet, suddenly everything needs it.  Keep the net off of my system.

Never gonna happen.

Expect the next generation of consoles to follow the steam model even more and offer an expanded library of full games online.  They'll do this to cut out resale at stores like gamestop, Also forcing you to buy the next generation consoles 10+ years from now when they decide to drop support.

[_Tommo_]

Average Software, nice list of things that will never happen

I'm ok with point (2), while you're a bit exaggerating the thing - the new X360 dashboard allows to play the disc with one "A" push.
Also an OS of some kind is needed if you want digital delivery and permanent residence of games into the console.

As for point 1. PLEASE NO. My N64 games are all defective and the N64 itself only boots a game once in 10 tries. While I still have to see a DVD that becomes illegible... CDs were still in their infancy with the Saturn, today's DVDs are far more durable than any NAND, as they don't deteriorate with reads.

3. Online Multiplayer and game patches. I don't see how you could do without.

IMO consoles are pretty good as they are, what I would like to see is better mediacenter-y stuff as currently it's still too limited to be really useful, maybe with a version of Windows8 on the new X.

Also a better hardware and PLEASE use some of that raw power for image quality. 30fps with no AA and a ton of depth blur/motion blur/bloom bleeding everywhere is going to look CRAP 10 years from now.

[Manuel Magalhães]

1. A return to cartridges.  With the capacity of flash memory chips, I think it's time to drop optical disks.  They're too fragile, and long term lifespan is shaky.  Out of my 50 or so Sega Saturn games, I'd say at least 30% just don't work anymore, and I took pretty damn good care of them.  This would also reduce and probably eliminate the number of moving parts in a console, which should drastically increase its reliability.  My roughly 30 year old Atari 5200 still works perfectly, my 13 year old Dreamcast is slowly dieing.

I don't know, it would serve as a good alternative for a downloadable version but I heard that industry disks are more durable nowadays. Vita and the 3DS are using cartridges though, so maybe it will pick up.

2. Go back to just being a game console.  When I buy a game console, I just want something I can pop a game into and play.  I don't want a goddamn media center,  I don't want to have to make user accounts,  I don't want to fiddle with system settings.  I don't want hard drives and firmware updates and all that bullshit.  Insert game -> play.  It's pretty simple.

I disagree with some of the parts. It's not any harder to put a game inside a console and begin playing it now than, say, the SNES era. Sure you will need to move to some menus but that takes what, four seconds? I also never needed to mess with the system settings after the first half hour that I brought a console, so for what it offers the bad points don't really matter, at least for me.
I do agree with firmware updates being annoying. They should do them on the background.

3. Get off the damn Internet.  Many people won't agree with this, certainly, but I don't want to have to deal with the Internet.  If I want to play a game on the Internet, I have a computer for that.  Once a console is on the Internet, suddenly everything needs it.  Keep the net off of my system.

I disagree on that. If you don't want to deal with the internet on a console then don't use it. You won't have to deal with nothing "annoying" that way.

[baconman]

I see the next gen becoming something of a cable box where you tune into a developer's or publisher's "webchannel" and download/install games directly from there. Yes, very Steamy, but also very customizable, as if each game title were allowed to have their own MySpace profile or something of the sort, that also featured relevant DLC and recommendations.

TV shows, movies, and video games will all intertwine in this new medium - which is nice considering how streamlined it gets, but inevitably over it's lifespan, will also succumb to the kind of annoying advertisement interruptions and ratings/warnings that make modern-day broadcast TV and DVD movies "annoying to the point of near-obsolescence."

Does anybody ELSE remember when DVD trailers were COMPLETELY OPTIONAL?!

While an internal hard drive is practically unavoidable for basic functionality, stuff like downloadables and system settings will likely focus more on 100 GB to 4 TB-capacity flash drives or external drives instead, allowing the users quick and immediate portability of their content between systems. And who knows - if RAM capacity increases at the rate that storage media does, we may even begin THE DEATH OF LOADING SCREENS.

Some type of interactive portable gaming system slash screen-inclusive controller will inevitably tie in with each major system, and just because it'd be a crime not to, you'll be able to cross-port your downloadable games. BUT! Your disc-based games will be unsupported, to motivate repurchasing of digital copies of THOSE now. Oh yeah, and that means your music and movies too.

Wii U must be released in the next year or two just for Nintendo to stay in the game, but PS3/360 have at least a good 4-5 years left in their system life (there is NO WAY PS3 potential is totally tapped). But Sony/MS will probably release competitive new systems 2-3 years from now anyways, just because. Just pray that PS2/360 and their "repeated hardware failures of impending doom" isn't their core marketing tactic - especially considering that neither of them suffered fiscally as a result of it. If anything, it BOOSTED bottom-line sales, to the frustration and economic crippling of gamers everywhere.

(I STILL give at least two years of a new product's release before I consider buying one, just because of that kind of thing. But sometimes there's just no getting around it. Compared with XBox OG and GameCube, PS2's controller layout and gaming library just wasn't being matched. Even though later in the game, XBox sure tried!)

Motion gaming of today is like the PowerPad or 3D of the 80s. It's on the table now, there's no denying it. But it'll phase out awhile, and actually start reaching it's real potential 15-to-20 years from now, like DDR did in the 00s, and 3DTVs do today.
____________________

Fighters will likely dot a lot of the launch titles, and likely so will launch-ready music game engines geared for streaming DLC. Major franchises will probably focus less on new titles and more on HD remakes/remasters and collections with extras thrown in (one of which will almost certainly be inclusive system-emulated original versions). But the big shocker in the new system launch war will inevitably be the REVENGE OF THE FORMULAIC JRPG.

To some gamers' delight, and to others' dismay.

[imaginationac]

There will be no next gen consoles. All of it will be in the cloud. THE CLOUD I SAY!

But seriously, I expect next-gen consoles to REQUIRE an internet connection, have a large capacity internal storage device to be standard at launch, have some form of non-traditional input device (e.g. motion, touch).

I expect on board memory capacity to be at least 1GB.

[Tuba]

I expect more focus on new input methods and social features than focus on graphics and processing power. The Wii and the Kinect showed everyone that it's worth-it, and anyway, games are already costing too much to be developed and most people are satisfied with current-gen graphics so why push them? Graphics will be better, but the leap won't be anywhere as big as it was last gen.

I also expect the next gen consoles to be the last using physical media with every retail game being available for digital purchase at launch day. The Vita is already supposed to be like that.

[Squid Party]

Consoles have got a good as there ever going to get, or some may say. Honestly I don`t know, on the one hand the actual ergonomics of the hardware is pretty much perfect and as far as disc`s and stuff are concerned, there next big thing is cloud gaming and stuff like that.
but hey we can get better graphics, memory, power and other stuff like that.
I cant wait for something new 

[C.D Buckmaster]

I expect development costs to sky-rocket leading to producers funding less risky games.

[Paul Eres]

consoles don't even exist anymore, what we have are PCs in a box that connect to your tv

an xbox360 is *much* more similar to your PC than it is to a super nintendo. both an xbox360 and a PC have cd/dvd readers, hard drives, internet connectivity, usb-ports, directX, an operating system, the necessity to install games (or parts of them) before you play them, and so on

[imaginationac]

I expect development costs to sky-rocket leading to producers funding less risky games.

Next gen, not this gen

[Tuba]

I expect development costs to sky-rocket leading to producers funding less risky games.

Which is fine cause every game will be funded by Kickstarter! 

[Falmil]

I expect disappointment. Again.