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[Parazels]

hell, I think parity could likely be achieved in a cellphone given a lot of time. people are actually working on this right now via quantum processors. IBM, Google, Intel, etc are all actually working on it.

Meanwhile Marc Cerny lives on a uninhabited island...

 

[lh032]

today it is, yes. in 20 years? 50 years? who knows, and that is what my thread is trying to get at.

I think a lot of people have an emotional response because they're so attached to their consoles

we are talking once a budget laptop hits parity with high end consoles

do you think that will happen soon? and if not, why are you talking about how consoles are doing today?

if that happens, i think desktop gaming PC would be affected the most?

 

[I collect VHS tapes]

if that happens, i think desktop gaming PC would be affected the most?

I think desktop PC would be a done deal way before it impacted consoles, yes

edit: not to say I think laptops are even the future. I'm just not creative enough to think of a realistic alternative and I can't predict the future. but you are correct, logic would dictate desktop PCs would die before consoles died

 

[lh032]

I think desktop PC would be a done deal way before it impacted consoles, yes

edit: not to say I think laptops are even the future. I'm just not creative enough to think of a realistic alternative and I can't predict the future. but you are correct, logic would dictate desktop PCs would die before consoles died

best case scenario, console could transition to actual powerful handheld, but then im not sure the technology would advance fast enough for a powerful handheld, like an actual switch but with real home console performance.

 

[bitbydeath]

I'm not in the tech field, but wouldn't a cheap laptop eventually hit parity with consoles in the not too distant future?

Not at a price/tech parity as consoles are heavily subsidised due to the closed nature of them.

And if said laptop has Windows installed then that just puts up a whole heap of other issues.

So, no. Laptops won't have any impact on consoles.

 

[rm082e]

by parity I mean the tech will be equivalent. that is, by definition, what parity means.

you pointing out battery power as your first talking point already misses the mark re: what I'm asking. as does your other talking points, as they talk about limitations in a laptop vs console. which again, means parity was not achieved.

you might be arguing that laptops will never hit parity with gaming consoles. that's fine if you believe that way - but I think that is a separate point. you are basically refuting the premise I take for granted. I am assume parity will be achieved some day.

hell, I think parity could likely be achieved in a cellphone given a lot of time. people are actually working on this right now via quantum processors. IBM, Google, Intel, etc are all actually working on it.

If you're talking about parity between:

• A current generation budget laptop and whatever the most powerful current generation console
• Running a showpiece game from the last couple of years (not a previous gen or indie title that will run on a potato)
• At the same resolution, same graphical settings, and same native frame rate (no frame generation BS)

Then no, I don't think we will see that. I think as we get late in the console generation, some cheap laptops might get close to the base model PlayStation, but they will cost a lot more. That alone kind of kills the value of choosing the laptop over the console.

 

[I collect VHS tapes]

Not at a price/tech parity as consoles are heavily subsidised due to the closed nature of them.

And if said laptop has Windows installed then that just puts up a whole heap of other issues.

So, no. Laptops won't have any impact on consoles.

the OS issue could be fixed over enough time. I mean, over enough time, I'd imagine we may even see competitors to Windows. who knows how long though.

your first point is a good point though and I don't know if any amount of time overcomes it.

 

[S0ULZB0URNE]

Nope

 

[I collect VHS tapes]

If you're talking about parity between:

• A current generation budget laptop and whatever the most powerful current generation console
• Running a showpiece game from the last couple of years (not a previous gen or indie title that will run on a potato)
• At the same resolution, same graphical settings, and same native frame rate (no frame generation BS)

Then no, I don't think we will see that. I think as we get late in the console generation, some cheap laptops might get close to the base model PlayStation, but they will cost a lot more. That alone kind of kills the value of choosing the laptop over the console.

this makes sense, but don't you believe given enough time price would become negligible? I would assume tech slows down, progress becomes minimal, prices begin to decrease

edit: to say it another way, I think at some point progress will hit a point where it is close to as good as it can get, and we might start to see prices drop

I mean how much better can a game look 50 years from now vs 100 vs 200?

 

[bitbydeath]

the OS issue could be fixed over enough time. I mean, over enough time, I'd imagine we may even see competitors to Windows. who knows how long though.

your first point is a good point though and I don't know if any amount of time overcomes it.

It could be, but I have more faith in Steam taking the OS crown than Windows ever becoming a decent product.

 

[Sebastian1295]

of course they don't, because laptops and consoles haven't hit parity

if a laptop can run games just as good as a console, with just as much ease, why own the console?

or are you arguing a laptop could never do that? because tbh, given the way tech progresses, a cell phone will likely hit parity given enough time

technology is pretty crazy like that. computers used to take up entire rooms.

It has 0 to do with parity man. Think of nintendo and playstation as apple and samsung in the phone space. There's a million different options for phones and a million different companies and yet apple and samsung are the market leaders and continue to dominate in that space. It's because the brand itself is so big and has built such a reputation of quality in said space that no one is going to shove them out of it.


Now let's go back to nintendo and playstation. Say 20 years from now there's a pc that is essentially a console sitting on the shelf next to playstation and nintendo ok. Do you think that generic console that has full parity 'giving u the benefit of the doubt with parity here' is going to compete with the brand that is nintendo and playstation? Once ur brand has been around so long it takes on an identity in of itself and becomes a juggernaut which is what playstation and nintendo are. That 30 yr old dad gaming right now on his playstation will pass said playstation down to his son and his son will do it with his son etc etc just like a samsung galaxy phone and apple phone and how people buy those for their kids, parents, etc because of their experience with it.

 

[reinking]

Personally I was thinking 50 or so years, but I was pulling that out of my ass

So almost as long as consoles have been around? Sure, why not? As long as there is something else to take their place it works for me. I will be close to 110 years old so I hope whatever it is it has a big ass screen.

 

[I collect VHS tapes]

So almost as long as consoles have been around? Sure, why not? As long as there is something else to take their place it works for me. I will be close to 110 years old so I hope whatever it is it has a big ass screen.

there was a cowboy bebop episode where you could download your brain onto your console

you wouldn't even need a TV

 

[MicTyson]

Your entire account is based around hating playstation. Good grief.

No, actually it's not. I talked about how much I loved the PS2 and 3. If you check my posts, I rip pretty much everything. Gaming is fucking shit in 2025. Including your precious PS5. There is just so many PS fanboys here that are so sensitive and feel the need to pretend that this gen is great. It's atrocious for all of the big 3.

 

[rm082e]

this makes sense, but don't you believe given enough time price would become negligible? I would assume tech slows down, progress becomes minimal, prices begin to decrease

Well, we are pushing against the limits of how small they can make the process nodes for CPUs/GPUs now. I think TSMC has chips planned at 1.4 nanometers but good lord is that going to be expensive. If we hit the wall at let's say .5 nanometer, and we couldn't make any chips more advanced than that, I could see that tech eventually coming down in cost to the point where everything uses .5nm chips and they're just dirt cheap.

But, I don't think there's any reason to believe we're going to get to a point where we can't continue to improve compute hardware. Just look at Nvidia going from obscure gaming nerd company to a household name in a few years. As long as there is a profit motive to keep improving hardware, and we have a capitalist society, we'll keep improving the chips.

I was just reading an article recently that researchers are looking at how they could maybe start stacking layers of transistors to form a 3D chip. The theory is if they can get the cooling under control and prevent cross-talk between the layers, it could open up a whole new pathway for many years to come. Moore's Law would be back in effect. Liquid cooling will probably be mandatory for those chips though, so the existing concept of an AIO cooler will have to be miniaturized and improved so we can put them in everything for really cheap.

 

[rm082e]

Gaming is fucking shit in 2025.

 

[I collect VHS tapes]

But, I don't think there's any reason to believe we're going to get to a point where we can't continue to improve compute hardware.

how will this end up manifesting for the consumer?

you'd think at some point, maybe not that far off, you'll get to a point where you can have photorealistic games in 8k.

that doesn't seem like a stretch to assume in the relative near future. then what happens once we continue to improve the hardware beyond what the physical eye can appreciate?

something like the metaverse? holodeck?

 

[HerjansEagleFeeder]

PCs can't replace consoles, as the countless debates on GAF clearly show. Smartphones can't either. I fully expect streaming to make a bigger dent in the console market at some point in the future, but that's definitely not coming next year or so. Too many obstacles on the way that need to get sorted out, still.

 

[MicTyson]

PCs can't replace consoles, as the countless debates on GAF clearly show. Smartphones can't either. I fully expect streaming to make a bigger dent in the console market at some point in the future, but that's definitely not coming next year or so. Too many obstacles on the way that need to get sorted out, still.

It's going to be streaming, it's obvious at this point.

People can go on about the quality not being as good or the latency etc.. They don't care. Most of you will continue to buy it up and continuing bitching about it. Most of the consumers won't know the difference.

 

[Guilty_AI]

PCs can't replace consoles, as the countless debates on GAF clearly show. Smartphones can't either. I fully expect streaming to make a bigger dent in the console market at some point in the future, but that's definitely not coming next year or so. Too many obstacles on the way that need to get sorted out, still.

It's going to be streaming, it's obvious at this point.

People can go on about the quality not being as good or the latency etc.. They don't care. Most of you will continue to buy it up and continuing bitching about it. Most of the consumers won't know the difference.

I think people overestimate the advantages of streaming. It's an overcomplicated solution to problems that are more or less going away. Making apps intercompatible is becoming easier and easier, and vast majority of games, including - especially - the most popular ones aren't demanding in the first place and can run natively in most machines. And all of these elements become more true over time, arguably at a much faster pace than game streaming quality as many major players already gave up on that. Streaming is a system that made sense for video formats, but not so much for software.

Now, i can see some games using cloud computing in the future, especially MMOs.

 

[Trilobit]

I love single-focus gadgets. Which is why I hope that consoles never disappear.

 

[Durin]

There will always be people that want the more stripped down experience in that form factor that connects to a living room.

Thing is over time the need for that to be a super closed ecosystem makes less sense when the hardware is nearly identical as the more open computer devices replicate the same experience.

Many devices can connect to the TV, many can replicate the same general UI experience, and even console games are adopting graphic presets. Consoles are going to become more of a form factor than that unique bespoke device we grew up with. You had laptops replace desktops for people when they got good enough, tablets are starting to do that for laptops (desktops & laptops are starting to adopt arm-based chips as well), and streaming opens up even more flexibility.

 

[Jesb]

It definitely feels inevitable, especially with the rise of cloud gaming.

 

[powder]

I don't think so. I do think they're going to become more modular, though. Maybe longer generations with easily-upgradable internals.

 

[Baemono]

I believe the all digital future we've been told to will have a huge pushback from people who start to get tired of seeing things they pay for or paid for disappearing, depending on the company's mood.

So yeah, still consoles in the future

 

[HerjansEagleFeeder]

I think people overestimate the advantages of streaming. It's an overcomplicated solution to problems that are more or less going away. Making apps intercompatible is becoming easier and easier, and vast majority of games, including - especially - the most popular ones aren't demanding in the first place and can run natively in most machines. And all of these elements become more true over time, arguably at a much faster pace than game streaming quality as many major players already gave up on that. Streaming is a system that made sense for video formats, but not so much for software.

Now, i can see some games using cloud computing in the future, especially MMOs.

You seem to assume that hardware limitations will increasingly become less of an issue because games will at some point stop demanding more computing resources.

I'd predict the exact opposite: I expect games to demand more and more resources, even when we've reached the limit of what a bump in resolution or polygon count can reasonably do for the perceived quality of the image rendered sometime in the future. Because of that, we're stuck in the endless money-sink-loop of having to upgrade hardware every couple years at a minimum, and both companies and customers have had enough of this shit. Streaming at least delegates the pain to the data centers only. I think there's a lot of appeal in that.

 

[IAmRei]

It's hard for console to dissapear any soon, but might be possible in the future, when they do not evolve well. But consoles are part pf our lives like other thing does. There are things such like simplicity to play for normies and price entry. Pc might be good for core gamers, but consoles are easier for normies. This can be debunked for mobile. But mobile cannot do much console does, such as input and certain exclusives which led to console popularity for normies and core gamers.

That is, unless last bastion of consoles, Nintendo and Sony choose to not to exodus to more mainstream media, i dont think so

 

[drganon]

No, actually it's not. I talked about how much I loved the PS2 and 3. If you check my posts, I rip pretty much everything. Gaming is fucking shit in 2025. Including your precious PS5. There is just so many PS fanboys here that are so sensitive and feel the need to pretend that this gen is great. It's atrocious for all of the big 3.

Bullshit. You're not fooling anyone, who's ever alt you are.

As for the stupid topic at hand, no. Just because Xbox is failing miserably doesn't mean consoles are "doomed".

 

[Guilty_AI]

You seem to assume that hardware limitations will increasingly become less of an issue because games will at some point stop demanding more computing resources.

I'm not predicting they'll stop demanding less compute resources, they already aren't.

Take a look at the most popular games in the market. Bunch of mobile gacha games, decades old f2p, mid-low tech MMOs, even on the SP space a lot of the most popular releases haven't been exactly pushing boundaries visually. Graphics clearly aren't all that relevant anymore.