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When will consoles go extinct?

Azelover

Titanic was called the Ship of Dreams, and it was. It really was.
Industry "experts" have been saying it would go extint since the time of the NES... So I really don't pay much attention to that.

It will exist as long as it brings something to the table. Who knows how long that will be..
 

pramod

Banned
Never.


Never.

Anecdotal experience is irrelevant.
Pretty strong anecdotal evidence.

I have 6 cousins under the age of 18 and none of them has expressed interest in a PS5. They would rather get latest iPhone or maybe just some new mobile games to download on their phones.
 
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pramod

Banned
Consoles are currently breaking all records so at least 3 more generations is my bet.
Yes they are breaking records because this is the peak. People who grew up in the 16/32 bit days are reaching their peak earning age. But what happens in 20 yrs when most of us die or get too old to play games?
 

Barakov

Gold Member
Notice i say when and not if.

And the main reason i say this is because the younger generations just arent into consoles like the older ones are.

I would really like to see some demographic info on the age of people buying consoles but just from my own anecdotal experience, kids would much rather play on their phones, or even on a PC, than on the living room TV.

My own prediction is one more generation of "traditional" consoles at most. After that it will either morph into completely VR devices or just go extinct.
RrQY5Qx.gif
 

rodrigolfp

Haptic Gamepads 4 Life
Steam deck is much closer to a console than a PC. I mean all you can upgrade is the drive pretty much, right?

As far as powerful desktops most of the firms I work with have offloaded their heaviest lifting to cloud based hardware. You still have some high memory local machines but it's becoming less and less.

There's always going to be a need for powerful local rendering, memory, or storage just for things that aren't easy to put in the cloud like heavy IO and low latency workloads. But I don't think that's going to stop PCs from becoming a specialty item.
No, it's not. The only thing apart from being a "full pc" is the parts upgrades. The rest is all about freedom the OSs provide.

Those cloud based hardware are all powerful "desktops".
 
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Kataploom

Gold Member
Pretty strong anecdotal evidence.

I have 6 cousins under the age of 18 and none of them has expressed interest in a PS5. They would rather get latest iPhone or maybe just some new mobile games to download on their phones.
Tbf most millennial "normies" when they were that age wouldn't give a shit about consoles or games too, gaming is just a popular thing now and people will play on whatever they have available... You basically described some late 20 to early 30 friends I studied with at high school, they mostly play call of duty mobile currently, but those that are way into gaming we have consoles and PC and I see the same pattern on young teenagers to children... Gaming is just too wide of a hobby right now, we have choices for many types of players
 

rodrigolfp

Haptic Gamepads 4 Life
Every device has an OS. PS3 could run Linux. Does that make it a PC?
Not if that Linux has more limitations than PC full Linux and can't run full Windows too. Deck can. Android is Linux. Doesn't make phones PCs.
 
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lh032

I cry about Xbox and hate PlayStation.
Judging by the increasingly ridiculous PC hardware prices, dont be surprise if high end PC go first lol

we shall wait for a thread like this again in the next gen, see you fellas!
 
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As long as consoles remain cheaper with the same computing power as computers, never
This right here. The only thing that will cause the demise of consoles is if we reach the point of diminishing returns on graphics and the average person can't tell the difference between playing a game on their phone plugged into/streaming to their TV or playing a game on console. Otherwise, consoles are simply the best cost/performance ratio option available by their very nature.
 

JLB

Banned
As all things, they will evolve and adapt.

Its something that some people don't get, as there are a stupid minority of people out there that still believe the Switch is not a "proper" console.

But yeah, won't dissapear in the foreseeable future. It will turn into hybrid consoles, or VR consoles, but they won't dissapear.

Dino Riders Dinosaur GIF
 

JLB

Banned
When you overcome the limitations of light speed by building a network of data centers no more than 50 miles apart from each other. X-Cloud works almost seamlessly for me, but I live 35 miles from the Tampa, FL Azure data hub, your mileage may vary.

TL;DR - A long-ass time in the future.

For most games you just need such low latency scenarios. I still can play with people on the other side of the world at relatively well, which is 10 times worse than a good stream service.
 

JLB

Banned
Physical games may possibly vanish in our lifetime. Consoles won't.
Physical games are disintegrating by the minute. They are already absolute dead on pc, and on consoles its a matter of 2 or 3 more years.
Yeah, there will always be physical games, like vinyls. But they will be completely irrelevant sooner rather than later.
 
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JLB

Banned
10-20 years maybe

When quantum computing becomes widely available - then it will surely die.

If quantum computing becomes widely available (wnt happen ever) the world would basically dissapear since it would break every single digital security system in the world, making banks, secret agencies, govs, etc 100% exposed.
 
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lachesis

Member
When videogames don't require a pc, console, or living room TV or whatever it's required now. I don't see phones, but personal AR glass via cloud streaming service maybe...
 
Unless our global society goes through some massive transformation, consoles will never go extinct. As others have stated, they will evolve and adapt. Even if they become no longer mainstream and cease to be mass produced, there will always be collectors, enthusiasts, game historians, etc, who will develop and produce them.
 

dcx4610

Member
I think they are here to stay unless something unforeseen happens. I do think they'll eventually turn into streaming boxes with minor local processing but they'll still be "consoles" technically.
 
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Rippa

Member
Seems like an elitist post but I’ll bite.

Only when you can game on a $400 PC that can produce graphics better than this years graphics king Horizon Forbidden West.

This will all happen on December 32nd of this year. 😵‍💫
 

Bakkus

Member
I don't think they will at least not in any of our lifetimes. I do however think they will reach a point where they last decades and just needs updates (charged most likely) to be on par with newest technology.
 

Griffon

Member
Steam Decks and Steam Consoles will soon take over, all will bow to gaben and PCMR 🤪

Honestly tho, my thinking is more in line with the fact that most people already have super phone computers in their pockets everyday.
Someday it will be simpler to connect those to a tv and a gamepad than buy a wasteful dedicated hardware that cannot do anything else.
 

clampzyn

Member
lmao , as long as consoles hardware offers better price/performance, it will always have a market for gamers. PC will be far more risky,if not, get extinct, if MS/Sony ever did allow to support linux/windows OS on consoles as an option. Why? Cause consoles are sold with little to no profit , heck even MS said they are losing money for each console said unlike PC hardware where profits are like 200% per part LOL
 
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Ar¢tos

Member
Dedicated hardware running optimized OS, being the same on every machine making devs optimization job easier and more efficient.

VS

Endless possible hardware combinations running that bloated thing called Windows, where you need to buy more powerful hardware, compared to consoles, to brute force the same results.


I would say... Never.
They might morph into streaming devices (real/digital) in the future, but you will always have either a box/stick connected to the TV or it will become part of the TV OS itself.
 

Chastten

Banned
Yes they are breaking records because this is the peak. People who grew up in the 16/32 bit days are reaching their peak earning age. But what happens in 20 yrs when most of us die or get too old to play games?

That's why I said at least 3 generations, which would be roughly 15-20 years.

Anything further than that would just be anyone's guess. 3 of my 6 nephews play Switch/PlayStation/PC a lot so who knows what they will do in 20 years. Who knows where gaming is at that point? I sure don't. But 3 more generations of consoles is something I'd dare put a little money on no problem.
 

TrebleShot

Member
As others have said PC will die first.
Cloud will be the next platform. Nah say and bullshit it as much as you like the tech improves month on month and the barrier to entry becomes less and less.

Xcloud app in your tv.
GFN 3080 tier.
Boosteroid
Remote Play


Getting there, once Sony goes cloud in a big way (probably for PS6) we’ll be on the road.


I can see next gen being hardware based but with a heavy cloud component to supplement features a lot like Xbox does now with xcloud but pushing it further.
 
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