Not surprisingly, Sony is at work on the Playstation 5.

http://www.ibtimes.com/sony-corporation … ed-1764042

Apparently, a big question is whether it will be a physical console or "cloud". Personally, I'm not interested in cloud-gaming nor physical disks which require you to activate on Steam, etc. etc. When I purchase a game, I want to be able to play it, trade it, sell it, give it, do whatever I want to it. If future systems are going to be all cloud, I'll find some other system to play, or maybe kickstart my own (although if it came to that, I bet some group of unhappy gamers would gather and produce some homebrew console that's cloud-free).

I really like physical media myself... but it's obvious that it's going to be done away with eventually. Personally if I can't own a physical copy of the game I bought I'm just not going to buy that game which means I may just bow out of playing newer games altogether if they go that route. That may sound like it be hard but to be honest there isn't anything on any of the current gen systems I want anyway.

However, I'm kind of taking a break from (buying) games at the moment. Outside one game (the expensive Strider 2) I'm really happy with where my collection is right now.

But I see going purely digital as a good and bad thing. Anything that hurts Gamestop is a good thing in my opinion... but I'd hate to see the independent game store that I like a million times better close its doors. Yeah, they do retro but that's probably not enough to stay open.

As for the PlayStation 5... not surprised they are working on it already. I'm not a big technology whore but I'm sorry... I don't see the PS4 and XB1 lasting ten years like the consoles in previous gens.

Also, didn't Nintendo publicly announce they were working on the successor to the WiiU?

http://mynintendonews.com/2014/11/06/ni … g-console/

Whatever Nintendo is doing, I just hope they stick to physical media.

Re: PS5...of course they are working on it...but the Ps4 hasn't even hit its stride yet as far as game development lifecycles...as for going completely cloud...just feels too early especially for a company that continues to have monumental system and company hacks... - but if they CAN pull it off as well as real time portable unit interfaces - that could be pretty cool...Bandwidth would be the real limitation here, so unless a low-latency wireless and wired infrastructure solution is readily available to most of the customer bases...there's gonna need to be solid offline capabilities..

I think Microsoft has a leg up here as far as network capability in the US....Actually I'd like to see a unifying portable solution come from Microsoft - they've stayed away from this market to date...Wonder if we'll see some type of product from Microsoft in 2015? 

Both systems at present - are still underwhelmed, even looking at basic functionality (Mp3 streaming / DLNA support ETC..). 

Question - has anyone played a seamless game experience using cloud based gaming? Curious about frame rate and controller lag / response times.

It's not unusual for the R&D teams at the hardware manufactures to start thinking about the next generation within months after the release of the previous one's release. These things take years to put together, you know. I'd be more worried if Sony and Nintendo weren't thinking about their next platforms.

As for what form they take, now that is a very interesting question. It's inevitable that physical media will go away, possibly as soon as the next generation. Even in this generation, only the Wii U allows games to be played off of the discs. Both the XB1 and PS4 require installs which makes the discs little more than glorified product keys that ease the pain of having to download 45GB at once. Penetration of high speed broadband (>15Mbps) is really going to be critical for this to be a reality.

At some point, Nintendo/Sony/MSFT will have to decide if losing the market of people without fast enough connections is worth the savings of not having to manufacture and maintain disc inventory. I suppose there could always be some compromise solution with rewritable flash storage that could be downloaded and encrypted at retail (sort of modern take on the old blank SFC carts in Japan) for those without the bandwidth, but who knows. Either way, I don't expect retail to go anywhere since discoverability is still a pretty big problem with digital storefronts, and having flashy displays and download cards that can be purchased helps spread the word.

Now, what about cloud gaming? I think that this will become increasingly acceptable to the more casual segment of the market that wants a Netflix-like experience for games, and I think it could work great for certain genres that don't require fast responses, but for hardcore gamers for whom latency is dirty word, I'm not sure the the technical challenges will be solved to an acceptable level.

What's more likely to happen is that Nintendo/Sony/MSFT will continue to have their market share eaten into by Apple/Google/Amazon and there will be some breaking point where the traditional console manufacturers have to decide whether to chase larger less engaged audiences or vastly increase their tech and pricing and compete for the hardcore PC gamer who is willing to really invest. The next 10 years should be very interesting.

My concern is that, if all gaming and entertainment went to online services, the broadband providers would have even more control around people's lives than they already do. What's stopping them from cutting the usage cap in half, and forcing people to upgrade their service in order to put the usage cap back to what they currently have?

When I was recently browsing Comcast's offerings, I noted that they have a 250 GB usage limit per month. That sounds like a lot. Then, when I started thinking about how much streaming my family does, I realized that we might be at the borderline.

That's a very valid concern! Theoretically, competition is supposed to prevent that from happening, but since we all know how little competition there is in the broadband market, what you describe is a pretty real risk. That said, I think the content providers might try to negotiate something with the telecoms so that their subscribers aren't discouraged from using their services. Should be interesting to see how it plays out.

https://games.yahoo.com/news/psn-xbox-l … 00116.html

"Both Xbox Live and PlayStation Network are both currently unavailable. "

Of course, with a physical disk you don't have to worry about whether you can actually play the game. If it's all online, then I can easily foresee numerous problems.

*looks up from NES*

Gee, must really suck to have your whole network go down.

*goes back to Castlevania III*

The network stuff is separate from the disc stuff. Doesn't really matter if the game is physical or digital if the network is down. What matters is whether or not the game itself requires an online connection. If it does, having the disc won't help you. Similarly, an installed digital game that doesn't require the network will work just fine without it.

I don't know of ANY console games (at this point in time, other than MMORPG) that require an online connection. Also, for cloud-based games they could easily make it so that you will need to have the game "verified" online before playing. In which case, when the network is down, so is your console.

Well, I can assure you that there are non-MMORPG console games that require an online connection to play. Some are for DRM reasons and others are for silly features that we might not think are necessary, but the publisher requires for whatever reason. Cloud games, by their very nature, always have to be online.

Please name them. I'm not aware of any.

Off the top of my head, I know that the PS3 versions of Bionic Commando Rearmed 2 and Final Fight Double Impact require an online connection as a form of DRM. On current consoles, I'm fairly certain that the recently released racing game The Crew requires online to function across all platforms, even when you are playing alone. Titanfall on XB1 also requires online, but that is a multiplayer-only game (though not an RPG), so maybe it should be expected to require online. However, even if it had a single-player mode it would still require an online connection because part of the game's computations are done in the cloud and then added to the local stuff to make the game. Those are just a few off the top of my head. I'm sure there are others.

I have the Capcom Digital Collection on disc (Xbox), and both Bionic Commando Rearmed 2 and Final Fight Double Impact (and all the other games on the disc) do not require any online activation. I find it hard to believe that the PS3 version would require online activation since the Xbox version certainly does not. Perhaps you're thinking of leader boards or something like that, which requires online connectivity.

Titanfall, I can see that, but as you said that is a multiplayer game. So, it sounds to me like you're way over-representing the number of console games today which require online activation. If you think of others, let me know.

Double Impact was originally released as a digital release only and it did require you to be online. That was one of the reasons I did not purchase it (for the PS3 version, I've attempted to access it on my friend's system and got the "connect your system to the internet" message) Apparently, the disc version (the Capcom Digital Collection) that was released later on bypasses the online restriction. Or maybe it's system specific? Who knows at this point.

In any case, a stupid idea (always being online) that the industry is moving closer and closer to.

Someone was bitching the other day that they couldn't play Dragon Age; Inquisition on XB1 because XBL was down...

http://help.ea.com/en/article/origin-gu … quisition/

"Origin's Offline Mode can be used to play Dragon Age: Inquisition without an internet connection, but there are times when you'll need to be online to access or activate certain features, such as multiplayer or syncing with the Keep."

Doesn't sound like there should be a problem.

I'm talking about the digital PS3 versions of both games that I listed, and I am not confused. Just because you find something hard to believe doesn't make it any less true.

Fair enough. Thank you. I am however relieved (so to speak) that those are the only cases, and they are just three out of many thousands of games released. So, I don't think the PS4 nor Xbox will have many (apart from MMORPG nor multiplayer) games that will require online activation/connection. As for the PS5 and future systems, that may be a very different matter.