Opinion: Digital consoles are coming, whether you like it or not

While talks on an upgraded Xbox One and 4K PlayStation 4 consoles have come into focus recently, that hasn’t stopped some people from looking further into the future. According to the Ms. Cleo’s of the gaming industry, the future is looking a lot more like PC gaming and a lot less like the disk based console gaming we have come to know.

This thinking began after the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 were released and voiced loudly by industry analyst Michael Pachter. According to Pachter, our future looked a lot like the Roku streaming device.

“This is the last real console cycle,” said Pachter. “I don’t mean that Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo will go bankrupt and shut down – they will not…You’re going to have a CPU/GPU in your house that is connected to your television.”

Most recently, Ubisoft’s CEO was quoted saying that he believed streaming was the future for game consoles.

But is this really going to happen? Is it even a good idea? Well, a lot of ground work has already been laid to lead up to it. In fact, the rumors around what became the Xbox One and the initial features of the Xbox One seem like a segue into an all digital future.

Before the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 had been announced, we had rumors. While the rumors for the console that became the PlayStation 4 weren’t as frequent, rumors for the Xbox One (then referred to as the Xbox 720) were a dime a dozen. It was almost like you couldn’t go a day without seeing a rumor for the ‘Xbox 720.’

One of these rumors suggested that the Xbox would be revealed and released without an optical drive – meaning that it would not play physical games, only digital games. This rumor was conflicting to the gaming community, some were cautiously optimistic while others believed it to be heresy. With the reveal of the Xbox One we learned that physical games would still be a thing – for how long that will remain is unknown.

Before Microsoft pulled a 180 on their plans for the Xbox One, they had plans for an always online console. Microsoft believed so thoroughly in their always online product their former President of the Interactive Entertainment Business was quoted telling people to stick with the Xbox 360 for offline play.

“Fortunately, we have a product for people who aren’t able to get some form of connectivity; it’s called the Xbox 360.”

Of course, the always online feature was taken off of the console in a day one update. However, Microsoft had every intention of going through with their always online feature, but why is this important? An always online console is an easy segue to a streaming console – a console that does not accept physical games.

You’re already constantly connected with an always online console, the move to be 100% always online wouldn’t be too hard. Every console is a step towards the next console generation, each has a hint of where things could go — unless you’re Nintendo, that GameCube to Wii jump was crazy.

In addition to that Microsoft expanded their Cloud services after the Xbox One released.

While that might not amount to much, there’s the fact that digital sales have begun surpassing retail sales. Specifically looking at EA, around 55% of their most recent fiscal year sales came from digital sales, and year–on-year sales show an 18% growth. If we were to get even more specific, Madden NFL’s digital purchases was “was well north of 50 percent when you look at a full-year number,” according to EA.

To summarize things, the technology was rumored and nearly put into place to some degree. Onto the next question, is it a good idea?

In the future, yes, streaming based disk-less consoles will be a good idea and whether or not you agree… it’s the future.

We could simply look at Valve’s digital distribution platform, Steam, for proof. Steam is one of the most successful game services that solely deals in digital downloads for games (and now movies). Valve has even seen that digital home consoles will be coming into focus, they released their own TV compatible device with a controller that allows users to play their games on the TV.

That hasn’t taken off and perhaps it’s because people still look at as PC gaming – the fault may simply lie in the advertisement. Sony and Microsoft wouldn’t make the same mistake, they’d drown you in advertisements for their disk-less item.

The smaller streaming devices will be cheaper to manufacture and handier for a majority of the growing population that has grown up with less physical items in their lives and more digital items. Look at the next generation of gamers, the kids growing up in an age where everything is available at a click of the finger. This instant gratification movement has left more people loading games at midnight instead of waiting in line at a midnight release. All digital will simply become easier. Everything you own will be stored in one place, you can flip between games without getting up and changing a disk – it’s the answer to supreme laziness.

Much like floppy disks, physical games will slowly be phased out and replaced with digital downloads (you know you’ve opened a game case an found a digital code in there instead of a disk already).

Will it work? What about trade-in used games?

I can’t answer that, but if Microsoft and Sony want to make all digital an option – GameStop will find a way to survive.

[Disclaimer: This is the opinion of the author]