Topic: what will gaming be like in 2050?

I know 2050 is a very long time from now that making predictions today is practically impossible, but I've wondered what the gaming landscape would be like for the next generation. The kids playing video games today.

My predictions:

Some other big tech company(s) trying cloud-gaming: I know that between now and then another company or two will try cloud gaming. Xbox or sony could try out could try it out too if it takes off..

An increase in indie game popularity over first party games: with more resources than ever available for anyone to learn or code, more people will try their hands at indie development. This trend will lead to companies like nintendo working with them as companies could soon fight over console exclusivity for these games.

More handheld consoles: if the Nintendo switch passes the sales numbers of the PS2 then Sony and Xbox may break their console specs arms race between each other to try and get their own peice of the handheld market. Nintendo will have some serious competition for the switch successor and any later switch-like devices...

Sucking those piggy banks- I mean customers- dry..: pokemon is already doing this with 2 slightly different versions of the same game, dlc, and micro transaction filled mobile games. Obviously they aren't the only one, but I fear Nintendo may go down the same route too. They are above the wii-levels of success and revenue they had years ago and very well could have another wii u- Era If they make only make money-focused choices for the switch successors..

And finally increasing game prices despite the rise of quality disappointments: Along with the likey rise of micro transactions comes the decrease in "new ideas". Just like Hollywood more companies are playing it safe and releasing the same old games with a new coat of paint (EA).
Or they are cutting development time to save money in the short-term. When these games release they do bad and continue the cycle until the company listens to its player base, or its forced to improve due to the fear of bankruptcy.

So, any thoughts?

Streaming subscriptions will be the popularity, with the main ones being SONY MEDIA, Nintendo, Amazon, Microsoft Gaming, Ubisoft +, Disney, SEGA, and Bandai. Consoles won’t exist. Also holographic gaming will start to become popular.

Likely quite sore, 'cause I'd be 60.

If I really work at it, I could have passed the 50% mark in my backlog.

That is of course assuming that I don't buy any more games after the Switch generation.

I think Nintendo will continue doing their own thing with Switch style hybrids meanwhile Xbox and Playstation become platforms that exist inside of Fortnite.

I think all the new AI tech will lead to more complex systems being common, so things like PvE could get a lot more fun when the world/balance is run by a very adaptive AI, really most genres could be affected/benefit from this. (definitely one of the slightly lighter sides of AI, providing services that no human would realistically be able to provide for an extended period of time) The other side of the coin is companies padding out lobbies with more convincing AI, quite possibly causing a bit of fall out when gamers start realizing there's no way to know if they're playing with humans at all. Kind of a current problem that could just expand.

I think we can also reasonably expect a bit of a fallout in terms of the current landscape. I think current trends like live service games and cloud gaming will ultimately end up as smaller portions of the market than everyone's predicting. Cloud gaming simply feels odd to not own your game, so I think it mainly makes sense for a service, and a service won't have the same power it does in the worlds of TV and movies because ultimately video games aren't binge-able like film is.

Lastly probably new tech will shake things up. This has always happened, but as we reach the limits of graphics, the industry will have to find new direction, maybe just with spectacle of games, but who knows. I personally believe that despite what lots of people seem to believe, some of the more invasive tech that seems to be on the horizon might just not catch on. For example brain chips. I think they'll serve the world fantastically in a medical sense, but I don't think people will ever be comfortable with corporations inside their heads. We could maybe see tech that simply allows new realms of control through perhaps a headset that reads brain activity? Sounds kind of crazy but I could imagine at the very least it could work for point and click or calmer games. Another idea is more tactile controls, we're already going there with stuff like DualSense but I wonder how far that can be pushed.

In 2050, you'll have a handheld device in your pocket that'll be capable of all of your gaming and computing needs, that you can seamlessly dock to a screen in your living room for leisure, a workstation in your office, or just use by itself when you're out and about.

...and all the games for it will be live-service pay-to-win collectathon garbage.

Sadly all games will be played with rocks as the few survivors hide in caves from the post-apocalyptic hellscape.

Either that or maybe VR will finally get popular, possibly with brain reading control schemes as @chiiizu suggested. (the technology basically already exists and has been tested, it would just need to be improved for consumer use and not completely ignored as a pointless gimmick which may or may not be what eventually happens).

What need will there be for game streaming when we have insane amounts of compute in our pockets? Portables are obviously the play, I think the concept of a "home console" will disappear entirely. Instead they'll be built into our TVs or portable devices like the Switch that dock

Another thing I expect is that the idea of a game being released for a hardware platform will disappear somewhat. Instead distribution platforms will be software based and will exist across hardware devices

I could see a future where, for example, you login to your Nintendo account on a Sony TV to download and play titles from their subscription service direct on the SoC built into the TV which, by that point, would make the PS5 look like a DS

Gaming as a concept will cease to exist as the next generation will have no use for the physical bodies that bind us to this mortal coil and will instead upload their consciences into the mainframe to become one with the hivemind.

there'll probably also be something to do with 5G and a robot uprising but eh I'm just spitballing here XD

All jokes aside, I could very much see VR go from a cool novelty (aka what it is currently) into perhaps the main way games are consumed going forward. The depth the technology could potentially provide is pretty much limitless and given how companies like Apple and Facebook are already positioning VR as a next step of communication (to varying degrees of success I must add), I don't think its too crazy to assume that virtual reality could be the primary source of gaming as the years go by.

Skynet will have wiped us out by 2050. A few pockets of survivors will be limited to playing original Game Boy while trying avoid roaming Terminators.

<comment about Silksong still not being released>

If it's anything like the OASIS from ready player one I'm going to be very miserable.

I'm with skywake. Playstation Network and Xbox Game Pass will be pre-packaged applications with televisions. Not unlike Amazon Prime, Netflix, Youtube, Hulu, etc. The all-digital future will have arrived. Consoles will go the way of eight track players, cd players, dvd players, etc.

In the year 2050, switch cartridges will finally be affordable & stop scaring off game publishers/developers.

If tiny powerful computers with connectivity are everywhere, and AI hacking/spam/cyberwar makes us have to revert to more basic, or unconnected technology... and it becomes standard knowledge that growing up through puberty with smartphones is mental poison... I have no idea what changes or innovations may come to gaming.

Groundbreaking, open dimension 4D Zelda will be hated by older gamers, and those older gamers will constantly claim that BOTW & TOTK were the zenith of the Zelda series.😁

Inspite of all this @nintendolife will continue to be a nice place to be. 😁

The thing about long term predictions like this is that people tend to latch onto things that are changing rapidly now. As in this thing that's brand new now and has changed rapidly over the last couple of years? Well obviously that'll be a huge deal in the future. But then they miss the broader, more "boring" trends that just kinda creep up on us

Like if you were predicting 2020 in the mid 90s you might have said gaming would be centred around 1TB optical discs with high resolution pre-rendered cutscenes. I mean, not entirely wrong but still. That would've been where people's minds would have gone because, at the time, optical media in gaming was the shiny new thing. I suspect if people looked back on this thread in 2050 they'd probably think the same about some of our predictions

What we can say with some confidence? Well, we're going to hit a wall with transistor size fairly soon. I remember almost 20 years ago now reading about when we'd hit the limits of Moore's Law. Most of the estimates were that we'd hit a wall around 2030. We're not far from that. There will still be advancements beyond that (there's a reason why "AI Accelerators" suddenly became a thing), different ways of calculating stuff, but we'll still hit a bit of a wall regardless. And with that there will probably be a bit of rethinking in how games are rendered (again, already happening)

The other thing we can say with a lot of confidence? Storage will get VERY cheap. Some people have mentioned game streaming and, to a degree, that's a thing. But the rate that consumer internet connections are gaining speed? It has nothing on how fast storage will get cheap. No contest. @WoomyNNYes above is joking about the price of Switch cartridges.... but no, really, they will be. The size of games won't be an issue

What will probably also happen is that more of the game is actually physically simulated. We're starting to see this happen with Ray Tracing somewhat. We've seen Physics simulations sometimes. But I think by 2050 it will be far more prevalent and, also, far more intense. Some of that will be AI driven, some of it will just be very specific hardware acceleration. But generally we'll see more of it. As in it's raining so that embankment is damp so when you walk up it it starts to slide. But not because it's scripted, but because it's actually simulating how the dirt and water interact with your weight

@skywake On the idea of latching onto current trends, I think parsing what's a trend and what's realistic/an inevitability is key. A lot of trends right now really are just trends, and they just won't last. Personally, despite the fact that we've been moving closer to VR recently, I think the screen so close to your eyes, and the all-consuming nature of VR indicates it won't last. It's simply just tiring to use VR for very long, the fact that by using it you can't see anything for real, it's all just digital, and how easy it is to become nauseous all feel like major signs that while tech billionaires feel like they're pioneering the future, and continue to push for it (unless somehow the reality of the screens is resolved, perhaps by somehow being able to selectively use parts of a pane of glass as a screen) it won't be able to catch on due to its conflict with human nature. (Excuse the run-on sentence)

AI will integrate nicely with the games themselves, and will probably spill further into the creation with art and music, but we're quite far away from AI making whole games. Individuals and teams can know how to make good art and music, but I think making games is so much more complicated, no individual simply knows how to make a good game. You need testing and analysis and psychology, and I think we have a few bridges to cross before AI gets there.

Mainly gaming companies will continue to make bad choices, or weird choices, and CEOs will scratch their heads, and come up with new ways to sell games, while the roar of passion and creativity of developers and artists continues to reverberate throughout our world. The love put into games today is no different from the love put into games in 1999, and I think it'll still be there for us in 2050.

In 2050 gaming will likely look pretty similar to what we have today, with more immersive experiences, excellent physics/graphics/etc - likely very switch-like. A technology will probably emerge that we will not see coming, but will be common place in 2050. I wouldn't be surprised if there's a wearable solution that allows you to sense your environment, feel it, sensations... that may be more pie in the sky, but who knows? I could also see holograms that project into a room, turning your entire environment into the game's world - kind of like the Holo Lense demos from years ago. There was a really neat trick that I remember seeing in the Wii days, where a guy reversed engineered the sensor bar to incorporate headtracking, and your movement reflected onto the screen. I wonder if the Kinect idea will make a comeback, with precise movement/headtracking recognition? When I saw the Wii demo, I was intrigued, but it never really became a reality.
All this to say, I have no idea, but whatever exists in 2050 will seem magical to us today. If I were to see a switch in 1986, I wouldn't believe that it was real or possible - it would be magic to my young self. I hope that I'm still around to experience whatever is out when I'm 70, and still gaming. I'm in my 40's and haven't stopped yet, more passionate today than ever

In 2050, AI will have taken over, and games will be playing you.

In 2050 I'll be...dead maybe.