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The Next 25 Years of Video Games

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2013:
Badass Handhelds With Even Badderass Web Connections

A PS3 in Your Pocket
We'll be at the generation of the PlayStation 4 and the Xbox ... 720 or whatever they decide to call it.

Now, the gaming industry' greatest obstacle has always been the fact that humans eventually have to go outside. This is why handheld gaming is such a big deal these days The best-selling game machine isn't the Wii, PS3 or 360. It' the handheld Nintendo DS, by a huge margin.

People need something to do in all those settings where, in the old days, they used to read a paperback (at the beach, waiting at the airport) and kids need something to do on car trips or in detention. Both groups tend to be avid non-readers.

Come 2013, you should have a portable as powerful as a PS3 or 360 (portables run about a generation behind), which is pushing the limit of what the human eye can even perceive on a little 4-inch screen.

Now, saying handheld gaming is the future right after saying online gaming is the future may sound like a contradiction. After all, wireless Internet access is spotty and cell phone Internet makes you feel like it' 1997 all over again. But ...

The Miracle of 4G
This is where 4G comes in.

4G is the upcoming standard that will give you a wireless connection at 100Mbit/s, anywhere. That' more than 30 times faster than the best DSL connection you can get at home, kids.


Above: The Nokia 4G phone concept, currently in the
"Make-an-awesome-Photoshop-of-it" phase of development.

Whatever the virtual-gaming universe looks like at that point, be it World of Warcraft 2 or the second generation of PS3 Home or a sprawling descendant of Spore, you should be free to access it anywhere, at any time, from your handheld.

Also, this nearly-unlimited Web access will probably signal the end of physically buying games off the shelf. Electronic Arts is not going to see the point in selling boxed games for $60, when they can have you download it for a fee, then pay another monthly subscription fee to play it (the scheme that made Blizzard rich off World of Warcraft).

What Will Suck About It
As you may have already guessed, this era of "download anything, anywhere, anytime" also introduces the era of your mom screeching up the stairs after she opens up a $600 monthly gaming bill.

That bill won't just be from little Timmy buying new games or paying subscription fees on existing ones, either. It'll be from buying in-game content. Already you Xbox-360 gamers can spend real-world money to get extra cars in Forza 2.

It will be a money-making bonanza for them. For us, well, some day we'll reach the final boss' castle and meet a dragon who tells us that the only way to prove we have the heroic heart of the Chosen One is to give him 20 bucks.

Of course, being gamers, we'll still spend most of our time wishing for the Next Big Thing. Which brings us to ...



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92 Comments

we're already at a point where we don't need to think and most of us don't, fuck video games, I'm gonna read a book.

Posted on 8/2/2008 11:43:41 PM

Holy speculation, Batman! If I was more inclined to spend time playing video games, I'd be wetting my self with fear of the future. But since I'm not so inclined, I'll resign myself to a cautious ambivalence.

Posted on 8/1/2008 9:01:08 PM

A lot of this is just guesswork though, it's probably completly wrong, I mean, in 1899 the head of the US patent office proudly proclaimed that "everything worth inventing has now been invented". And in the 50's, the head of IBM said that "in 50 years, the world will probably need five whole computers".

Posted on 7/30/2008 5:11:20 PM

so by 2033 video games will be better than real life? well that's just fucking depressing. by the time i'm 40, life won't even be worth living. it will just be one giant virtual orgasm with shitty games that aren't actually fun. but it won't stop there, because my 70 year old mind will be preserved on a hard drive forever so i can have infinite virtual sex until the end of time.

jesus fucking christ.

my life is meaningless now.

Posted on 7/29/2008 9:45:26 PM

if sony can cause people to feel anything by firing ultrasounds onto our brain then we could forget about computers. we could fire ultrasounds into our brain that make us feel pleasure similar to that of an orgasm or better. Think about it. what if you lived your whole life solely on eating and feeling immense pleasure.

Posted on 7/29/2008 5:44:39 PM

...Kind of boring...

Posted on 7/29/2008 4:38:54 PM

"Lock onto dicks"? Is he autistic?

Posted on 7/29/2008 11:57:26 AM

HAHAHA

That last line was priceless..

Posted on 7/29/2008 11:53:25 AM

"That actually sounds pretty cool now that we mention it. Imagine a haunted-house game with dead people and shit sneaking up on you all the time, and as far as your eyes and ears know, they're really there. We're talking about a game that could trigger a fear response that would physically make you poop your pants."


...Yay. AI Schizophrenia. Fucking sign me up.

Posted on 7/29/2008 10:45:29 AM

sorry, that was my older brother, whom is a jackass

Posted on 7/29/2008 10:41:54 AM

ryesxuyiu3wed8
lllllooooooooocccccckkkkkkkkoooooonnnnttoooooddddddddiiiiiiiiiicccccccccccccckkkkkkkkkkkkkkkksssssssssssss

Posted on 7/29/2008 10:41:04 AM

next thing you know...we'll see random people being attacked by robots with viruses

Posted on 7/29/2008 8:45:27 AM

"We hereby predict that by the year 2028, someone, somewhere, will literally wipe his ass with a computer more powerful than any that exists today."

OK, that nearly made me crap my pants xD

Posted on 7/29/2008 6:00:18 AM

Entertaining, Informative, and Horrifying.. just like the rest of this site. Keep it up!

Posted on 7/8/2008 12:40:27 PM

Kind of boring

Posted on 7/3/2008 11:03:05 AM

ur thinking of the movie SPEED.

this is all pretty sweet - to think of it...but pretty scary.

Posted on 7/2/2008 3:29:55 AM

LMFAO hahah

Homer: I saw this in a movie about a bus that had to speed around a city, keeping its speed over fifty and if its speed dropped, it would explode! I think it was called ... "The Bus That Couldnt Slow Down."

Posted on 7/1/2008 6:13:49 PM

w4c3y: There were also some movies on that same subject. People were plugged into this matrix, but they didn't know they were in a matrix. If they were pulled out of this matrix, they found it was matrix run by murderous machines, so they tried to destroy that matrix. I think it was called "The computer everyone was plugged into"

Posted on 7/1/2008 6:02:50 PM

MORE MORE MORE

Posted on 6/28/2008 8:21:49 PM

fuckin wow

Posted on 6/26/2008 3:14:38 AM

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