Yoichi Wada is the president and CEO of Square Enix. Square Enix is a very big video game developer and publisher, responsible for games like Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, and Kingdom Hearts. Hence, his words mean an awful lot. His latest words: console gaming, as we know it today, has only a few years left in it. The future? It’s all about the network, baby!~
The background: Yoichi Wada gave an interview to MCV, a British publication. Good on him. It’s not exactly a wide-ranging interview, instead strictly focusing on the future of video games. Considering his job title, you’d have to assume he knows what he’s talking about.
The big points: physical media (DVD-based games and the like) has no future, so you’d better be cool with things like Xbox Live, PSN, or Steam; 2005 will be seen as the year that everything changed, when console manufacturers changed their mentality from being primarily hardware/console-based to network-based (Xbox Live and eventually~! PSN); Final Fantasy XIV, which is an MMO, may well be more important for Square Enix than Final Fantasy XIII since it’s part of the “new wave” of online, social games.
OK!
Now that that’s out of that way, well, yeah, Wada is 100 percent correct. Console gaming, as we know it, or even used to know it, will die either with this generation or the next. Think of your Xbox 360 and PS3: they’re basically low-end PCs, especially in the 360’s case. (Though I think it’s safe to say that the PS3 has some life left in it, it’s just going to take someone with a lot of money to actually develop a game from the ground up for the system. I’m thinking God of War III will be that game.) Microsoft is most up-front about this: play with Twitter or Facebook! Watch Zune movies! Have a party with your friends! Oh, also, it can play video games, too!
The Xbox 360 came out four years ago. If it weren’t for Xbox Live, or the constant updates the system has seen via software updates (the NXE, Netflix streaming, Twitter/Facebook, etc.), we’d be clamoring for info about the next Xbox already. When was the last time you read so much as a thinly sourced rumor about the next Xbox?
In other words, we’re going to be with the current generation of consoles for a little while, which speaks to Wadas’ point: from 2005, the network matters just as much, if not more so, than the consoles themselves.
(Incidentally, I’m currently in the process of building a gaming/new main PC to replace a 3-year-old iMac for this very reason: why should I play Team Fortress 2 with, what, 15 other people on Xbox Live (versus the several thousand on the PC version), or play Fallout 3 with no access to mods?. I just bought this monitor, and will be adding components as the weeks go by. Any tips (GPUs, CPUs, motherboards, etc) would be greatly appreciated.)
And then there’s casual games! Not everyone has the time required to play “hardcore” games like Fallout 3 or Dragon Quest, so why not fire up a round of Wii Sports, kill off some steam, then go about your business? Needless to say, game publishers make a nice chunk of change on these “simple” games, being that they cost so little to develop, making them fairly important for the bottom line.
If you want to get crazy, then you can think of things like the OTOY and OnLive and Spawn Labs, which promise, to varying degrees, HD-level games over a broadband connection. How well that actually turns out in the real world, who knows, but you can be guys like Wada are paying attention.
I don’t know, this is all over the place. The gist of it is this: we need to recognize that game consoles are little more than dumbed down, low spec PCs. That’s not an insult, of course, just a statement on their underlying technology. Soon, if not already, it’s going to be less about the number of gigaflops the system can process than wether or not you can play Fun Simulator 2 with 87 of your Twitter friends.
You know what I mean, right? I don’t know, too much apple pie yesterday~!
Not sure exactly what you’re getting at, Nick. Yes, the distribution of video games is going digital, but that doesn’t mean that the consoles themselves are dead. First of all, there’s a tremendous amount of infrastructure developed around the console model – with Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo owning (in whole or in part) numerous development studios, franchises, characters etc that they aren’t going to allow to simply move to a console-free universe. Second, while consoles may be nothing more than simplified PCs, they are standardized and optimized for living room play and subsidized by the games. That makes them more accessible as consumer electronics, cheaper to build, and easier for consumers to afford because they get the hardware at a discount. So the model of video games is not moving away from consoles per se, but moving closer to a model like that of a cable company… or perhaps even like a subscription to HBO. MS Sony and Nintendo will continue to want to have people buy their “cable box” consoles and will control the content for them, just like they have been doing. The only thing that will change in the near future is the distribution, and the services that are offered on them which will begin to compete with and even exceed that of the cable and sat TV companies.
For future reference can we have all [-----]Crunch writers know about a certain subject enough to assert a reasonable opinion before they do something to embarrass themselves.
Now I simply adore all the Crunch articles, and respect all the writers tremendously, but this article reeks of the over dramatized filth and misinformation I’d expect from Glenn Beck and Co.
To address a few points clearly, yes the video game industry is moving to the digital medium and is embracing the social networking of todays society. Both good for console gaming and for PC gaming in general. The point of this article surrounding that is entirely valid and true and they better get on it with it, but they better not attempt to charge a 60.00 price tag to a digital download, but i digress that is neither here nor there.
Square Enix is a fine company who has done many amazing things in the past and whose game’s I enjoy a great bit, but I have the write to disagree with them in the fact that they seem to be adamantly going against the trends in gaming. Its obviously fair to mention that the majority of console gamers and gamers in general are morons, but besides that Square needs to produce a game that is suited for today’s audience and not for the audience of the late 90s. Making the assumption that going from a more specialized market to a more watered down broader base market will achieve financial success could be seen as the “jumping the shark approach”
I’m just beginning to ramble now, let me bring this to a close before its longer than the article that I am commenting on. The part of this article that really brought my blood close enough to a boil to reply was this part specifically.
“”why should I play Team Fortress 2 with, what, 15 other people on Xbox Live (versus the several thousand on the PC version), or play Fallout 3 with no access to mods?.”"
I will avoid the fact that both of those game developers came from a computer background and the majority of their user base is still on computers, AND the fact that TF2 is several years old at this point.
Obviously I am not trying to offend anyone or bring down hate on the writer of this article, its not his fault and he his own reporting, but I would have appreciated some sort of rounded out opinion on this “consoles will die” bandwagon.
I feel that moving forward we will see a merger of computers and consoles. I don’t have the foresight to say wether or not the future will be in the cloud running of little cellphones will controller ports or if we will consistently get upgrades to our massive CPU bricks to pump out eye enveloping beauty.
The simple fact is that the future is bright (yet very dirty) for gaming in general, for computer and console users alike. No matter what one person says or another.
Which makes my opinion as moot as anyone elses.
Thanks
I agree with above poster. I have a feeling the Crunch author is young. I say this because you see many articles like this written by the younger, less experienced blog and forum groups.
There is much more that goes into video game console and game distribution besides opening up a bandwidth pipe and putting together a nice piece of hardware. You have to have very experienced companies that have deep pockets that allow them to gain leverage in large scale distributions. There are very few companies that have those funds, experience, and fore site to make it happen. In my opinion, consoles are going to continue to be very popular, even into the next few generations; with or without digital distribution being the main way to acquire games/media.
Great article,
The above commenter’s are making some sense. But, it is coming to the end of consoles as we know them. and soon. No more buying a game and going and selling it at gamestop a week later to get the newer game. digital streaming is going to be the way im sure, Oh and think about movies going all to that medium as well. I can see Blueray bleeding out very quickly in the coming years and i love it.
As I am a PC gamer, I only hope that they see their errors with what they did to COD MW2 and quit trying to make our games the same as the console guys. And maybe make them to start to conform to a standard that has been around since before they have their rumble packs and dually shockers…..
The one thing that keeps consoles going is that they just work. I have had horror stories of pc games over the years that never worked, crashed or had issues. I was tired of buying games wondering if they would even run. They’ve come a long way since then but they still have issues. Who wants to upgrade every year? Console games always play out of the box, but now we are getting incomplete glitchy games because the developers know that they can just send out a game update via PSN or XBL. I can’t tell you how annoying it is to pop in a game and be FORCED to download an update before playing. I hate that consoles are becoming to adopt their pc cousins downfalls along with their benefits. I’m just and angry old gamer now. I fear technology.
I dont upgrade every year, this is a common misconception. You can by all means. but most of us enthusiasts know. You build one really good one and it lasts. I have had mine for two years. and so far, there is no game that i cannot play at max graphics (everything on high/veryhigh).
Which is more than i can say for what it looks like on the crappy ps3 or xbox graphics cards. if console gamers knew they would be up in arms that they got ripped.
because they basically over paid for a over rushed/over hyped HP Media center pc. lol.
And consoles do just work yea. but they do it at a lvl that is unacceptable to my tastes in graphics and fumbling controls. and heaven forbid you go to play an old game online. the messege”the servers are down at this time” is a real real issue on console.
(end of last, sorry) which is now spreading to pc because activision decided to rush MW2 and say eff the pc community.
Yoichi Wada is Absolutely right. Console gaming got its day counted as we know it. Future Consoles will be inexpensive or even free hubboxes that will only serve as a way to give the user input via the controller, remote and of course natal like motion controls.
They pretty much will be like zeebo. However while they will be inexpensive or free by then, their power will be like the current xbox since the controls input, the stream and the media connections will still need a lot of horse power since everything will be HD.
The problem is that while this could happen in Japan as soon as in the Next generation of consoles 2011-2012. It will be delayed by the global market since only a bunch of countries as low as 10-15 would be able to have the network and cost per connected user to make this happen.
It would not happen in Mexico, parts of canada, some parts of usa, alaska, center america, south america, most of europe, half of asia, half of the middle east, half of australia. All those parts would be out. There is no way that the network backbone is going to be there by then.
So it is easy for Yoichi Wada to say this when in japan the minimum line you can get anywhere is 10mb for pretty much almost nothing (in some parts it is even free since some japan cellphones run on actual wi-fi as they are voip based) since a permating network is essential, , 100mb is the norm and 1gb lines are for dept complex where the fee is divided by at least 10 people which results in a very small fee.
So i say that we will not start to be seeing this on a full global basis for Xbox and PS until Xbox1080 and ps5 2020. Yet the consoles will still exist, they are just going to become free. Instead you will be getting the console for your Annual $150 Xbox Live Fee that gets you all kinds of services and you will pay for your game on top of that annual fee.
But i could indeed see that to start happening in japan as soon as 2012. but then the other main problem are Game Publishers and the very delicate matter of wiping out games out of retailers since you would then no longer need them and that will cause thousands upon thousands of people losing their jobs. So those are 2 huge problems yet to solve for the economics to make sense for Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony make that happen.
The zeebo exists simply because a reverse problem where the taxes in brazil (for the country it was first designed to) for foreign electronics are insane and end with everything being 3x as expensive. I actually just saw the zeebo here in Mexico City and the idea is brilliant as a console that replaces those crappy imitation emulator consoles or the need to buy a ps2 and then track down games for it. A console like this for low mid-class and low class kids makes all the sense in the world.
The games quality vary inmensely. you get some games that look like online flash games, others that are nes,snes, genesis emulations and the high end games that are like the early xbox games.
Sorry for the typos,etc. I have the bad bad bad habit of writing too fast without checking back what i just wrote.
Have you really seen Zeebo games?? Check out youtubes – they look like PS1 at best and Genesis at worst which could be ok if it was cheap, BUT the console costs $250!! WTF!!! They are merely trying to rip off Brazilians who can’t afford the current consoles with taxes. And why would you buy this if prob for $300 you can buy there a ps2 with a bunch of pirated games. A console like this with 10yearold graphics, manufactured in Brazil and just a few lowly games available for it should cost no more than $99 which is a cost of ps2 in US.
Yes, i said i did saw the games. It don’t cost $250 here, it is $150-$199 depending the store you buy it.
And yes, the quality of the games are all over the place from games that look like out of Nes to the very first ps2 – xbox games that are the very “premier” ones in the system. otherwise they vary from snes to n64 to ps1 in quality.
I do agree that the console price should be $99 but given it got a 3g modem and it is not exactly mass produced in the same level of a cellphone or any other console. That is not realistic yet.
There’s a company that basically wants to connect digital distribution with cloud computing. If they are successful, the console would not have to be much more than a doorway to that world.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyeemtS1jII
The only reason I continue to buy games is that I know that I can resell them once I tire of them. I have purchased very few downloads of games and nothing over $10. If games continue to cost $40-$60 for a downloaded version then I will be out.
I have loved gaming since purchasing my first console (Intellivision) and 100% digital distribution would kill that love for good.
Total digital distribution will only drive those of us like me away or into the arms of illegal procurement. This is the same issue that has been happening for years in the music industry.
Now if there is a reasonable subscription option that allows for access at a reasonable cost, then it might work. I can’t imagine the profit of such a venture would warrant the development costs of anything worth playing (i.e. the shovelware that comes out for Wii) but we shall see.
Comes down to the companies involved wanting more money. I’m out if I have to pay for a $50 download then a monthly fee. I still have a play station one and a super nientendo running. The kids play games on it and I also on occasion play. Games still play well and I paid for them so I should be able to play them forever if I want. The new model is a you just rent it model. You have to pay a sub forever to play your games and there is no way to trade, sell or whatever your game you bought.
Fir deals and coupons on games and gaming hardware visit http://www.pccounter.net/by-category/games.html
I think your right; with the gaming rig try one of the core i5’s I built a rig recently for a friend and he love’s it, try them with a high end solid liquid cooler like one from ASUS or even a thermaltake liquid cooling system that with give the processor some punch and then for graphics try and go the mid price range and do some SLI or Crossfire, I find one big massive card takes up too much room and chews through the wattage
As long as broadband is capped or continues to NOT being deployed to outter areas (( not really have to be rural, just not city dwelling )) this sorta theory is just a hoax and a waste of time. The same goes for cloud computing.. I wouldn’t put a dime into an os that I cannot use over dialup… My forced connection.. And even with the wireless being available, at 5 gig a month, you could barely afford to run your OS let alone download any games or apps with such a cap…..
Thanks, but no thanks
Yes, thank you for saying this. I completely agree. I have a 95GB cap on my internet. I’m not going to just download my games all the time not to mention those who are still on dialup. If everyone moves to digital distribution, they’re going to find even less customers.
Until broadband is uncapped, un-metred and available in more areas, I can’t see digital distribution working.
Well, people have been predicting the death of the console ever since the video game crash of 1983. The clamor died down for a while once the NES came out, but it returned in full force with the release of the “multimedia” PC in the early ’90s. Then again when the proliferation of the Internet in the late ’90s. And yet again now apparently.
People usually like to focus on a few things when predicting the death of the console. One is that it perpetually lags behind PC development. Another is the inability to tinker or modify. Yet another is the restricted user input into the system.
But, the console has a lot of advantages. For one, it’s much cheaper than any PC with similar graphics. For another, people like playing console games with other people (even when it just involves the other people watching). You can play a console game on a large screen, with friends, and have the entire experience revolve around you as the gamer.
What may change is the distribution of content. Indeed, this is already changing. Just look at the Wii Virtual Console or Xbox Live. It’s only inevitable that someday you’ll have the choice to download the newest game, although I have a feeling that day is further away than we think.
If by similar graphics you mean low res low anti aliasing versions of what where once graphics. Do a comparison sometime. its disgusting.
What he means by similar graphics, is graphics close enough that no one can tell the difference without buying the game for two different platforms, and running them side by side then inspecting them with a magnifying glass.
Does a $4,000 PC run Fallout 3 better than a $300 console? Wow, what a surprise, yes it does! Does a $300 console run Fallout 3 better than a $300 netbook? Why yes, it does! Now how many of the millions of people who bought Fallout 3 are going to install it on all three of those platforms and do a head to head comparison? Oh, that’s right, no one except game reviewers, and people trawling the Internet looking for excuses to try and brag that their favorite gaming system is better than everyone else’s.
“Think of your Xbox 360 and PS3: they’re basically low-end PCs, especially in the 360’s case. (Though I think it’s safe to say that the PS3 has some life left in it, it’s just going to take someone with a lot of money to actually develop a game from the ground up for the system. I’m thinking God of War III will be that game.)”
I can’t believe nobody pulled you up on your little dig at the PS3 suggesting that there are no games out there taking advantage of what the hardware can do. These must be some nice folks on here.
Back on subject. I think it’s going to be a long while before “cloud” gaming takes over. Certainly in the UK the broadband network we have isn’t up to it. There’s so many IPs’ with download caps & “fair” (cough) useage policies. Download speeds are not that high. 24MB is the highest normal advertised speeds & most people not in a big city can’t get anywhere near that. The max I can get is 4MB out of our 8MB connection due to the distance to the local telephone exchange, & I’m not exactly living in the middle of nowhere (in a town 12 miles from a major city).
I think digital software distribution will increase, but I’d never consider buying a Blu-Ray sized game on download. 1. Hard drives will have to be a hell of a lot bigger to store GB’s of games 2. It’d take a day or 2 to download a full game. Quicker to just go to the shop & buy it. 3. A lot of people like having boxes, & actually owning something physical.
When the infrastructure & hardware supports it fully digital gaming, then maybe, but that’s a ways off yet.
gamming will never go completely digital because people like phyically owning games, no one in their right mind would pay £30-£40 for a download, what is the console breaks down? you’ll loose all your games the digital option will always be there but it will take a very very very long time before it takes over, in the music industry digital distribution has ment alot cheaper music and easier to find music, but so far digital distributed movies and games have completely failed to make any impact on the market because of the price at the most a digital game should be £20 and a movie £5 and you should be able to keep them forever, one thing is for sure if i can buy a phsical dvd or game for the same price as downloading it i will always buy the physical copy
“a java based online version of Quake III played in what is a customised web browser that can run on just about any hardware that can support java and a web browser. All you need is a small client download to play then the rest is streamed live. And this game was not even 9 years old when they first got it up and now it is running as a live streaming game with live people playing and competing without problems.” a very nice qoute
I agree with @Kaden101. It’s going to be a while. I really don’t think (as is evident in the PS3) we have seen the full potential of consoles yet. Remember Dreamcast? Best in class and it got canned cause no one wanted to develop games for it. I think when developer shops get on board with developing games that tae full advantage of the hardware, we will see a lot innovation in the space.
I think the future is going to be more about extending the experiences we already have with consoles. PS3 showed us already by making a console that is both a capable media center and excellent gaming platform. Games will follow suit by becoming more about co-op, playing together and the like.
That is a future I would not mind investing in.
The “consoles are PC” argument has always been used, and PC gaming is pretty much dead. People don’t invest in high-end graphics cards anymore. Moreover, piracy and the shift away from the desktops and towards low-end laptops/netbooks is accelerating this.
As evidence, Modern Warfare 2 PC sales account for only 3% of overall sales. It used to be that hot FPS games where reserved for PC gamers, but people have shifted away from that.
There is a shift towards cheaper, more specialized devices. The desktop as the center of the digital universe is no longer viable. The PC desktop today has become a Jack of all trades and an Ace in none.
We already have cheap netbooks, and next year, we get Chrome. ARM-variants could be as cheap as $49 for a Chrome desktops to $99 for a Chrome netbooks eventually.
For gaming, people have invested their $200-300 on a console to satisfy their gaming needs, and considering the overflow of games that are being released there is really little time for most people to invest in anything else.
What we may see is the PS3, 360 continue on for another 5 years. If Cloud gaming like OnStream does catch on, the current consoles can act as their clients, and graphical improvements can be processed elsewhere.
Yes, gaming is evolving away from the traditional console model, but its not evolving back towards PC gaming.
Yes and no–given MMOs and how well Steam seems to be doing, I’d say the ‘PC gaming is dead’ argument is about as accurate as the ‘Console gaming is dead’ one. Frankly, it looks like neither side is dying, but they *are* mutating towards a hybrid middle-ground as the consoles take on PC-like features like DLC and user-created content, and PC gaming takes on more console-like features.
This is what Mr. Wada was trying to say, I think–and for that matter is reflected in the wording used in the article in first place–that console gaming *as we currently know it* is dying…or more accurately, evolving…which is a far different thing than it dying entirely.
This is one of the most noobish articles ive ever seen on a tech-focused site.
As soon as it looks like the article with start backing up its assertions, its over.
Noob statement- the 360 is not like any pc you have likely used- it runs on a triple core powerpc processor. Maybe you could have mentioned that. And the last time i checked, the 360’s ability to add features, and entire new os versions(like the ps3) makes it very adaptable to modern technologies/services, ala twitter and last.fm. There is no attempt to rationalize how this greatly benefits both platforms, whereas older consoles were set in stone save for upgraded hardware features. The jab against the ps3 is understandable, but doesn’t real mean anything when it comes to the point you are NOT making.
Yes consoles will change. But many so called articles always gloss over the fact that there is way, waaaay too much money and infrastructure that exists to simply let it die for some settop box that one can buy in radio shack.
Amateurish statement- comparing console play to online play. why not compare the fun a parent will have when a video card driver is not working, or how to fix framerates, or even build a gaming rig? Two completely different markets which havent been in competition with each other for a very long time.
Finally, and what should be most obvious, is what any ‘moron’ gamer knows- the net is too slow, and will be for a long time in the future. You don’t even attempt to argue this most important fact, even though it directly puts the vision of this Square soft visionary in the nearest toilet.
There will not an end to the console wars until there are no features to discern one console from another, at least as far as hardware is concerned. And that wont happen, because none of these behemoth companies will be willing to give up the living room to their competitors- DUH…. The living room is the media room, and as long as that is valuable territory to media companies, there will be a fight for it. Change will happen, but not for the reasons you did NOT say.
I just wanted to say that I own a nice gaming rig and a PS3 and I run COD:MW2 at max everything and while it looks good it lags a bit under certain situations of massive action. I played the same game on my PS3 and the graphics looked EXCELLENT and no lag under any situation. So in closing yes pc gaming looks better runs better if you have the money to have a bitching rig. console gmaing is an easier outlet and just works and looks gorgeous by todays standards so people need to stop and really look into it before they decide to make a post online saying that consoles are crappy rigs.
Another year, another article predicting the end of the video game console… yawn.
I have read some form of this article pretty much every year for 20 years. Meanwhile, video game consoles keep getting bigger and bigger slices of the gaming pie, while PC gaming keeps getting a smaller and smaller slice of the pie.
Consoles aren’t going anywhere, because they offer something a PC just can’t, which is a $300 box you can plug in, hook up to your TV, and start playing. Of course PCs can be better gaming machines than a console! That has always been true. But the expense, difficulty, and maintenance of a good gaming system will always make it a niche option. I find it ironic that at the very same time that this very site is pushing the idea of cheap, low-powered “cloud computing” devices, and arguing that no one needs a super-powerful PC anymore, one of their authors would turn around and declare that the game console is dead.
Readjust your thinking to your own rhetoric, and consoles are the “cloud computing” client of the gaming world. If the cloud is the future of computing, then the console is certainly the future of gaming.
Console get the bigger and bigger slices of the gaming pie is because console gamers will buy games for 60 dollars per game. Not to mention developers can get away with making games with shorter game play and sell you the rest of the game in the form of downloadable content for more money.
Want to go to a new town in your RPGs, want multiple endings, more side quests/missions weapons for your any of your games you purchased? Fork over more money. Microsoft and Sony will pay top dollar to have access and exclusivity to obtain downloadable content to sell to their customers. On a side note; To receive discounts on xbox live online merchandise you must have an xbox live gold account. Paying for discounts…
As far as console being priced at 300 dollars. That does not always start out being the case. Consumers have to wait quite a while to see prices drop. Or the moment they have to buy add on peripherals that will cause their console to no longer be priced at 300 dollars.
When something goes wrong with your console you have to make sure pay the price they want you to for their warranty. I have no doubt their warranties will not be cheap either. Then there is the waiting process of getting the item back. That is if you do get the one with the serial number you remember or had it written down somewhere.
HI THERE NOT SOO FAST GAMING CONSOLES ARE NOT FINISHED JUST YET NINTENDO SEGA AND MICROSOFT WILL RELEASE A MORE ENERGY EFICENT SOLID STATE GAMING CONSOLES AND DO AWAY WITH HARD DRIVE TOO SAVE ENERGY AND LOWER EMISSIONS WHILE HAVEING MORE FRAMES PER SECOND FASTER LOAD TIME LIKE ZERO LOAD TIME AND LAG TIME REDUCED TOO ZERO ALSO AND GAMING WILL BE ANY WERE FROM 1.4 UP TOO 12 TIMES FASTER GAME PLAY
When I was a console gamer I used to bash PC gaming; talking about its cost to make one and if a single part fails to continue to work it would cost a lot to replace, mentioning of sitting to long playing a PC game could cause a trip to the optometrist more frequent than that of console gamers.
The moment I put together my own gaming PC together I was amazed at how well the graphics were compared to my last console the Playstation 2 (I had a Playstation 3 but the person who sold it to me was a scammer; sold me a non working PS3.) No, I did not put together a 4,000 dollar PC to get my game to work with all settings on high.
PC players having to use 4,000 dollars to play current game generation PC games is a HUGE myth. Which is a usually over stretch or embellished statement used or told; to make some kind of point. A person can assemble a gaming PC using the current generation console graphics; since consoles are using graphics from the low or mid range market graphics (Xbox 360 is using ATI Radeon 2000/3000 series and Playstation 3 is using Nvidia GeForce 7800.)
I don’t want games to be through down loading. Why? because not everyone has great internet service to get them downloaded in a pinch. There still caps on usage and the internet service providers sell speeds at absurd amounts. Not all areas of countries have yet to get high speed internet service with in their area. Not to mention possible DRMs… oh and physical media tends to be cheaper than download version.
I think Square Enix is getting this great thought because they are using starting to use Steam for PC gamers to purchase their games from.