@Thenomain said in General Video Game Thread:
It will be decades, or at least a decade, before the current generation gamers give up on hardware, and hardware manufacturers will do everything in their power to stay relevant.
I'd say we're still a few years ago for at least the 5G to be in place so the bandwidth needs alone are met. But if that existed I really don't see why gamers would be so attached to their current hardware if what they get in return - portability, large catalogues instead of paying $60+ for triple-A games, etc - is better than what they have now. I have decent machines, an XBone and a Switch and I'd give those up in a minute.
It’s the next generation of gamers that Google should be eventually aiming towards. Google hasn’t shown the patience for anything but data collection, and those things that go directly into that business. Casual gamers could carry the short- to medium-term, but for now streaming boxes are still a loss leader at best.
That's true but Microsoft is doing the same thing and they have plenty of gaming street cred by now. Amazon is throwing their hat in that race, and their deep pockets shouldn't be discounted.
The real issue anyone but Microsoft will have is finding support from game developing companies to make titles for them. Especially the large names in the field. That's where the real corporate war will be, since without major games even if they do wonders on technical side they'll be dead in the water, and those companies are going to be super concerned about what leverage they'll have in this brave new era.
As for hardware companies, they're either shitting their pants right now or already counting on selling directly to cloud data centers which in a way might be a good thing for them - way less customer support needed, for example, and fewer models of machines to put out every year.