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Truthfully, I am really excited about all the rumors circling the internet right now saying that the next Xbox will always be online. The concept brings in so many new possibilities for the gaming industry.
Everything and everyone will always be online in the future. It’s inevitable! The advantages are practically endless and I personally like the idea of not having to have a physical copy of a game.
I don’t like the idea of having to carry around hundreds of discs with me whenever I want to bring my Xbox over to my friend’s house. It’s annoying! And lately, more and more games releasing for the system are requiring you to play the game on more than one disc and my pile of games just keeps growing…
But you can download the game to your Xbox. I know that. But I don’t want to spend the $250 upgrade it would cost me to get a 320GB console. And am I the only one whose accidentally bumped my Xbox while it was reading the disc and it shut the whole game down, or worse, permanently damaged it in some cases?
I’ve been down that route and it’s not fun.
Cassette’s, CD’s, DVD’s, Blu-Ray, what’s next?
Before, there were CDs that ripped apart the cassette market to shreds. Then there came DVDs, which are now rivaled by Blu-Ray. So what’s next? A bigger, more expensive disc? Blu-Ray discs are already expensive as is, if we make them bigger, how much more are we willing to pay when we could just download our games?
And why do we need these “next gen” consoles in the first place? If we could just stream our games, consumers wouldn’t need to worry about a hardware upgrade every few years to keep in line with the latest technology. Our streaming services would do that for us.
The Future
With Google Fiber, streaming games can be made possible. Google Fiber is the next generation of gaming, whether Google intended it to be or not. With a connection speed that’s over 100 times faster than today’s broadband companies and an upload/download speed of one gigabyte per second, gamers can enjoy crystal clear HD games without any issues.
There are no download speed issues to worry about. No broadband problems. Nor is there any issue with storing all of your favorite games. With access to two terabytes of cloud storage, one can fit hundreds, if not thousands of games onto their favorite console without a hard drive!
Heck, with Google Fiber, we may not even need a console. There might just be an Xbox app we’ll need to download on our TV, or a teeny tiny Roku-like box. The price for Google Fiber isn’t too unreasonable either. For $120 a month, you can get Fiber’s lightning quick internet and HDTV service, which is just slightly above the cost for the same package from places like Comcast and Verizon.
While I’m not saying Google Fiber is the answer right now, I’m saying that in five years once this service and its inevitable dozens of other competitors become more widely available across the U.S., Americans will finally have access to internet speeds capable of streaming the kinds of games we have now without a hassle.
Always Changing
Yes, always online services demolish the used game market, but markets evolve over time. They always have and always will. Yes there will most likely be mandatory subscriptions, but that’s how companies make their money to give you these kinds of perks in the first place.
Subscriptions equal money. Besides, most Xbox users are already paying a subscription fee to use Xbox Live and play with their friends online.
One could argue that some people may not even have internet yet. Its come up in some of the conversations I’ve had with other gamers. But if you’re one of those people, can you please explain to me in the comments below how you’re even reading this article in the first place?
Right Around the Corner
The days of an always-online console are still a few years away from being possible, as I said above, but it is the path our market is moving towards, not consoles that offer a few nifty hardware upgrades. Google Fiber is a path that I am excited to go down and one you should be too.