Consoles of the future will blow your mind.

Shane Kim, the chap who recently took the job of being the Corporate Vice President of Strategy and Business Development at Microsoft, offered a tasty nugget of information about the next Xbox console in an interview.

When replying to the question of how Microsoft will approach the next Xbox console, Kim replied:

“How [do] you think about next generation? What is that next generation going to encompass? How are you even going to define that? All of that is part of the equation. What kind of geographic expansion do we need to see? Is the world more of an online world than a hardware-oriented world? I think there are some really fascinating opportunities in front of us.”

Even though the next Xbox is still a decent way away, it’s interesting to note that Microsoft is considering the possibility that instead of the current hardware console they may be looking at an online digital distribution network similar to Valve’s steam network.

This run’s in line with former Vice President of Xbox Europe Sandy Duncan’s doubts over the long term future of the console market made in comments earlier this year.

“There is a definite convergence of other devices, such as set top boxes. There’s hardly any technology difference between some hard disc video recorders and an Xbox 360, for example.”

“In fact in 5 to 10 years I don’t think you’ll have any box at all under your TV, most of this stuff will be virtualized as web services by your content provider.”

This could mean streaming data from a server or PC directly into your TV. However it’s important to acknowledge that even though take up on broadband connections has risen, most people still don’t have a sufficiently strong connections in order to host large multiplayer matches through the P2P system, let alone be constantly streaming content from web servers.

If this is to be the future of console gaming then ISPs will certainly need to upgrade their infrastructure in order to meet the far heavier demand.

Another important question to ask is, are we ready for fully digital distribution?

I, like many others, still actually enjoy having a physical copy of a game and having something tangible in front of me which feels like it does a complex job rather than just streaming content. On the flip side, younger generations may actually embrace the new format of distribution, and physical game media could go down the pan, the same way cassette tapes and CDs have since MP3s arrived on the scene.

The console of tomorrow could even be cheaper to produce, but as always the cynic in me doubts whether these savings would be passed onto the consumer with having to build such a vast, complex online network which would far surpass Xbox Live.

One things for sure: This rabbit hole goes very, very deep.

Source: IGN

Tags: future_plans, xbox_360, xbox_720

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