10 Features That Will Define Next-Gen Gaming

5. Dedicated Consoles Become A Niche Product

Before the hand-wringing starts, let us first say that dedicated gaming hardware isn't going anywhere.

Sony and Microsoft are still going to be manufacturing physical games consoles for the foreseeable future, though they are going to be a far-less important piece of the puzzle if the streaming future takes off unimpeded.

In the next generation physical console ownership will become more and more incentivised for the enthusiast crowd that wants crystal-clear 4K and zero latency, rather than the casual player who just wants to stream a bit of FIFA for an hour a night.

The inevitable ramp-up in streaming options and the ability to play (almost) anywhere will severely diminish the cost-benefit trade-off of owning a console, when for a flat monthly fee, you can access a heap of games with the press of a button on just about every device you own without the need for physical connections, installs, updates and so on.

Though some doom-and-gloomers insist that the next generation will be the final one for physical consoles, short of global Internet infrastructure enjoying a stratospheric leap over the next 5-7 years and ISPs uniformly agreeing to loosen data caps, it's tough to imagine a near-future where local, native play isn't a thing anymore.

It will definitely become a lesser concern, for sure, and some may even end up viewing non-streamed gameplay as a bit quaint by the end of the generation, but it's absolutely not going away entirely.