1. What A Console Does Could Change
Perhaps this is the most likely of all of these scenarios when it comes to the idea of 'consoles' dying. While everything else on this list could be a factor in killing the console, it is unlikely that Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo will just roll over. Instead, I wholly expect the idea of what an actual console does to change in the face of all of these advances. It is hard to say what kind of shape they could well end up taking but I think it would be fair to assume that it may well be in away from gaming as a central conceit, at least in a hard copy format. Like I have said before, cloud gaming could well take over the industry so instead of being disc based, these companies could get great exclusive games on their own services. They could also move further away from gaming and try and sell them as centralised media boxes for our homes, providing TV, Films, digital libraries, device integration etc. In a way consoles have really done this in the last generation as we use our Xboxs and Playstations for TVs and films, so an upward trend has already started. Our idea of what a console is beginning to show age. We don't necessarily need them anymore with digital distribution and cloud technology on the horizon. But that isn't to say that we could see them evolve into something more substantial than just a gaming system.