6. DRM Invades Consoles
One of the worst things about being a PC gamer is DRM - that's Digital Rights Management - given that it restricts the player's freedom to play the game offline, and usually requires that they stay connected to the Internet in order to play the game. It's a frequent complaint from just about anyone playing PC games these days, because it's restrictive, poorly thought-out, and essentially punishes those who have bought the game without doing anything to chide those who haven't (and ironically, it's the pirates who will be able to play the game offline). With games consoles already taking a huge step to becoming glorified PCs this generation, we can imagine this is only going to become more prevalent in generation eight, particularly with the sort of applications and software that the platforms can handle. While at the moment it's somewhat irritating when you get signed out during a game, as it means your achievements might not be processed, it's going to get down-right infuriating if XBL and PSN introduce the strict DRM measures we expect they will. What if the PSN or XBL servers go down? What if there's another hacking incident at Sony? If strict DRM was introduced, it would mean potentially not having access to your games for a considerable amount of time, which is head-smackingly stupid.