Alex St. John: We're playing the 'last generation of consoles'

With a virtual console, where is the pixel-pushing power going to come from? Surely they aren't talking about streaming the entire game's input/output...so either you'll be saying "these games look terrible on Orb," or you'll be saying "Wow, was he wrong."

Well, I'm convinced. ;)

Cha, right! And monkeys might fly outta my butt!

The end of consoles?
No.
The end of consoles for a while?
Yes.
I don't expect us to see XBOX Next or Playstation Next for at LEAST five years ( i honestly would not be surprised if it were seven to ten years ).
Why? Because we have reach a graphical stalemate (for the most part). Now I know some may say "Have you seen or played Crysis?" Yes I have and I ask you: "Have you seen or played MGS4?" How much more real can we make things look (Heavy Rain anyone?) right now?
Until the big three find ways to go way above and beyond what they can do on our massively powered consoles we won't see any for awhile. This is my opinion say what you will....

Is he an idiot or an irl troll?

just like paper currency would never die (only if credit cards had there way) when we "BUY" something we like to you know actually posses it...

He might be correct is he adds "as we know it".

Foreseeable stuff:
a) Major crossplatform interaction. Microsoft is already in progress with this with it's Live Anywhere initiative. PS2 and N64 (and Dreamcast) technically had this in minor amounts with their portable counterparts. The next generation of PSX will likely either have a major link to the PSP, or a phone/PSP hybrid. Not to mention all the other Sony products out there. Nintendo would still likely stay niche and game-focused, though an XNA-like initiative is probably likely.
b) Delievery of Software: Though unlikely to go fully online (since games will still get larger to make that non-cost effective), I'd think patches and/or upgrades/add-ons will become the norm.
c) User Content: Though this is lacking in most areas (other than PC), I'd think this is likely to grow exponentially. Home and Little Big Planet would begin the process on PS3 side, and the next iteration of Animal Crossing on Nintendo, though there has been progress with certain DS and Wii titles. Don't know enough of current or future 360 games to comment on that side.
d) Online Push: Most games will begin to have some form of online content, even if it's just a scoreboard and forum. Technically this is beginning this generation, but it would become the norm in the next.

He's absolutely right about this generation of consoles being the last.

At the end of Sony's 10 year life cycle we'll be teleporting home from work and walking directly into our holosuite.

And when people aren't doing that they'll all be watching American Idol in holovision and voting telepathically on their iBrain.

And maybe we'll have Web 9.0 by then too.

someone should let the R&D departments know, cause they were working on the next gen of consoles before the current gen was even shipped.

it got a couple of orbs for this guy right here....in my pants...

anyone with "St" in their name is a pretentious blowhard.

this story is well over a year old and he writes for CPU magazine, he actually has very good articles. This guy was also one of the main peeps responsible for Direct X when he worked for MS, the guy is far from an idiot, but as usual, Joystiq is missing the point. St. John was advocating a set top box or PC that is uniform that runs programs from the "cloud" (internets), therefore bypassing all the hardware reqs and loss needed to sell a console. Makes sense in a way, but I don't see it happening yet, but certainly down the road. Basically, selling consoles for a loss and paying for exclusives are going to end due to the costs of developing getting higher and higher, as one of the causes for all of this. There are many others that agree on these points.

I can hear it now when xbox 720 and PS4 are announced. "They're not consoles anymore, they're multimedia home theater PCs! So I was totally right!"

At first I thought he might be talking only about the end of the traditional console business model. Then, I saw his comment about no PS4 or XBox720.

Given how badly WildTangent burned, it's amazing that anyone can stay in business blowing such tripe.

I got to speak to Alex St. John about the issue when he made the comment at Casual Connect Seattle last month. He really is dead on with most things. In fact he commented on the financial issues of GameTap before it came to head last week.

I think he is right about the end of most cosole gaming in the idea of how games are bought, but I can see one more gaming console coming out, very later than sooner than the time it was from the Xbox to Xbox 360 flip. I think Microsoft and others want more use out of the systems this generation than last gens.

Frankly I love the business model.. i love having games on tap to download as and when i feel like it.

But gametap does it much better.. and they haven't been hugely successful financially.
I'm happy with lower prices and microtransactions though.

Given the success of Live, PSN, Wiiware, VC, I'd imagine that in a few years all games will be much much shorter, and much much cheaper... putting them in line with movies, books and music as possible impulse purchases.

I sure hope so anyway...

alex St. john ... this guy's software has been on the must-remove list forever. After a decade of listening to him and looking over his wares, Orb is going straight into the must-delete list. sorry Alex, your reputation preceeds you.

Who knows what might happen, when nintendo makes wii 2 it might end up beating EVERYTHING!

http://www.squidoo.com/doughboy

Ohhhh man, I was just waiting for this moron to pop up somewhere with some idiotic bable, so I could trash him. "The guy who talked MS to go console" I would hardly believe that. I used to laugh at this over weight bag of wind back in the day of boot magazine (now MaximumPC). Not only is this guy so high on himself, he is the biggest sell out in the gaming world. Wildtangent is the only evidence you will need.
"The last of the gaming console generation" I would bet money that he will come out with some retraction with "What I meant is...". Fortunately, very few have to live in his reality. The reason I despise this gomer, is that he talked down on MS all the time, even right before he quit MS, and then started WT and became the very thing he used to bash in his own articles. Its a shame with you look at all of what he has done and look at what he could of accomplished. Now he is just a sad excuse of an owner of a failed platform.

Alex, Wiii will prove you wrong.

"I'll take the heat if I'm wrong and don't mind being mocked in the future(...)"

I'll take that he doesn't mind being mocked regardless of time...

I still can't wait for the PS9.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLiiUkh_r7U