What next-gen video game consoles and future games could look like

To celebrate Polygon’s 10th anniversary, we’re rolling out a special issue: The next 10This is a discussion of the future of entertainment and gaming from some of our favorite writers. Khee Hoon Chan, a freelance writer, examines the difficulties of forecasting the future direction for the gaming industry.

When speculating about the future of anything, there’s a chance predictions will appear dated in hindsight. The concept of retrofuturism has a charming, quirky appeal. However, the aesthetics are dated and sometimes intentionally antiquated. They have curved geometric designs as well as chunky phones. That’s because the movement was influenced by ’50s- and ’60s-era design and tech trends, which were then extrapolated into the distant future. This datedness is a pitfall Chris Novak is wary of falling into when discussing the shape of gaming a decade from now — especially if that talk were to stem from current gaming trends.

“If you just look at gaming through [the generations of consoles]Think about what was blockbuster hit or breakout item. […] if you were to try and predict what the one in the next generation would be based on the current generation, you’re basically always going to be wrong,” says Novak. “That’s the one thing history has shown: Nobody expected motion controls; nobody expected all of these things.”

Novak, who was the head of Xbox Research and Design, has many industry experience to draw upon. He led the Xbox Game Pass user experience and managed projects like Xbox Live and Xbox Game Pass. He suggests that it’s more realistic to deliberate over the future of player verbs: the act of play, discover, share, create, and more. He also feels that conversations around trending topics such as the metaverse and blockchain gaming are akin to talking about product and technical features, which are simply “not as existential” as discussions revolving around, for instance, designing future hardware around sustainability.

Johnny Hou is the CEO of NZXT gaming PC maker. “Talking about Web3 and the metaverse is like, I don’t know, 20 years ago or 15 years ago when people were talking about MMOs. […] It’s a feature, and just because you made a MMO doesn’t mean it makes it a good MMO,” says Hou. “Web3 has this whole blockchain element behind it, and crypto is very exciting, and [there are]You have many opportunities to make money. But from the perspective of a gamer, it just goes back to content.”

Hou refers to that content as “the next generation” of games in the next 10 year. QuakeThe WASD gaming layout is used today by PC users all around the globe, as an example. MOBA games like MOBA, are extremely popular. DOTAAnd League of LegendsThis has had a profound influence on streaming culture. There is also the popular battle royale game. DayZ, PUBG,And FortniteThe latter inspired conversations about how to create a modern-day, metaverse. Whatever hardware or platforms will follow will automatically be designed to accommodate the latest big game in games. “What’s next after MOBA? Is that battle royale?” Hou asks. “[Even]Battle royale has really begun. MOBA is obviously here but, like, what’s next? What’s the next innovation when it comes to gameplay?”

What this means is that designing future hardware, specifically targeted for gaming, can be a sizable challenge, especially when you can’t be sure what you’re designing for. Carl Ledbetter, partner director of device design at Microsoft (and, perhaps most famously, the inventor of the rubber wheel between the left and right mouse buttons), explains that some key considerations for designing gaming hardware include the technology powering the hardware, the design that can house this tech, and the input device — or controller — that is most compatible with the platform. These considerations are secondary, however. The future of gaming will depend on hardware. “The conversation always starts with the games first. What’s the game? Which gamer interacts with the game? How does the gamer engage with the game’s core? Are you looking for a quick, bite-sized game that allows you to just get in and go? [like a] time-filler, or is it about ultimate immersion, where you want to really dive deep into the game and experience it with all it has to offer?” Ledbetter says.

The answer is not always easy to find. One of the most popular games these recent months is “The Simpsons”. Trombone ChampThis video is all about the absurdity that classical music can be played on the trombone. It not only inspired a glut of badly performed covers, but players also made their own trombones and controllers in order to sing along. Trombone Champ.

Yet as much as we love weird hardware, it feels like a safe bet that Nintendo’s next console won’t be based around a trombone. However, experts who spoke with us believe that there are a few trends which will affect how the game evolves over the coming decade.

Cloud gaming won’t be going away

Although Google Stadia’s September demise was unwelcome, we were able to speak with industry professionals who remain positive about the future of cloud gaming. Gaming could become an increasingly popular pastime in the next decade thanks to cloud gaming. “What will evolve is the availability of people to access these more high-end gaming experiences,” says Hou. This will change how expensive hardware is accessible. “Maybe it’s not in the conventional way […]Referring to [buying]A very powerful computer at the same cost as a console. […]These are just a few examples of things you might find interesting For only $20 per month, I can have access to a $2000 computer via a cloud.… That is actually very similar in terms of affordability.”

Marc Whitten is the senior vice president of Unity and general manager. Cloud gaming will be a constant presence for Unity in the future while also facilitating game development. “The cloud is a tool set for creating the games themselves, [and] I think will be much more advanced.” Bringing up Microsoft Flight Simulator as an example, he points out how it leveraged geographic information system data to construct photorealistic images (“AI meets some form of mapping of the entire world”), thus creating an incredibly immersive experience for flight simulator enthusiasts. “It’s going to be that you can rely on extremely rich cloud services, and […] I just believe there’s going to be a digital twin of everything in the world, like that whatever you think of, there will be digital versions of it.”

Everywhere you look, live-service will be available

The rise of live-service games — that is, games with frequently updated and seasonal content — will likely also continue in the near future. “All games are live games [in the future],” Whitten predicts. “They’re live experiences, and it’s about a continually evolving experience that’s launched from the creator, but built as much from the community playing with it and evolving over time. The idea that they’re almost […] live destinations. But that trend, which I think changes design, it changes how people play, it changes how they think about the time and the game, and I think it’ll just continue to grow over the next 10 years.” Ledbetter, too, also brought up Minecraft’s content updates as an example, stating that this trend will continue to make future games more engaging.

Whitten also believes that the new system will bring about a paradigm shift in player safety and toxicity management. “If you go back to my first trend, everything’s going to be a live game, and it’s about multiple people playing together,” he explains. ”You don’t run multiplayer services without a significant part of what you spend time on being, These services can be developed in a number of ways. And it’s a constant evolution, again, because players interact in new ways as the platform continues.” New technology, as Whitten suggested, may nudge this development along, such as using AI to “automatically find toxicity and field better controls.” While there may be an undercurrent of cynicism over such efforts — gaming toxicity has only peaked over the past few years — it’s imperative that game companies prioritize this change.

“[Managing toxicity]It will remain a problem in 10 years. […]You can also put in enough [players] together, you have to build systems that support making sure that the right tools are there to help protect people,” says Whitten.

The latest graphics and better explosions

According to Novak, special effects like explosions are likely to be much more impressive in a decade — and more realistic, thanks to improved physics simulations. As a mage you can set fire to distant towns with lightning and then watch as towers and structures crumble. It’s a difficult technical feat to pull off for now, but this may just be possible not too far down the road. “The actual mechanics of playing a game are often limited by the CPU, not the GPU,” adds Novak. “It always comes to trying to do more advanced simulation. You can make a lot more enemies [become] very intelligent, making a lot of the world act ‘more real,’ doing much more sophisticated physics, being able to do things outside of where you can see. Doing all of that simulation is actually very, very hard, and typically it’s completely faked in games.”

However, gaming graphics are expected to keep on growing even after a decade. Rendering capabilities will improve, Ledbetter notes, which means “more realism, faster frame rates and higher resolution, and even the ability to render people and faces and expressions.”

It will center on community content

Novak believes that the next decade will be defined by content creation, not just flawless graphics or realistic explosions. This runs the gamut of gaming content that’s more than just commercially produced, but also thrives among the community. What this translates to is activities like streaming and modding — which will only become more prevalent — but also something as simple as crafting short clips out of games so they can be shared on social platforms among small groups of friends. “If there was one change that I think is going to happen, it’s that creation, what it means to create — that entire process will be upended completely,” he says. “Right now there’s a lot of effort on the tooling — the tools that you need to create things — whether it be a video or an in-game mod. The tooling to create things for games is getting much better.”

Rather than just TikTok compilations crafted to the likes of content like “the biggest fails in gaming,” Novak is envisioning a gaming future where community content creation will be democratized and personalized. “Why can’t it be as easy as, you know, if there’s a funny line of dialogue that I want to create because it would be great in-joke between me and my friends in this game, I should be able to create that on my phone and insert that into a game?” he explains. As these tools improve, it can result in a more popular culture of game modders. “Historically, DOTAWas a mod. Counter-StrikeA mod was an administrator. Over time there have been mods that have grown into games larger than the original game. This will not be an isolated event. You will now see content being published more and more into games.”

It can be expanded to include game findability. Instead of scrolling through pages that are categorized by genre only, users can search for the games they want in an intuitive way. “The players won’t just be able to find another game. They’ll be able to find things within a game that they enjoy when they do their search, when that discovery option is in front of them,” Novak elaborates. “Imagine the power of being able to simply say, ‘Hey, show me games of great boss battles,’ ‘Show me the games that contributed to the game modes in this game that I love,’ ‘Show me just game modes that I would love.’”

Deliberating the future of games — an exercise that encompasses an astounding variety of interactivity and experiences — can feel like a nebulous thought experiment at times. Perhaps the next big thing in gaming is a wearable tech that’s as diminutive as contact lenses, easily fitted over the curvature of your eyes, allowing you to plug into virtual reality almost instantaneously. Or perhaps it’s simply a new take on first-person shooters that will let players gradually decimate their fragile environments till only the void remains. It can be tricky to anticipate such progress, but there is one certainty: The past generations of games have demonstrated that unanticipated developments are possible.

“I think we will absolutely start to see things like artificial intelligence, the metaverse, game content, and the delivery of content come together in ways that we just started to understand today,” says Ledbetter. “I don’t think we’ll actually be all the way there yet in 10 years, but it’s going to be very different than how it is today. Actually, I think it’s going to be amazing.”