Hey all, I’m back with some thoughts about the future of the industry for this week’s Video Game Tuesday. It’s all about Future Consoles.

Future consoles?: Honestly, we are rapidly reaching the point where the graphics in video games will not really be able to progress any further. They look amazing right now and are very true to life. That means that in the future all new consoles are going to need to focus on other things than just the latest and greatest graphics. Instead, I think they’ll be focusing on other things like load times, playable area sizes, and things like that.

Why not focus on graphics?: Well, I mean they’ll still be important, don’t get me wrong, but we are truly almost reaching the point where the human eyeball can’t really tell the difference anymore in terms of graphical fidelity. Sure, we can still see there’s a difference because of how the art is made and the tells of various factors betraying that it’s not quite reality being depicted whether that is through a cel shaded look or just the fact that the characters have impossibly colored hair set in equally outlandish hair styles.

What else could be important?: Well, novel inputs or controls might be a thing, but I honestly think that for the most part we’ll be sticking to controllers like we currently have barring some specific technological advancements that could come about. There’s little reason to create a controller with a couple dozen buttons because simple is truly for the best when it comes to controls.

The load times of future titles will be important like they are now with some requiring a solid-state drive. Also, the playable area in them may be critical with more advanced consoles able to support bigger open worlds that seem more alive. And, of course, graphics will be important too, just maybe not as a way to differentiate one console from another.