When will the Eighth generation (2012–present) of console end?

The Switch will hopefully go past 2021. The PS4 and XBone will probably start slowing down around then....

Since when was Wii U a next-gen console ?

@ares42: Since it came out after the Wii.

Ten years.

A looong time. I think the consoles will just continue to make gradual improvements upon the hardware ala Scorpio. And update or switch out hardware when necessary. At least that's my uninformed guess.

What does end mean? Does it mean the first games that only play on Scorpio and not XBONE OG or when half the games are Scorpio only? The last cross hardware games?

I think that, at least for XBOX it will be like PC. No clean line of demarcation but at some point some new software won't play on the older hardware, but some will.

Sony could go either with a clean break or a slow phase out. Nintendo will do a clean break because Nintendo is Nintendo.

Similar to how games are handled on PC, at some point support for older hardware needs to be cut in order for advancements in software to be made. It's my personal belief that from now on, the release of every new hardware revision will drop support for two models back. So, when the next Scorpio and PS5 come out, the original Xbox One and PS4 will no longer see new titles come out on them. That'll give them a market life of about what we're used to anyway, but the difference from here on out is that any future console release should be backwards compatible with anything that came out in 2013 and onward.

Hopefully never.

Consoles ought to just fall into a cycle of upgraded hardware whenever its needed, and consoles become a less technical-minded version of the PC. I felt like playing Ace Combat 6 recently, and since it isn't on backwards compatibility I had to set up my 360, sort out plugs and all that. Pain in the arse, i'd rather have one box from MS and one from Sony that can do all of their games, going forward. And replacing that box with a new one ought to still run my old stuff.

I found myself buying games for PC whenever possible once I could afford to build a good one, simply because I know nobody is going to rip the rug out from under me, and I won't have to worry about having to keep old unsupported hardware in working order in order to play my old games. Even games from the 90s that dont run great can be made to work because the PC is an open platform, so people hack stuff together. And can run virtual machines to emulate old OSes, if necessary.

If wonder if some day we a PC-type console where we can just upgrade components.

One of the reasons I've always liked consoles is that I don't have to worry about constantly upgrading or the endless amount of different specs that may or may not cause a game to run properly. If I buy a new console I know I can play every game that comes out for it as intended for a solid 5-10 years.

Convenience and ease of use is one of the major selling points of consoles vs PCs and a huge reason consoles continue to dominate such a huge part of the market place despite the hardware advantages of PCs. If you take that away and turn them all into mini-PCs then what's the point of consoles?

@snowypliskin: So if someone made a new amiga that's slightly better than the old ones, that would be a next-gen console ?

@ares42: Yep. Generations are defined by time, not power.

I honestly don't know. The PS4 Pro and Xbox Scorpio have my predictions all fucked up. For all I know, this could be the Endless Eighth generation.

Man, 2021 sounds way too far in the future for me right now. The iphone-ification of video game consoles seems to be on the horizon with the Pro/Scorpio so I could see console makers gradually transition to iterated upgrades if there is a good response to the scorpio. Nintendo won't follow this trend though because they're Nintendo.

Who knows, this generation is so fucked up and weird thanks to the Pro/Scorpio.

I imagine the idea of the Pro/Scorpio is opening up the lane for just making a new iteration of those models with newer/better hardware every couple years. Like phones. Even though that's a kinda crappy business model for consoles. Much like how time goes on and iphones can't take newer os updates and apps, eventually the consoles will be like that. Want to play the newest games? You'll need to get the xbox 2019 version. That 2013 version can't play these games anymore.

Not sure, how many bits are we at these days?

Everything I was going to say. I just wanna plug in my console and play, not worry about which game runs on which version and what upgrade I need to buy.

Wow, long repressed memories have suddenly resurfaced when you said Endless Eight. Horrible memories of disappointment and disbelief.

Probably within the next 2 or 3 years.

@zeik said:

When the next hardware update is released, call them Pro 2 and Scorpio 2, games will stop supporting original Xbox One and PS4 (but still play on the Pro 1 and Scorpio 1). Whether or not you want to call that a next generation is up for debate.

That's the pattern I expect though. Every 3 or 4 years a new Playstation and Xbox console will come out that will play every game in the PS4 and Xbox One libraries, and at that time support for the version of the hardware 2 revisions back will be dropped. At any given time 2 versions of Xbox and Playstation will support all currently released games.

When the Stone Cold Sony says so.

I've heard rumor that Scorpio is going to be called Xbox One X. XBOX, lines up with Jeff's wanting for it to be called Xbox, almost, anyway.

Fable 4, I hear, better be good... :/

@stonyman65: 10 years may be a pipe dream nowadays, but I don't see why 5 years minimum would have to be out of the question. Obviously consoles will not be keeping up the same pace as new technology at that rate, but they never have. That's why people buy and upgrade PCs, it's not the main driving force of the console market. The average console owner does not care if their console is a few years behind modern PCs, especially when so many games are designed specifically for, or within the limitations of, console specs.

I realize they're trying to bring some of that into the console market with these Pro consoles, but I'm quite certain the vast majority will not be buying every new iteration of the console, regardless of the bells and whistles they add to it. If it turns out we are in the age of iterative consoles every few years, I still expect the average lifespan of those iterations to be around 5+ years, even if it means skipping an iteration. Assuming they keep it simple and don't force consumers to maintain individual components like a PC.

I don't really care to be honest, consoles are my second place to play games. What I want is for them to stop abandoning older games, we should have been using x86 on consoles a long time ago so that everything can be backwards compatible.

Look at the PC, you can generally play extremely old games as far back as DOS without too many hiccups along the way. There are occasions where games won't launch but I can't think of any games from let's say, 1999 that won't work with a small patch or tweak. This is without the original developers or Microsoft even trying to make them compatible, they are just compatible because of the architecture being consistent.

Bits are obsolete man, they went straight to the next level of PR spinning. It's all about that peak compute bro, we talking straight TeraFlops bro, FLTOPS BRO!

Here is hoping next generations PR lines will be render output units.

PS5 or whatever it'll be called in 2019. Don't know about Xbox though.

If the Wii-U is gen 8, is the Switch gen 9?

I really like saying "2020" out loud.

I would probably say 2020, but thanks to the Pro and Scorpio, I think it'll go beyond that.

Aren't the Ps4 pro and Scorpio a half step toward that already? (Nintendo aside) I'd say it's possible we've entered a new era, where console manufacturers will just provide upgraded models from now on. But if that's not the case I'd say around the early 2020's.

I really hope this generation gets an extension. I never even considered buying a new console until this year.

@zulululul: this

I won't speculate on the exact timeline, but at this point it seems inevitable that the PlayStation and Xbox platforms will at one point merge with the PC. By that I mean Sony and Microsoft will have "PlayStation" and "Xbox" storefronts on PC that sells their games. The same games can be purchased on closed-box PCs that are marketed as the successors to the current consoles but with full backwards compatibility to this gen. To be fair, I see Sony dawdling to get to this endpoint given their dominant market position and Japan's lack of PC interest, but I'd bet good money that this is Microsoft's endgame.

Hopefully never unless there's some massive technological breakthrough. This has been the most pointless generation and hasn't really added anything but more power. Half step upgrades every few years really works out best for everyone.

@viking_funeral said:

This.

If the upgraded PS4 Pro isn't called the Pro Plus, coming with a couple of bloodshot LED eyes and a twitch, I'll be mightily disappointed.

I've had my GTX 780 for four years now and still don't intend to upgrade. I've played some of the newest games, from Rise of the Tomb Raider to Yooka-Laylee, near and at 60 fps. People upgrade often because they have high standards and see these graphics options that they can't use, but it's not necessary. I mean, on consoles you play with lower graphics and resolutions too, so I don't see why that should be so unpleasant to do on a PC.

Convenience and ease of use are some of the reasons I use a PC and haven't played on consoles in a few years.

@ezekiel: I've had a lot of issues with PCs over the years that have kind of soured me on the platform for gaming. I really really hate troubleshooting on PCs and it's something I almost never have to worry about on consoles.