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Streaming games won't work until lag is reduced to a satisfactory amount, which it certainly won't be anytime soon, especially for the majority of people worldwide. I don't know about you, but I don't like hitting a button and not feeling my action immediately take place.
Anyways, on the topic of the industry at large, the casual bubble created such bloated expectations for how next gen consoles will perform and I think that's a huge issue right now. Both dev costs and expected returns have become so astronomical that there's no way companies focusing on making real games will make that kind of money anytime soon. The casuals are gone and it's time for everyone, especially industry doom-sayers, to set their expectations accordingly.
Sony looks like they're going to cater to us, which is why, despite my complete lack of interest in the majority of their exclusive titles, I'll be supporting them much more this go around. Microsoft is rumored to continue to focus on the living room media center bullsh*t, which makes me far less interested in them going forward. Nintendo is Nintendo and I think they'll be the first ones to realize they need to scale back expectations for their market going forward and set about their future endeavors accordingly. It'll probably be a painful transition for the industry as a whole, just look at the studio graveyard of 2012, but I don't think the stakes are as high as people are making them out to be, where we're left with a smoking crater where gaming focused consoles used to be and mutated husks of Call of Duty and Angry Birds shamble about to appease the masses.
I think Nintendo has the least to lose in this situation, but I fully expect to see Iwata, who I adore, sink because of the over-blown expectations for the 3DS and Wii U and I don't see Reggie lasting much longer, though given the piss-poor job he's done at NoA I'm not upset about that potential loss. I think Sony and Microsoft are the most vulnerable to this market shift. Microsoft can cut and run whenever, but I think they'd continue down the media center route and cut back on their games business before getting completely out of the loop. Sony is simply f*cked if the PS4 flops. The Vita is DOA worldwide, the rest of their business is in the sh*tter. The PS4 needs to capture a ton of that hardcore audience that's split up over PS3/360 if they're going to make a run of it. If the PS4 doesn't work out, I don't know that Sony is out of business entirely, but I think they get out of games.
Who knows, this may very well be the last generation of consoles. Everyone could get out of the business, or implode. Then Sega will jump back in and save the f*cking world. *starry eyes*
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