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[1-D_FTW]

I hope you guys are right about the Rift. But I personally already feel that way about 3D. And the majority hate that. Getting used to 1080p 3D @ 60fps, mono 3D is such ugly garbage to me now. I really hope 3D isn't dying.

Either way, I feel we kind of are in a renaissance. Gaming has never been better. Games are better. Tools are better. Diversity is better. Control options. Everything.

Watched a youtube video on Assetto Corsa this morning (a DX 11 racing sim coming soon). It's shipping with 10 laser scanned tracks (famous tracks from Europe). What I found so encouraging was after they paid the track guys for the laser scan, a single person made those 10 tracks from the laser scan data. And this is a terrific looking game. 1 artist (track guy), 3 programmers, 1 audio, and 1 physics guy. And it's such an amazing game, they've been able to convince Ferrari, BMW, Lotus, and Pagani to all give them sweet heart licensing deals. This is not a bad future.

 

[SirButterstick]

Consoles selling way below predicted sales after the initial 'purchasing rush' is over, and their eventual decline. Praise the lord.

Oculus Rift. PC gaming thankfully becomes predominant due to Steambox, which leads as a gateway.

 

[mrklaw]

Oculus Rift will probably never move outside of a specific audience. It's too encumbering and runs exactly counter to the drives in nearly all parts of our lives even if it's nifty. It's just impractical. I'm expecting device-wise the first to invent a very small device that's essentially post-battery to be a winner. Doesn't need to be anything more than a Gameboy in specs, but something so small and so cheap that it's virtually disposable.

Disagree. The engineering is so relatively simple that it can be priced attractive enough to sell. Add in wireless support like wiiU to remove tethering, and a decent motion controller and the immersion gained will be too compelling to be limited to a niche.

 

[Boss Man]

A gaming Netflix. Sony may be the first to show something like this but I doubt they'll be the big player in the end.

 

[Des0lar]

Oculus Rift will probably never move outside of a specific audience. It's too encumbering and runs exactly counter to the drives in nearly all parts of our lives even if it's nifty. It's just impractical. I'm expecting device-wise the first to invent a very small device that's essentially post-battery to be a winner. Doesn't need to be anything more than a Gameboy in specs, but something so small and so cheap that it's virtually disposable.

That doesn't make any sense at all.

 

[Chaotic Kitten]

I was so excited to see so many people talking about the Oculus rift here! I think coupled with kinect/leap style sensors, and cameras it could definitely be the start of a new age in gaming. I am very excited to get mine next month and start making a game for it.

 

[Kai Dracon]

I could see tech like Oculus Rift becoming the next "hardcore gamer dude" toy of choice. In other words, it would be the stereotype that people had of gamers in their bedrooms squirreled away on Playstation 2, and must of the PS360 generation.

This because as long as the technology is restricted to being significantly encumbering only the enthusiast and tech heads will go for it. That doesn't mean it couldn't be huge - it may be. But the audience will be self-limiting.

Such tech will mature when we have extremely advanced augmented reality technology that can be fit into what are essentially sunglasses or reading glasses. Then the masses will adopt it because it won't seem like a distraction from other things. The way everyone has a smartphone now since it goes everywhere and is unobtrusive.

 

[McNum]

The Oculus Rift has one major disadvantage that it, by design, cannot overcome: It makes you blind. Blocking out all sight is something you can do in a controlled environment, with barriers and similar to avoid unwanted contact with objects. "At home" is not a controlled environment. Wearable Home-VR needs to overcome the blinding issue before it can take off big. But by design, a wearable VR device HAS to blind you. The Oculus Rift does not overcome this flaw. The stories about people breaking stuff with the Wii Remote will pale next to the destructive power of blinded humans forgetting their environment. The Home-VR thing to really take off, will be the one NOT requiring you to blind yourself. Augmented Reality might have a shot at something big at some point.

As for what the next big thing is, I have no idea. I want it to be local multiplayer focused games, but I don't know if that's even something people want to make anymore. It's funny that when TVs became widescreen and splitting the scree verically suddenly became a decent option, people stopped making splitscreen games for the most part.

 

[Rootbeer]

For me, I know it will be Oculus Rift. At least on PC I think it or a future competitor extremely similar to it are going to explode in popularity very fast.

But this is on PC. I wonder if the Console people are taking notice and thinking about how to incorporate VR into their machines, if at all. I think a lot of people would love to play the next Halo or Gears or Zombi U or just about any 1st person game with VR.

 

[Cameron122]

Co op open world games. You and a multitude of your buddies doing quests, slaying monsters. An inbetween of a single character WRPG and an MMORPG.

Player content creation. Hopefully, with Skyrim, publishers had the realization that mods and DLC can coexist.

 

[kirby_fox]

I'd say it'd be a new way to play- but this generation was the generation of extras. With all the Wii stuff, the Guitar Hero stuff, the basketball and the skateboard...

I would bet we'll see it happen again mid-way through next gen. There will be a game with an extra peripheral that couldn't be done prior.

Not saying this will be done in traditional console gaming either. Ouya, Steambox, etc. could do it too. If I had to put money on anything, it'd be Google glasses if they get it to market at an affordable price.

 

[Brimstone]

GAME SOFTWARE
A blend of Minecraft and Capybaras Clash of Might and Magic. Monster/creature resource management elements similar to the classic Avalon Hill boardgame TITAN and some Japanese style Pokeman/Monster Hunter flavor. All woven together in an elegant gameplay experience.

GAME HARDWARE
Samsung Game Console with optional clone of Occulus Rift with OLED displays and Valves STEAM.

 

[LordCanti]

Even the developer version of the Oculus Rift is going to have some incredible experiences. Mirror's Edge is probably at the top of my must play list, followed by Skyrim and Hawken. All three of those should be ready to go (Hawken officially, Skyrim and ME through a third party driver) shortly after the kits ship, and they should be some of the most engrossing experiencing out there for a while. Once devs (indies especially) have had time, we should get some exciting content out of them as well.

I don't know if VR is going to make it in the consumer space, but the dev kit version should offer some great gameplay in the near term.

 

[Fine Ham Abounds]

Partially thanks to Kickstarter, it seems 80s and 90s design concepts and themes (especially cyberpunk) are making a comeback, software-wise. Old-school CRPGs and sims will be back, 2d platformer indies will start to be less prevalent. I'm thinking we're going to start seeing more oldschool point-and-click adventure titles as well - what was old is new again. The most original new concepts will be puzzle and puzzle hybrid games.

Personally though, I'm excited about the prospect of Oculus Rift + survival horror, and nothing would make me happier than the return to dominance of deep gameplay in third person action games.

 

[Linkified]

I'm hoping better writing in videogames, and less need to make every game an open world.

 

[thecosmicfly]

When you think about it, a lot of what we believed redefined the games of this generation were really just evolutions of mechanics and ideas from other games prior, and most of the time those games are typically forgotten or at the very least overlooked. It's why everyone credits GTA III as heralding the age of non-linear 3D sandbox games and not Body Harvest, or why Kill.Switch is seen as a decent but middling title, yet also a preview to what would eventually be Gears of War's bread and butter. So in reality we could have already played the next big gaming innovation without giving it a second thought, and that game is probably in a Wal-mart bargain bin for $5.

So if I were to make a guess, I'd say it would be seemless multiplayer/co-op integration with a single player campaign in the same vain as Demon/Dark Souls or Journey. From the little we know of Watch_Dogs and Destiny it sounds like that's the kind of direction they're heading in, and if there are any games that are going to drive the industry in that one particular direction it's most likely going to be those games.

But like I said, from looking at the past it's rarely possible to predict what will become the next gaming trend for years to come. For all we know David Jaffe is looking at 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand's swearing button right now thinking "Yes, the player should be able to say "All you motherfuckers gonna pay" whenever they want," add it to whatever he's working on now and inadvertently end up initiating the next wave of games with manual cursing at your enemies. And I say bring it the fuck on Jaffe.

 

[quickwhips]

Mario MMO.
I don't think shooters on their own will make it anymore. I think we will see large scale sorta mmo battles with AI monsters and PVP. I think we will see flight sims built into the FPS in a new unique way that will probably blow peoples minds next generation.