What does the future hold for the gaming industry? With Nintendo laps ahead of the competition this generation resulting from their intuitive control scheme leading non-gamers and casual gamers alike to pick up the system, Microsoft and Sony are rumoured to unveil their answers to Nintendo’s success at E3 this year. There’s little chance however that even if both Microsoft and Sony release peripherals for their systems that they’ll be able to stop Nintendo juggernaught taking out first place this generation simply because neither system originally came packaged with the motion device. This means should either company push this technology they’ll effectively be forcing their install base to purchase the peripheral. This won’t be an easy task; it’s more likely that both Sony and Microsoft will have a much better chance at redeeming themselves in the next generation.

Fan boys always love to speculate in regards to ‘what’s coming next?’. It’s important to look to the future; predictions can influence the outcome of years and years of software releases, profits and expenses. For this reason, today we’ll take a look at each of the major players mentioned in yesterday’s post, Nintendo, Sony, Apple and Microsoft.

Nintendo has never been in a stronger position in terms of sales. They’re the undisputable leader of the industry in both home console and handheld sales. When it comes time for the clock to tick over and another page is turned to begin the next chapter in the history of the videogame industry, Nintendo will need a whole lot of foresight to combat its rivals. Nintendo was lucky enough to change the direction of the industry and struck oil when they masterminded their plan to appeal to casual and non-gamers through non tradition means of control. Their controllers managed to eliminate the skills that gamers had collected over years through interacting with traditional controls in favour of movement based control, putting hardcore and non-gamers on an even playfield. If you can swing a golf club, you can play glolf on Nintendo’s Wii. Rivals Sony and Mircosoft have inevitably caught on and [apparently] intend on replicating Nintendo’s theory in order to gain back the ground stolen by the Wii.

The transition period won’t be easy, historically (before the Wii) Nintendo relied on a group of loyal dedicated hardcore gamers who had, in most cases followed the Nintendo brand and its franchises since the NES in the 80s. With Nintendo’s shift in focus to the casual gamer market for the last year, many of Nintendo’s most dedicated fans have been losing hope that Nintendo is still a company dedicated to continue and improve their beloved series. Because of this, and the types of titles selling best on the system, it’s safe to assume that the vast majority of Nintendo’s install base is casual and will be easily swayed to rival’s systems should Nintendo’s future product include technology that’s inferior or less appealing or if the system’s price point doesn’t appeal to the wider audience. The Wii could potentially have a long life if Nintendo continue creating games to entice their casual audience and continue to innovate in ways similar to Wii Fit. If this proves to be the case then the Wii may just be able to survive well after the next waves of systems are produced, suss out the motion technology that they’re sure to include and release the system when they see fit (pun intended) with an innovation of their own, sure to keep much of their newly found market.

The Playstation name was synonymous with success for over a decade dominating with their original Playstaion and their Playstation 2. The Playstation 3 however has only recently started to gain momentum. The Playstation 3 hit late with the Wii, Microsoft’s Xbox 360 had already begun introducing gamers to the High Definition era of gaming. With the Playstation 3, Sony clearly sought to create the ultimate gaming device. The PS3 came packed with High Definition compatibility, HDMI cables were included in the package unlike the 360 and it also included a built in Blu-Ray player. Much like the Playstation 2 helped introduce DVD to the mainstream Sony had high hopes for their new format. Sony was ready, technology was ready, but the world of consumers wasn’t. The price of the PS3 was substantially higher than the Wii and the Xbox 360 due to Sony’s focus on packing the system to the brim with the world latest and greatest technological breakthroughs.

When the Wii began to unexpectedly dominate the market, developers and publishers alike began to choose to develop for both the 360 and PS3, maximising profits and rendering the superior technology in the Playstation 3 useless. It’s clear when looking at one of Sony’s most recent exclusive releases, Killzone 2 that the abilities of the PS3 are stronger than its competition, but releasing games of this calibre takes time and money, which would all be well and good if the PS3 was the market leader...

Everyone makes mistakes, and Sony continues to pay the price for short comings or rather, overcompensations. It’s affected the sales of the PS3, the quantity of software available on the system and even the quality of its titles. One thing it hasn’t affected (seemingly) is the brand’s image. Fans of the Playstation 2 who have been wooed to rival systems because of the lower price points still want a PS3 despite the above reasons. This puts Sony in a prime position to make a comeback come in time for the ‘Playstation 4’. Next generation will allow Sony to rectify the mistakes made and will allow it to take on future rival systems with the knowledge that fans still want their product, even after 2 years of disaster. That’s a very powerful knowledge, now they need to capitalise on it.

It could be argued that Apple doesn’t yet belong in a discussion of the future of the home console market, especially when it doesn’t have a system present on market now and hasn’t announced any plans for a system in the future, but I would disagree and I’m the one writing the article (direct all complaints to the comment box below). Apple has more tricks up its sleeve than its ‘Apps Store’ has poor quality games, and there are a lot of poor titles on the Apps Store. Nevertheless, Apple has been building its gaming personnel employing ‘big names’ in the industry and it’s clearly planning something. With Apple TV a perfect format to be transformed into a ‘Onlive type gaming device’ in the same sneaky way iPhone will continue to be a gaming device Apple are set to take on the videogame world. How? Disk-less!

The MP3 format was always the way the music industry was going, competitors like MD Players and Discman were never going to stand up against the convenience of being able to simply play music without inserting any type of data storage. Apple proved this point. They’re on the verge of doing the same thing in the take home movie industry with the Apple TV. You have to feel for Sony, developing their Blu-Ray format only to have Apple replicate the same move on them that destroyed Sony’s Walkman, disc-free playback. Although this would certainly be a revolution for gaming and watch-at-home-movies alike, the question still remains regarding the readiness of the common-man’s internet speed for a device that needs to stream HD games and movies.

Microsoft has been remarkably successful with their Xbox brand. Entering a market that was previously dominated by two Japanese companies and with Japan being the videogame capital of the world they have faced an uphill battle to capture market share. Although many were sceptical, Microsoft persevered, now they’re sitting above the PS3 in global sales and looking stronger than ever in the Japanese market, acquiring rights to big budget RPGs, traditionally Japan’s favoured genre. The Xbox 360 was released a year prior to both its competitors, although many will argue that this is why Microsoft is sitting in such a strong position it’s also testament to Microsoft’s understanding of the industry. Sales are still strong and Xbox 360 has been able to gain an edge over its HD rival with a significantly lower price.

If Apple truly have the right idea about the future of gaming, allowing gamers to simply download titles straight to their console, then you bet Microsoft won’t be far behind. Xbox LIVE is by far the most successful of the three online services and Xbox original and Xbox 360 games are already available for download. With so much emphasis being placed on online capability Microsoft is, for the time being, at the forefront of the race. Even if competitors look as if they might be gaining ground Microsoft has a weapon up its sleeve that neither Apple, Sony nor Nintendo will be able to effectively counter – the PC gamer data base. When Microsoft sees that the time is right, and by this I mean that standard joystick control still doesn’t offer the manoeuvrability of a mouse and keypad, they’ll open the Xbox LIVE network to link with PC Gamers online. This will allow Xbox players to play against or with PC players around the world.

The time when this becomes reality isn’t far off. High Voltage studios has developed a game for Nintendo’s Wii called The Conduit. Developers claim that the control scheme may even surpass the mouse and keypad. Microsoft is rumoured to unveil its answer to the WiiMote at E3 in June, the prospect of First Person Shooter handling using full body motion is exciting in and of itself, but tied with the largest online gaming community in the world, Microsoft may well be in a position to do some serious damage especially when capturing the hardcore gamer.

So my prediction? Although the above is exciting, I cant honestly say that I see Apple making a move into a full fledged ‘Apple Play’ gaming console next generation, but the at the same time I wouldn’t be surprised if they were to dabble their toes in it. All above companies are in a strong position to make some big changes in the coming years and its impossible to predict based purely on speculation which of these three (four) gaming giants will be in the lead 3-4 years from now. One thing is certain though, it’s well and truly up for grabs.