Link to the article: Ubisoft Believes Next Gen Is the Last for Consoles as Microsoft Looks Beyond Platforms

Well.. What can I say? I'll keep my opinion about ubi to myself ; )

Same client-server back and forth that's been going on since the late '50s. Even if next gen is the last gen, there'll be something else a few years or a decade down the line. At least, if there's a substantial change, they'll be able to reset the names and stop with the recursive nonsense we've ended up with.

Somehow I think they will... be wrong. I think MS learned it's lesson about forcing it's console to be to online depended in a world where people still value playing offline and used games, and I doubt they are going to be willing to try again so soon after that colossal fuck up. No doubt that publishers will eventually push for this (I mean why wouldn't they it benefits them a lot, to hell with those pesky consumers am I right?) but console generations seems to be getting shorter and consoles are starting to become more like phones, upgrade ever few years... so after next gen? Doubt it.

Looking at how successful streaming services have been for other media (music, movies, tv series), I think it's just a matter of time anyway. As soon as they get rid of input lag and as soon as internet connections become fast and reliable for most people, game streaming will be the standard and we'll all look like dinosaurs that refuse to evolve waiting to be killed by a meteorite :p

I'm sure Microsoft learned a bit. I wouldn't be sure if they not going to make it happen though.. Not today, perhaps not tomorrow. But why not in the very next week? I mean, since win10 it is possible, what is the real choice there? Sure, some moved to Linux, some to OSX but Apple doesn't seem to be much different than Microsoft. MS offering cloud services already and I think with some success. What if Guillemot know somethings we don't?
As I said somewhere else, I'm neither paranoid nor naive, but shit still happens..

I don't know. On hand I agree with Desmight, I even said something similiar in another thread recently - streaming is catching on everywhere, and games are (unfortunately sure to follow). On the other hand my experience is that people are always way to eager to announce the death of [insert supposedly outdated thing]. I've been hearing about the death of PC gaming since the mid 90s :P Video killed the radio star, and yet 40 years later radio stations still soldier on. Not as important as they were, but still doing well enough for being "dead".

I'm pretty sure it's going to take more than one more generation to kill consoles. Not that I have a horse in that particular race - I never owned any console and I doubt that's going to change

Fortunately for me, "premium content" is mostly garbage that I wouldn't want for free.

I have no doubt steaming will become more popular, but like we have seen in other media... I doubt it will take over, at-least not anytime soon, rather it will coexist peacefully with the traditional way of doing things. Even in music and movies, steaming hasn't outright replaced owning media, not even physical media like Blu-rays or CD's which still brings in a lot of money. And we can contribute that to older people still like owning stuff, and because people tend to treat Netflix, etc. as a glorified rental service and do buy media that they plan to watch more than once or twice.

There is also the issue that, at-least here in the states, internet seems to be getting progressively worse.. not better. Your big cable companies own most of the ISP's here and they are not going to let streaming replace their traditional business which is why we have bandwidth caps, etc. 4K is also starting to take off now, and with movies pushing 100GB in size, and internet getting worse, I have feeling we may see a significant shift back to physical media soon.

Let's take for example Comcast, in a lot of places they have a 1 TB limit. Download a few 4K movies and a couple of games and there is your internet gone for the month.

So steaming? I'm not to worried about it right yet...

I don't care about consoles or retail... I only buy digital drm-free games.
But ubisoft also believe that everything will be streaming and that's stupid.

There is a difference betweeen say: "Consoles are dead", and "Streaming is the new and only way to play games".

I say "if consoles are dead ok, if retail is dead I don't care.... But I want to be able to buy games drm-free to be able to play them all 20+ years after release without remastered and shit... It's ok to be able to play games on streaming (to be able to play on any operative system) but I'm not ok if that is the only way I can access the game".

Streaming to be the future of gaming?
I don't think so, but hey, if some Ubisoft executive says so it has to be true, as they've clearly never been wrong. Never. :P

Ubisoft also believes we will buy Assassin's Creed for the 53rd time.

They're wrong.

LOL. I have many opinions about Ubisoft too ;-)

Their "dream" of 100% streaming / de-ownership of games doesn't surprise me. What does surprise me is how supposedly intelligent people think server-based real-time game streaming (a 2-way activity that's highly latency sensitive) is going to be anywhere near as easy as simple 1-way music / video streaming which can be easily "buffered" and whose content doesn't change or require rendering per person per play. In terms of technology, they work in completely different ways to Spotify / Netflix.

Personally I'd never use it. Partly because I have no interest in renting games I don't own, and partly because I have even less interest in Tom Clancy's Ghost Splinter Recon Division 126, Assassins Creed Unity Syndicate Origins 114 or Far Cry 138, which in 50 years time will still be the totality of AAA creativity that Ubisoft will be churning out...

You've made my day! : D
Personally I never got into AC games, simply can't understand the meaning of jumping from one roof to another..

"AAA creativity" isn't much more than an oxymoron. Well said.

I bet they're working their tits off on shifts to achieve this. Many things were impossible in the past..