The biggest change? Blaming the economy, the company lowered expectations for console sales in 2009 by one million units.

A few years ago, analysts predicted that media-center PCs would be showing up in huge numbers across the country as more people became computer savvy, but analysts didn't bet on the gaming industry offering a much simpler solution to getting web-based content to your television. According to In-Stat, 29% of U.S. 29 to 34-year-olds owning game consoles use said consoles to watch video streamed or downloaded from the internet. Game consoles as in-home content delivery networks are quickly gaining on the more traditional cable outlets, with a forecast of 10.7 million consoles making up a portion of the 24 million homes viewing web-to-TV content come 2013. http://www.instat.com/catalog/mmcatalogue.asp?id=212

"Currently Web video is largely additive to traditional TV revenue streams," says Keith Nissen, In-Stat analyst. "However, ultimately web video to the TV will force a complete restructuring of today's video distribution ecosystem."

I have to admit that when the ability to watch video on the console was first introduced I was a bit skeptical, but last night I was up until 3am watching Dexter via Netflix on my Xbox 360, so I'm just a number now.

Of course this is one of those market research reports they want large companies to purchase for $3,000, so many of the numbers they are referencing here remain a mystery. It's not that we don't care...we just don't have $3,000 worth of caring.

In an industry newsletter (as reported by Edge), Pachter wrote "We do not expect the ‘next' generation to begin before 2013, if at all." The "if at all" is really curious. But considering that's about four years away, by then who knows what will be playing, delivering or hosting our games. Or he could be imagining a future so ravaged by swine flu and economic hardship that we're all back to rolling hoops with a stick for our entertainment.

More definitively, Pachter said "no 'new' console(s) in 2010," which anyone could tell you, but to some investors it might not be so obvious. But he adds "other than the long-rumored high definition Wii, which is likely to upgrade the Wii to current console technology." That he does expect by the end of next year.

The chief force against premature next gen-eration would be game publishers, Pachter says. They "have as yet to capitalize on the immense investments made in being competitive in the current cycle," and so would resist a new console generation, with new software and development demands.

"We therefore think it is likely that the ‘next' generation will begin after 2013, meaning that software sales are likely to grow by a compounded annual rate of 6–10 percent for another five years," he concludes.

Analyst: No New Console Before 2013 [Edge]

Looking like a device you'd expect to see in a medical office or alien spaceship, the Novint Falcon is a USB device that replicates mouse movement in 3D space. Already on the market for two years, Novint believes they're now ready to take it to the console level. Speaking to GameCyte, Novint CEO Tom Anderson explains that it was more or less an instance of "Show us the gameplay."

The main thing is that the console manufacturers wanted to see game support, and now, we have that game support. We’ve asked our publishing partners if they’d be willing to support us on consoles, and they said yes. So all the pieces are there — we just need to put it together.

Anderson told GameCyte that they hope to have console games that support the Falcon by the end of the year. I'll hold off on picking on up until I can attach a dentist-mirror swivel arm in my living room to complete the effect.

Novint Falcon, Coming Soon to a Console Near You [GameCyte]

In fact, if CD Projekt's Tom Ohle is to be believed (and why shouldn't he be?) to call The Witcher: Rise of the White Wolf a port is to do it a disservice.

"We’re not just slapping together a port and are actually making a game built from the ground up to be an amazing console RPG," said Ohle, "We’ve gone back and motion-captured a lot more combat animations for the new combat actions, like parries, counter-attacks, enhanced evasion, special attacks, etc. We’re also enhancing the enemy AI to make them more aggressive and perform a wide range of offensive and defensive actions to make the combat a bit more action-oriented."

The Witcher: Rise of the White Wolf Q&A — Console DLC Confirmed! [GameCyte]

The holiday games market is under threat this year from actual, proper Somali pirates who are preying upon cargo ships off the Horn of Africa and beyond. Sadly, this lot seem to be eschewing Cornish accents and peg legs in favor of AK-47s and huge ex-Soviet trawler ships.

Shipping firms are now faced with the choice of braving pirate-infested waters or taking costly detours that can delay goods by several weeks.

"Despite all the publicity over piracy it will really hit home when consumers in the West find they haven't got their Nintendo gifts this Christmas," said Sam Dawson of the International Transport Workers' Federation.

No Nintendo Game This Xmas? Blame Somali Pirates

"We are entering a future that many in the game industry are still denying and fighting against," says Clickz's Kevin Carney, "We are watching the icon of gaming, the console, quickly and ungraciously bow to the internet."

You see, it is not just any old casual gaming - it is web-based casual gaming with an advertising-based revenue model. "Here's the beauty of this transition: advertisers are the prime movers. Online games are typically funded through advertising revenue," continues Carney.

Carney's theory may be slightly filtered through the web marketing-based publication he is writing for - most of his readership stand to gain from a boom in casual games, after all - but he does make the case that improvements in gameplay don't necessarily follow from improvements in console power.

Anyone out there ready to trade Gears 2 for Zoo Keeper?

“Consoles are facing competition and extinction” [Casual Gaming]

Energy Star are preparing a draft specification that will for the first time lay out the energy usage parameters for games consoles. As of July 2010 manufacturers who want to badge consoles with the Energy Star, er, Star will have to ensure that they use less than one watt during 'off' mode, and less than 5 watts in 'standby'.

After laying idle for an hour, consoles must automatically power down - a pain if you are trying to keep a Beta key from expiring, but good for the environment, obviously.

Gaming Consoles Finally Getting Attention from Energy Star [TreeHugger]

"Personally, I think the consoles are a problem," he told GamesDeveloper.bizGameDaily, "Years ago I was excited about consoles, but anything that makes development more expensive, rather than better, faster, cheaper, I think is a step backwards."

"I'm more excited about what I see happening on PC because I see it allowing for more smaller games to be sold that can be delivered to anyone who's connected at much lower price points."

I think what he is getting at is that you can just write a game for a PC and release it — you don't have to negotiate with LIVE or PSN, for example — and use the Internet to get the code out to whatever niche audience you like.

This may be the case, but if you are developing a big title (like, say, a new Oddworld game) surely the big money sink is in the creative side of the IP? All that artwork, music and writing — plus the code, of course. Is the open nature of the PC that much of a boon when you have multiple graohics cards to support?

'Consoles Are a Problem,' says Lorne Lanning [GameDaily]

Back in April, Dan Rubenfield (Ultima Online, Star Wars Galaxies, etc.) ranted, raved, and put MMO developers 'on notice.' And, at the end, admonished developers to "quit making PC games. It’s a waste of time and money." Unsurprisingly, people hit back, and now over at GameSetWatch, Joe Ludwig (producer of Pirates of the Burning Sea) has a snappy little response detailing six reasons why MMOs are just plain harder to develop for consoles versus PCs. Does that mean it won't start happening in greater numbers? Of course not:

There is enough money to be made in console games that future MMO releases there are inevitable. It's just a question of when they arrive.

Several console MMOs have already launched. The most successful of these by far is Final Fantasy XI on the PlayStation 2. Everquest Online Adventures and Phantasy Star Universe (and Phantasy Star Online before it) are two more examples. There are probably more that I'm not coming up with. All of these games have seen some modest success, but none of them are either major console hits or major MMO hits.

... Eventually MMOs are going to come to consoles. It's just going to take them a while to get there, and they will probably never emerge in the same numbers as they do on PCs. Buck up, Dan. We'll get there some day.

He also points out that according to NPD, developing for PCs is anything but a waste of money. Overall, it's a really reasonable response to a sometimes reasonable, sometimes really not rant.

Why Aren't There More Console MMOs? [GameSetWatch]

"The console is now a baseline. If you look at Gears of War or Assassin's Creed, they came out on console and they were great experiences - but the PC versions had additional aspects to them that also made them attractive, whether you owned the console version or not," continued Taylor. "The PC version was better. That's something that people need to get their heads around - the console is a baseline, the PC is going to be an improved version. That's an exciting future, and that's why I don't see anything threatening about console at all.

Note that the PC versions are also generally later than their console counterparts, often requiring PC owners to upgrade to the latest NVIDIA products. Ah, an exciting future indeed!

"Consoles don't threaten PC gaming" [Eurogamer]

Yeah, at this point we've managed to replicate some of the effects, but I don't know what features will make it into the final release. Nearly all of our DX10 features are possible to do on the consoles if you give it enough time and resources, so we'll keep on working on them and see what happens.

World in Conflict Interview [Videogamers.com - Thanks David!]

I think that I speak for everyone here when I say, I was really on the fence about purchasing an ITC One. But now that it's packing a Blu-ray player, it's a no-brainer purchase.

$25,000 uber-box gets Blu-ray [Crave]

What if publishers could counteract the Blockbusters/GameFlys of the world by offering digital rentals, and taking the idea a step further, stick it to GameStop resales by offering a simple system in which gamers could trade or sell their games online?

Stepping back to compare the digital movie industry for a moment, Apple recently signed on all the major film studios to rent their releases online. How does such a system work technically? It's easy, if a movie could be purchased and downloaded before, a download that costs a little less and is tagged to expire is really no more difficult. How does such a system work pragmatically? Apple, wanting to support (read: profit) on their media hardware, only takes the most modest chunk off the song/movie's sale price. The rest goes to those who create the content.

Does this not seem like the obvious next step for the gaming industry?

As for building a digital resale marketplace, such a scenario grows far more complicated, but not impossible. Now that gamers are comfortable dealing in points, imagine this simple system: you buy a game for 100 points, sell it for 50 points, and buy a used games for 75. So what's the catch? You can't sell a used game, and you only get sale points credited if someone buys your game.

Is the plan flawed? I'm sure. It took all of ten seconds to think of. But the important idea here is that an all digital model could have publisher-profitable limits on trade that would be made up to consumers by its extreme ease of use.

But most of all, the truly enticing aspect of such a model (for publishers/devs) is that consoles could provide a relatively safe haven for such a rental/trading system to exist. Unlike PCs, the specialized hardware and OS of these closed boxes make potential exploits far less likely at the scale of the average user—and when they do occur—far more manageable to the infrastructure as a whole (because, face it, firmware wars work pretty freaking well).

And while I'd love to have complete freedom with my digital content, I'd gladly make a few sacrifices for one, simple to use system that works from my couch.

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It's important to not forget the PC side of the business to innovation. The PC provides the revenue stream every year for the team. If it was only a console business, we [AMD and NVIDIA] would not be here...

[With consoles] every few years you can reach out and do an interesting thing, but if you didn't have development every six months on the PC, you couldn't sustain your team.

The panel actually had a lot of interesting points for hardware geeks. Hit the link to give it a read. And if you're really a hardware geek, maybe you can name this video card.

IBM, AMD, Nvidia, Intel Talk The Future Of Processors [gamasutra]

Is your Wii ruining the black and red bordello theme of your bedroom? The PS3 just not fitting in with the teal carpet in the living room? ColorWare is offering a $99 solution more permanent than vanity case mods and skins - now you can send in your console (or buy one from them) and get it painted in one of 28 shades (or a combination of several).

I can't say that the boring black of my PS2 has ever really killed a decorating scheme, but the sky blue 360 would've blended in to my old bedroom quite well. I guess if you have the cash and time to spare, and are willing to gamble that you're not going to have to replace your console anytime soon, you too can have the designer console of your dreams. Maggie Greene

Colorware concocts competent console coloring [Joystiq]

A new Xbox could be coming our way as a patent reveals (rather complicatedly) some of the features that could be available on the next generation of a Microsoft console. Although it cites Xbox as an example of how the patent describes a "gaming device", it's not completely clear if that is what the patent is for:

A gaming system including handheld devices and console devices has variable functionality and processing performance as determined by the number of components in the system. Gaming components can be combined wirelessly, by wired connections (e.g., via a docking station), or a combination thereof. The processing capabilities and functionality of each gaming component in a combination are augmented by the processing capabilities and functionality of other gaming components in the combination. To take advantage of another gaming components processing capabilities and memory capacity, each gaming component is capable of utilizing another gaming component to process gaming applications. Further, each gaming component is capable of rendering audio and/or video information provided by another gaming component.

Basically, this new product will also have the ability to talk to any number of handheld devices, from mobile phones to PDAs. For what or why has yet to be seen. It's a lot to read, I know, but it makes for some fun bets you can have with your friends. I've got $20 that says it's full-sized robot shaped like a bunny rabbit. Kim Phu

United States Patent Application #20070087830 [US Patent & Trademark Office via Digg]

In what was surely a fun, backslapping roundtable foretelling great fortune on the PC gaming Windows platform, Butler received a message from the future, one that told him that the gaming console biz was on its last legs, CVG reports.

Quiet! Lars Butler's speaking:

I believe the days of the console are numbered. There is one more generation of gaming consoles and that is it.

Well, I believe I can fly. Furthermore, I believe I can touch the sky.

With consoles becoming more and more PC-like (i.e. network ready, stock rewritable storage, totally patchable), it makes me wonder what distinction we'll have between the two in the next-gen. But, one thing I know for sure, when Trion World Networks speaks, people listen. Michael McWhertor

"The days of consoles are numbered", claim PC bosses [CVG]

I'm just going to hit you with the quote here right off the bat.

I-play CEO David Gosen has predicted that the console gaming industry will be left with a "niche audience" to target as mobile gaming becomes ever more popular.

This really blows my mind. I've only ever downloaded on cell phone game in my life, and that one pretty much sucked completely. It all sounds like wishful thinking from a guy who makes a living selling casual mobile games, perhaps enhanced by the local Amsterdam foliage. Your thoughts? Michael Fahey

Mobile gaming will overtake consoles, says Gosen [GamesIndustry.biz]