I am definitely with people who consider Ubisoft belief to be nothing more than wishful thinking.

In fact it is even a question if streaming will become a thing. Not only the Internet has not enough width in most of the world, but also amount of data progressively increases - today 4K is mostly a luxury, but later it will become obsolete as well with people demanding even higher resolution as a minimum. Even IF most of the computations will be left to servers it will still be more effective to transmit some core data, like players' positions and state of the level and render visuals at the users' end.

And don't forget that many people will still go for owning a game, with ability to run it whenever they want even without internet connection. So even if streaming will become popular (and that's a big if) it will not replace games, running at the users machine. Even on consoles.

Not just older people I would say. Here bandwidth limits are in GBs and that too in double digits mostly.
:p

EDIT: I honestly don't believe game-streaming will account for a major part of the industry in near future, even if it manages to exist. As others have said streaming a media file like a movie or music is different from a game. Also in my little understanding won't it also require much more demanding server facilities to run and stream a game?

As for the claim of old technology dying out, I am recently seeing a rush of vinyl records on amazon here.

If that guess is correct, then I suspect there will still be some sort of device. Maybe a Firestick-like dealio that plugs into your TV, and connects to the service and also connects to wireless controllers. TVs may eventually get that capability directly: the 'console app' is just software and they'd have to add some sort of wireless protocol to connect to the controller.

I don't doubt for a second that people are working their asses off on this. Some developers and publishers will be on board from the start since it's built-in DRM, and will also make it even easier than before for lootboxes, paid DLC, and whatever other revenue streams they can think up.

The ISPs will eventually come to love it since they'll have an excuse to make an expensive high-throughput tier for gamers, likely combined with an account for PlayStation Live or whatever it will be called. This will be an excuse to leave even farther behind those customers outside of major metro areas.

Not sure we would see a merging of PC gaming and the new console-less mode. Both have their advantages that don't necessarily work well for the other. For instance, mods might be an impassable roadblock for the streaming method, yet mods are huge on the PC side.

All guesses. Time will tell.

That is more about what Ubisoft wishes to be the future, rather than what it actually will be.

I think it will be mixed, there will be both streamed games and "standalone" games (and gaming devices). One of the problems is pricing, Ubisoft mentions that people don't need to buy (expensive?) hardware at home for gaming, but streaming gaming services are and have been struggling trying to get a pricing point which is lucrative enough for end-users, and still provides enough revenue for the publishers and the service provider,

Streaming gaming is more expensive for the service providers than streaming movies (or streaming music), due to the CPU/GPU power needed for the gaming server farms.

I'm sure that's every publisher's wet dream but we're way further out than 10 years IMO. Whatever though, we all need to accept that gaming is slowly evolving to new places for new generations and we'll be old fart legacy customers only at some point.

Not us. The next generation.
The one which is already used to DRM, online-only games, walled gardens, early access, microtransactions, lootboxes...

Dear Ubisoft: f*ck you, fudge you, fudge you, fudge you, fudge you, fudge you, fudge you, fudge you, fudge, fudge you, fudge you, fudge you, fudge you, fudge you, fudge you, fudge you, fudge you, fudge you, fudge you, fudge you, fudge you, fudge you, fudge you, fudge you, fudge you, fudge you, fudge you, fudge you, fudge you, fudge you, fudge you, fudge you

Oh, and fudge you, too.

* Too many F's spoils the fudge

Sales figures suggest Ubisoft has the truth of this one.

Anyway, streaming is coming. But dedicated hardware will still be important. Not all of the world has access to affordable internet capable of streaming. I think the next set of devices may be strong enough to last a loooooong while however. While my computer is 2 years old at this point, I still game at times on my 10 year old machine, and for most games don't have a huge difference in experience. The next set of consoles will be running the equivalent of 1180s. Our game designs have not evolved significantly in the last 10 years and I think we are tapping out existing technology, let alone the top end of 2 years in the future. And I think even the gaming public is starting to become less and enamored by newer technology.

People bought the new consoles because the game makers stopped making games for the old ones. It's purely for marketing. And the benefit of the refresh, considering the risks involved in producing a new console, may eventually not be worth it for manufacturers. Just keep the platform more or less the same, and make incremental updates, like the pc market.

I just saw this article.

I agree with Breja. At least, I want to. My only issue is that once Streaming becomes mainstream, releasing pc games will be a "lost art". Kind of like how people still own VHS but now studios have stopped making movies on that hardware.

On the bright side, GOG could pick up the slack when Valve becomes a primarily streaming service. I really think Steam will become the next Netflix of gaming.

I remember when I first tried out Netflix when it was young. Horrible video quality as internet speeds were behind but now, I'm guilty of binge watching stuff to high heaven. Playing video games is an entirely other story for me but for the average consumer, it's the same thing. Just ask Valve.