The Year is 2020 and I Have Come to Tell You What the Game Industry is Like

[ME##]

No physical copies of games exist; you can still buy download codes from stores. In certain rural areas there will be WINtablets© that let you stick in your 256GB [standard size of games] flash drive in and download [you will be charged at $0.05 per GB] it.
The price of the standard game is $80, and all games are now starter packs.  Stores are now filled to the brim with "collectible" figures.  Most games cost $600 to obtain all "standard" content.
All DLC is now a $10/month fee you pay to the publisher that you pay on top of PS+, XBL, Nintendo Verse.  So for example if you wanted PS+ and DLC from Sony, Square Enix and EA, your total comes to $600 for the year [$140 for PS+ and $360 for the DLC passes]
"Handhelds" are dead and will never come back. 
New government regulations from the Rodham-Clinton-Sanders dictatorship limits game play to two hours per day.  Failure to comply results in the EPA arresting for using too much energy.

[6M69I69B9]

also consoles will now force you to give a saliva, blood, hair, urine and semen sample for you to provide to confirm that you're the owner

[ME##]

also consoles will now force you to give a saliva, blood, hair, urine and semen sample for you to provide to confirm that you're the owner

on a daily bases, yes.

[TooB]

What's scary is how likely most of these are.
there's already rumors that the ps4 and bone follow ups won't even have disc drives.
sounds familiar... like what people thought that's what would happen to ps4 and bone.

though... a digital only future is becoming more and more likely. and i MIGHT stop buying new ganes after that if that's true.

but the way familiar franchises are heading anyway.. it might not be a bad idea

[don't let's]

At least I'll be dead

[ME##]

At least I'll be dead

i can confirm this is factually incorrect, better luck next time, david

[don't let's]

Noooooooooooo

[bluaki]

If Steamboxes ever catch on, they might be the first major consoles that are digital-only.

All the existing Android/iOS "gaming" is already digital-only, as neither system is designed to run anything from any kind of disc or cartridge
That also includes all the so-far-unsuccessful micro-consoles like Ouya, Nvidia Shield, Fire TV, Nexus Player, etc.

Then again, I have some doubts of the viability of digital-only game distribution in the next 5 years, because ISPs are still lagging well behind and storage improvements aren't coming as fast as developers are ditching every last thought of optimizing games for space. Optical discs are very soon getting a major boost with Ultra Blu-Ray supposedly releasing to consumers this year.

[The artist formally known]

Don't forget that there are no new games. Only remasters

[strongbad]

Doesn't matter I'll still be trying to beat nethack and get better at melee

[ME##]

Doesn't matter I'll still be trying to beat nethack and get better at melee

Under the new Junkers for Cash programme, video game consoles older than ten years are considered inefficient and have been scrapped.  Nintendo has not been able to afford to reimagine Melee for the NX²

[strongbad]

If melee hd with lagless online came out I would become a hermit

[don't let's]

Getting closer and closer

[C.Mongler]

i'm shocked games have retained their $60 MSRP for this long tbh

[Kalahari Inkantation]

i'm shocked games have retained their $60 MSRP for this long tbh

that does seem surprising at first, but the price increase in games has been folded into dlc/microtransactions/etc.

a full game today is a lot more expensive on average than it was ten years ago, even though the msrp of the disc remains at $60