Steampowered games & Windows

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By 2020, we should have multi-terabyte (10-20 TB)/ or even petabyte based storage systems for public use, so those updates will be considered miniscule in comparison...

But 2 Terabyte game updates? Games aren't even more than 20 - 30 GBs at most yet (Max Payne holds the record so far for a whopping 28.3 GB), no thanks to that particular MS console that still uses dual layer DVD discs for it's games. (If they had used Bluray like Sony did, games would all be 20+ GBs standard)

Either that, or everything would move to the cloud, and we would be streaming our games from central servers and our hardware would regress back to dumb terminals. No need for expensive gaming GPUs as everything would be rendered on the cloud and be streamed to our dumb terminals on widespread 1Gbps/1Gbps FIOS connections in 2020.

(I hate the cloud based future, just so you know.)

Yea, I'm with solar on this one. 2 TB seems kinda extreme. Although with the way the industry is exponentially growing hardware and software requirements, it wouldn't / won't surprise me to see that kind of thing in 8 years.
I'd also like to reiterate that we will have ridiculously more advanced hardware and network connections in 8 years. I mean, if you take a random game 8 years ago, and compare it's system requirements with those of today, it's an insane contrast. For example, Rome Total War was an awesome rts game released in 2004. The requirements to run that game were about average for the time, maybe a slightly greater demand for a higher-end cpu (being an rts and all), but take a look at the requirements:
CPU: 1ghz (Windows 7 won't run without at least this)
RAM: 256MB (I really don't know anyone who doesn't have at least 4x this in their machine, even old people)
HDD space: 2.9GB (IIRC this was kinda steep as well, the original game had to be installed from 3 or 4 CDs, and later the gold version would be installed from a DVD)
VGA card: 64MB, directx 9 compatible
So it's all relative to how you look at things over the years. A 2TB space requirement game sounds beyond obsurd now, but 8 years from now? We'll see.

From my experience modding games, it's the assets (sound, graphics) that take up the most space. 2TB? I don't think so, unless photorealistic 3D world game engines become the norm. There are plenty of sub-gig sized games which are fun to play, even discounting the handheld/flash crap.

Sony's been salivating over 100% direct digital distribution - they already have PSN, it's a mere matter of scale and ditching physical media. The "cloud console" is not so much a dream but a horrifyingly likely future. What's not to like? It will allow them to build cheaper consoles (no need to handle discs or other silly customer input thingies, everything will come from them in the cloud), they can dictate which regions get which games and which DLCs (this is already happening, now they can enforce it fully), etc.

And yes, screw them. I only play console games because there are games I can't get on the PC, not because I love vendor-locked devices with closed ecosystems. Online only is just going to make it worse.

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iTRiPiTRip, that is not totally correct. Perhaps if you are fortunate enough to live somewhere that gets high bandwidth. I am not. I have a very slow connection, the fastest I can get though. So, If I buy the DVD of the game, I have most of it installed. You are right that you still have to download part of it. But, I already have the bulk installed. I just installed a game through the DVD, it required a 6Gb download which took about 6 hours for me (depending on the time of day I download it). I could have bought it by digital download and spent 14 hours downloading it. So, to some of us, there is an advantage to buying physical disks. And, it's a real big advantage when you have to reinstall all of your games.

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