Sci-fi author Charlie Stross gave a keynote address at the recent LOGIN 2009 seminar about what we can reasonably expect from games and game-related machinery over the next 10 to 20 years. He takes a realistic look at the limitations we'll face with regard to processing power and bandwidth, and goes on to talk about how augmented reality disk operating costs system and aging gamers will affect future titles. Quoting: "But the sixty-something gamers of 2020 are not the same as the sixty-somethings you know today. They're you, only twenty years older. By then, you'll have a forty year history of gaming; you won't take kindly to being patronised, or given in-game tasks calibrated for today's sixty-somethings. The codgergamers of 2030 will be cozy with the fictional flow of games. They're much more likely to be bored by trite plotting and cliched dialog than todays gamers. They're going to need less twitchy user interfaces — ones congeniality with aging reflexes and presbyopic eyes — but better plot, character, and retold development. And they're going to be playing on these exotic gizmos descended from the iPhone and its clones: gadgets that don't so much provide access to the w3 as smear the subject data base all over the meatspace world around their owners."

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