The Wii Shop Channel could be where you buy all your Nintendo console games in the future.

The Xbox 360 has its marketplace on Live, the PS3 has its marketplace on the PSN and we have the Wii Shop Channel. In the last few years we have seen games become more and more download-based, whether is add-on packs or the entire thing, somewhere along the line, you need to download it.

That’s where people have been thinking, especially Silicon Knights boss Denis Dyack who has gone on to say that…

Cloud gaming – services that offer online games to players without the need for specialist hardware in a home – could be the ideal business model for developers, publishers and consumers.

“How on Earth will this help?” I hear you cry. Well, although you as the consumer may be slightly annoyed by the fact that pre-owned titles will no longer exist, your games collection is stored on a hard disk so you can’t swap with friends, or that extra price you pay for games on demand, it solved all the problems that industry bosses have at the moment. Top of the list, in my eyes, being piracy.

How do you pirate a game you don’t actual have the data for? Think about it. How long has Xbox 360’s Live Marketplace been up now, a long time, and I myself have yet to hear of an arcade game being pirated. This all comes down to DRM and Licensing within the software of the consoles themselves, but it sure does seem to do the trick. The same could apply to the consoles Live Gold membership system, you just cannot pirate the thing!

Dyack goes on to say…

It helps on so many levels because it resolves the piracy issue, which is a massive problem today, and the used games issue, because you buy something and it’s yours forever – it resides on the cloud. These are wins for the consumers and wins for the game developers.

If you look at the best selling games [in China] – World of Warcraft is up there. It’s not quite a cloud model, but you have to subscribe to the servers and it’s protected that way. The great thing about cloud computing and non-linear media is you can protect them on the cloud because it requires two-way input. You can’t pirate something you don’t have and I think it’s the future of our industry.

He then goes on to state his views on a one-console future, a gaming standard, solving the current issues…

In some ways it’s the absolute elimination of any hardware as far as the consumer is concerned, because the hardware is the cloud.

People confuse a one console future as a monopoly and that’s completely wrong. The idea is it would be an open standardised format where anyone could manufacture. If a grandmother goes into a store and wants a specific game for her grandson, she has to figure out the console, the ratings system, and all these barriers that have been artificially created.

There’s a term in commoditisation that’s called performance oversupply. That’s when the market starts over performing and giving the consumer more than it can possibly consume,” said Dyack. “If you have Gears of War which is unique to the Xbox 360 and Uncharted 2 for the PS3, they’re not really competing against each other. Depending on which console you have you have an oversupply of games because you can’t play them all unless you have all the consoles.

Ok then people, what’s your views on a ‘cloud’ future within the gaming industry. The Nintendo DSi and PSP Go is already starting the trend. Do you think everyone will follow? Answers in the comment box below.

Denis Dyack Part Two [gamesindustry.biz]