Stream on… stream on… stream until your dreams come true—Aerosmith fans anyone? According to a recent report released by Nielson, it sure looks like many people out there are streaming more videos to their video game consoles, or shall we say video AND game consoles? That may soon be the case as more and more people are getting online to not only play multiplayer games, but also to get their video fix on. Come with us as FilmBuff makes some predictions about the future of this trend while taking a look at what it could mean for your video streaming services. So take a break from shooting zombies and rescuing Princess Peach, and join us.

In taking a look at the chart below, created by the wonderful people at Nielson, we see an increase across the broad for all consoles (Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and Wii) when it comes to watching video-on-demand (streaming services). In contrast, when you take a look at the percentage of games being played offline and online, all three consoles have inconsistent trends, meaning they either have no change, increased by small amount or had an actual decrease in some cases. Let’s take a closer look at some interesting things for each console.

1. Microsoft Xbox 360: An interesting thing to point out here is that its growth of people playing games offline has stalled while it saw a boost in people playing online, thus an increase in people also streaming video online can be easily correlated.

2. Sony Playstation 3: Check out the percentage of people that use this console to watch DVDs and Blu-Rays. Even though it decreased slightly, we can see that a TV and film audience is already built in here, and it comes as no surprise to see a rise in streaming consumption.

3. Nintendo Wii: Here is something really interesting. A whopping 33 percent (increase from 20 percent) have streamed video of some sort while they are online. Now you have to remember this is the Wii so the age bracket will be a little younger compared to the two other consoles. If that’s any indication, this new generation seems to be favoring watching videos online a lot more as compared to last year—a sign of the times? We certainly think so.

So now on to the predictions of this future trend. We looked long and hard at our FilmBuff crystal ball here at our office, and this is what we came up with—by the way that’s not actually me in the picture. We had a fortune teller pose for this picture.

1. Marketing blitz: We mentioned earlier that these consoles may actually become a video AND gaming console, so the streaming video part of the console may be just as popular as the ability to play games. With that you will see a fierce competition for eyeballs. So imagine you’re playing a Batman video game and within the game itself there are those ever so clever product placements that entice you to watch anything Batman (or genre) related online—talk about integrated marketing, huh?

2. One box to rule them all: We know what you’re thinking, so which console is going to come out on top? This is where our crystal ball gets a little murky. Given the fact that consoles are not the only ones fighting for your streaming business, the telecom and cable TV operators have a huge stake in this game, as well, not to mention the portals themselves, such as Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, iTunes and so forth. It almost seems like an all out melee in World of Warcraft. Partnership and consolidation rumors abound almost on a daily basis, so until the dust settles we have yet to pick a front runner in this digital video race.

What are your favorite consoles? Have you been streaming lately? If so, what? Hit us up below.

Now of course you’ve heard of facial recognition technology at airports, on security cameras, some personal cameras and even Facebook, but Hulu seems to have joined in the mix—that’s right, Hulu. In a world of instant gratification it makes sense when you just need to scan your screen and click on an actors face and find out everything about that person, right? Of course you do, and it’s one less click to Wikipedia and IMDB.

Now before you rush to Hulu to test out this feature, you do have to setup this option before it works and for now it only works for certain new episodes and certain shows such as Glee, The Office, Modern Family and Lost, with movies not far behind.

Once you go to settings, then lab settings, you just enable Face Match, and you’re ready to go! Click on a recent episode of one the shows we mentioned above and you can “face-rec” to your heart’s content as seen below.

Now you may be asking how does this enhance my viewing experience?  Well, we here at FilmBuff created a list of  the individuals that we suspect may enjoy and employ this technology when watching videos online.

1. Celebrity hoarders: obsessed fans that just love to know anything and everything about their favorite actors. This could be a great launching pad to exploring their body of work, history, personal life, you name it. If you want to know what films Rainn Wilson has been in while watching The Office, well here you go! Kind of scary, huh?

2. People with short term memory: do you ever watch a show or film and forget the name of that actor, and it’s just killing you? Problem solved.

3. Hungry talent agent: When this technology gets widespread adoption in the film world—especially the indie film world, agents may call it the next best thing as they’ll be able to scout out new talent on a new level. Ari Gold, eat your heart out.

4. Tech geek: you just love to early adopt any kind of technology and must know your surroundings whenever possible even if it’s only on the screen. Come to think of it, it may make you feel like a Terminator when they scan their environment to hunt down their target—yeah, you know what we’re talking about…

Let’s hear from you, FilmBuffs. Do you think a feature like this will help you enjoy what you watch and discover more content that might be of interest to you? Or will it just be an annoyance and another obtrusive marketing machine that will eventually become Skynet?

Hit us up below!