The development of fluid power systems for use in agricultural and construction machinery faced in the last years a substantial contribution due to the increasing role played by electronics. The scenario of the next years in agricultural and construction will be very much influenced by legislation constraints in terms of environmental compatibility, noise emission, energy usage and recyclability. The new set of requirements in terms of safety level for machines, described in documents like ISO 15998:2008 will change the boundary conditions for machine design, requiring a deep investigation at system level, which will force a change in the design perspective for fluid power components. The new possibilities given by an extensive use of embedded electronics, advanced architectures and system level design of machines will be investigated and described trying to highlight threats and opportunities for next generation of products.