General Discussion

Interesting article below. First time Ive seen anyone predict a bleak future for consoles. I find it particularly interesting considering MMO's are dipping their toes into consoles. Turbine just announced an MMO / Console development project in fact.

In essence, he's saying everything is going online and this will favor a return to PC's web-based gaming

http://www.pcauthority.com.au/News/107428,games-consoles-dead-within-a-decade.aspx

<a href="/Find/Games.aspx">Games consoles will soon become a thing of the past as the games industry embraces high-speed internet access and virtualised computing, according to a former vice president of Xbox Europe.

Sandy Duncan, who was with Microsoft for 15 years before co-founding YoYo Games, has given games consoles a lifespan of no more than a decade.

"The industry is fundamentally driven by technology. I think dedicated games devices, i.e. consoles and handhelds, will die [out] in the next five to 10 years," he told That VideoGame Blog.

"In fact, in five to 10 years I don't think you'll have any box at all under your TV. Most of this stuff will be virtualised as web services by your content provider."

Duncan maintained that there is little technological difference between some hard disc video recorders and an Xbox 360.

He added that companies will be wary of creating consoles for a market where "the business model is very risky and the costs associated with creating new hardware are incredibly high".

Duncan pointed to the emergence of cloud computing and the Xbox Live service, which already has around eight million members worldwide, as evidence that the console's days are numbered.

Meanwhile, sales forecasts of games consoles remain strong. Games publisher Electronic Arts recently estimated that sales of Wii consoles will reach 14 million units in Europe and North America this year.

Projected sales figures for Sony's PS3 also look healthy. Market watcher iSuppli predicts global sales of 10 million over 2003.

Well, in simple terms, he's got a point.

As technology advances ever more quickly, the ability for consoles to keep up will grow even more difficult, to the point of impossibility.

Look at games now. When a game is ported from an Xbox 360 to PC for example, what normally happens? Better graphics/higher resolution, extra content, etc. because the PC had already jumped ahead of the Xbox 360 in terms of affordable upgrades of better quality than the Xbox360 in less than a years time and continues to do so. And every year that goes by is roughly two upgrades in tech for computers while the console sits stagnant in its ability ( going by the 6 month rule ).

In order for consoles to keep up with the latest tech available for PCs, you either have to make a new console every year at the minimum right now, or make consoles upgradeable like PCs. Neither one is feasible or logical.

So yes, i can indeed see consoles eventually fading out. Whether in a decade or slightly longer is a good question, but I don't think he's too far off.

It's just a matter of entertainment equipment unification.  Right now my PC functions as my home stereo, my DVD player, my cable box, my TiVo, and everything else that a PC does.  The only reason I even a bought crummy as Xbox 360 was because of my Guitar Hero after bar party lust.  Seriously, if GH didn't exist I would never have bought an Xbox.

I think right now the only thing lacking with PCs is peripherals in games which is pretty difficult for developers to tackle since there is no standard anything.  No standard joystick, no standard controller, there's not even any real standards between keyboards and mice.

Peripherals aside, this unification of mediums will eventually make consoles go extinct.  And admriker4 is correct, PCs simply advance much too quickly in this age for consoles to remain competitive for long.  It also doesn't help that a modern console costs about half as much as a decent gaming rig.

Y'all would be pretty surprised to see what a grand will get you on New Egg.  The whole $6,000.00 Falcon NW/Alienware days are dead.  PCs be cheap now.

The article is quite correct. These mini-singularities in technology we've seen have kicked some serious arse on the software development side not only due to expansive changes in GPUs and CPUs, but also in how motherboards operate (increased bandwidth, on-board support for virtualization even in your most basic home-PC motherboards, and other such goodies). It's just that software developers are just catching up to the current trends and they're still having issues with lack of education on multithreading and virtualization. So, expect anyone of our ranks that's a code monkey and versed in those given fields of CS/IT will be very much in demand. As for MMOs it means two things: cheaper and faster development cycles (and deployments).


-- Brede

Definetely, the PC  is on its way to becoming a centralized station for entertainment  and a command center to perform many other functions other than entertainment for an increasing amount of people embracing technology.

I sometimes wonder what these executives are smoking when they make statements like this. Console sales have been increasing enormously over the past 10 years, and they show absolutely no sign of slowing down. The Playstation 2 is STILL selling to this day, 7 years after release, having sold more than 120 million units worldwide, and now this person is telling us that the console market is going to crash and burn? It's quite funny, I have seen two people say this and both of them were from Microsoft.

I think the statements have more to do with the poor success of the Xbox brand then the actual state of the market.

I also don't really see PC's becoming a central media point. I don't really see the average joe (which IS the mainstream market) hooking up his PC to a TV.

To be totally honest I hope to see consoles fail, and when/if they do I will dance with happiness. PC FTW.

I can't Alt+Tab out of a loading screen on a 360 can I? No.

Originally posted by bluealien1

To be totally honest I hope to see consoles fail, and when/if they do I will dance with happiness. PC FTW.

I can't Alt+Tab out of a loading screen on a 360 can I? No.

Guess you'll never be able to dance of happiness then.

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Originally posted by Gameloading
I sometimes wonder what these executives are smoking when they make statements like this. Console sales have been increasing enormously over the past 10 years, and they show absolutely no sign of slowing down. The Playstation 2 is STILL selling to this day, 7 years after release, having sold more than 120 million units worldwide, and now this person is telling us that the console market is going to crash and burn? It's quite funny, I have seen two people say this and both of them were from Microsoft.

I think the statements have more to do with the poor success of the Xbox brand then the actual state of the market.
I also don't really see PC's becoming a central medium point. I don't really see the average joe (which IS the mainstream market) hooking up his PC to a TV.

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