Exec sounds death knell for games consoles

[johnnymk]

http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/03...console_death/

A former Xbox executive has declared that dedicated games consoles, such as the PlayStation 3 (PS3) and Xbox 360, will become technological relics within 10 years.

Sandy Duncan, who worked in Microsoft’s European Xbox division before leaving to co-found an online gaming business, recently said that “dedicated games devices…will die [out] in the next 5 to 10 years”.

He blamed the convergence of other devices, such as set-top boxes, as part of the reason why the console will pass away. But he added that games are being increasingly "virtualised" into web services, meaning nipping into HMV to pick-up the latest videogame could become a thing of the past as titles are accessed online instead.

High speed internet connections, Duncan claimed, will be the backbone of an infrastructure where videogames are delivered to the user without the need for a physical disc and console. He identified cloud computing structures or resources like Xbox Live, which already has around 8m members worldwide, as possible rivals to physical gaming units.

For the time being though, sales of games consoles remain strong. Last month, gaming megapublisher Electronic Arts said that the Wii will be the highest selling games console in Europe and North America this year, with combined sales of 12-14m.

Market watcher iSuppli has also forecast that 10m PS3 units will be sold globally during 2008, while the Xbox 360 will only sell around 7.5m.

[Devhux]

Sure, let's just download 25-50GB PS3-quality games over a broadband connection -- not gonna work for that "instant gratification" user-experience that console gamers enjoy.

...and what about those who can't get broadband?

[Paymaster]

You wouldn't download the whole thing at once, just like you don't load the whole game into main memory to play. It will download what it needs as you are going along.

Those who can't get broadband are hosed- since it isn't just games moving in this direction...

[Thesifer]

Also it will be faster connections in 5-10 years. So I think that this is a definite possibility. I dont know if console gaming will completely die off in that time, but I could see it dying off. At some point I'm sure houses will all be wired for everything anyways.

[gwilks98]

Sure, let's just download 25-50GB PS3-quality games over a broadband connection -- not gonna work for that "instant gratification" user-experience that console gamers enjoy.

...and what about those who can't get broadband?

Don't think of it as downloading the whole game. He's not saying you'll play it locally. (Fat client vs. thin client.)
Think of it as remoting into a machine and playing the game remotely.

That kind of technology is still many many years off. You're going to have to get average latency down to support 25 fps or lower, plus you're going to have to have quality of service so that the game doesn't jitter, skip, lag or whatever.

I've always said that the computer, TV, and console systems will all merge into the same unit. I'm surprised THAT hasn't happened by now on a widespread scale.