Richard Garriott: “Consoles’ days are numbered”
In an interview with Edge Online, Richard Garriott expressed doubts about the future of console gaming:
The Ultima creator and Portalarium founder told us that he sees consoles as a middleman that’s no longer necessary.
“Tablets are becoming so powerful, your television is already connected to the internet and frankly it’s powerful. And there’s a cloud of computing behind there that’s easily accessed, so I’m going, ‘Why in the long run do we need a console? All you really need is a controller’. It’s going to be interesting to see how consoles evolve in the next few iterations to see if they can find some new compelling reason to exist. Because, at least from my perspective, I think their days might be numbered.”
So what of Valve’s Steam Box? Garriott admires the technology, but maintains that the idea of an extra box under the TV might be ‘streamlined out’.
“Valve’s product is one I only know cursorily,” he says. “But the case I’ll still go back to make is the same. I think digital distribution with things like Steam is great, I actually think that people need to have convenient, ubiquitous access to digital content, and Steam is not only a great way to buy it, but also to stream it. The technology of Steam is fantastic.
“But I look at it and go, ‘Steam can be delivered on anything, you don’t need a particular piece of hardware’.”
He also shared some similar sentiments, and lauded the power and relevance of PCs to gaming, in a couple of chats with GamerHub:
What do you think, Dragons and Dragonettes? Are consoles going away any time soon?
Well, people have gone on about the death of the PC for a while and now it’s the death of the console. Gamasutra’s has quite a few arguments/articles about it. I don’t think we’re really going to see the death of anything, but a very slow convergence of device functionality and along with that the requisite increase in interoperability. People will still have a PC, tablet, phone and television and while each piece of hardware may be more suited to a particular task, it will be possible to do anything on any of them with minimal hassle from the consumer’s perspective. I think this is inevitable and very positive, but along the way the media will certainly make claims of death and dismemberment as usual.
Well if the PC hasn’t died yet, it certainly has changer a lot in the last decade. I don’t know how it is in the US but in France the PC game shelves have become an always shrinking part of the stores.
I’m also quite sure that dedicated consoles like the PS3 or XBOX may be replaced within the next decade by more compact box, maybe part of your Cable/TV provider who will allow to play streamed or direct download games.
To play both sides of the coin. Why buy a physixal piece of software or hardware? The only physical software I like is to own now is windows and a driver cd. The rest I can download and redownload as fast as I need to. And there’s no chance of snapping a download. I don’t see the downside to it.
How about the death of radio? If radio can survive all the new doodads they have around to replace it. People still own/buy radios. Why? You can play your music out of your phone and simply buy speakers. I still see people like construction workers and the occasional beach goer with a radio. I think we’re still pretty far off from seeing consoles disappear entirely.
We’re not talking the difference between an hd-dvd to bluray. We’re talking about a very entrenched market. While I see the practcality and eventuallity of the machines combining. I don’t see the big three giving up without a hard fight.
It’s not really about the “death” of the console. It’s about the commoditization of the console.
Remember when people bought discrete sound cards? Yeah. That doesn’t mean sound hardware is “dead”.
I’ve also been saying to people I know that it is the console that will die out. But, I guess what I really mean, is that the dedicated gaming console will die out. Connected to TVs will be more of a media centre/PC (with controllers). Sony are going to find it incredibly hard to compete come the next-next generation (after PS4). With Microsoft, Google and Apple all being across all platforms (Google’s PC offerings will be improving in the next few years, methinks), how can Sony compete (without getting into bed with one of them).
Think about it like this… What if the next Xbox was a Windows 8 box? If Microsoft was to put out a console that was a PC, Media Centre and Console all wrapped into one, then who could compete with that (especially if you could play *any* Windows game on it… something that would be entirely possible)? With Windows phones and tablets also being fully integrated, Microsoft would have an advantage that no one could match. That choice would also revive the PC industry and sell the Windows 8 OS, since it would mean “Xbox” games would also run on PCs. Developers could also release on both PC and Xbox without the need to write separate code (apart from interface changes).
Of course, Microsoft probably won’t do that. Oh well.