How Mobile Kills the Consoles but Advances the Gaming Industry

[CChaos]

A good article to point out, Gamerace.

Honestly, I'm of the impression that this should be a foregone conclusion. No matter how many people are trying to scream and yell that this is impossible, it's not going to happen, etc., the march of progress never actually ends. Consoles and PCs WILL continue to exist, no question, but things will keep moving toward where all three of the big console companies are going right now: the television experience. No longer are the consoles game machines, but they are entertainment centres. Netflix, movies, all kinds of things, are available and games are just one of those things that they can do in addition. Hell, Sony's motto for the PS3 is 'it only does everything'. You don't have a motto like that unless you're trying to explain to people that it's NOT just a game machine.

When we got our first PC (a 386/20) in 1991, I was pretty damned excited for it because all I had before that was an Intellevision, a Commodore 64 and a Laser 128 (Apple II/e clone). I never really concerned myself with consoles because PC gaming was really where it was at. PCs used CD Roms and had a very unique and fun series of games that lasted quite a long time. That is, until the PS1 got started and got unique games of its own. Nintendo continued its rise, as did Sony, until, before I knew it, PC was starting to feel like it was taking a back seat to consoles. I started seeing that when I went to Future Shop and realized that PC gaming went from an entire aisle to, more recently, a lonely little section mostly full of AAA game releases and MMOs.

This, to me, is the standard evolution of becoming mainstream. The technology isn't there to basically have full console experiences on tablets yet. But give it ten years and I doubt anyone could honestly see what's coming.