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SimCity, Sims and Spore creator Will Wright believes new publishing possibilities have traditional gaming platform holders in a quake.

 “I think all the console guys are running scared. Not so much because of the hardware, but because of the business models, free-to-play and that kind of thing, have shifted underneath them,” Wright told GamesIndustry.

Wright said he expects cloud gaming will rise to prominence because people will want to be able to access a game regardless of which device they’re using, and that this will eventually reach a “much broader group of players” than dedicated gaming hardware.

“It adds more opportunities, too. You have a lot of people who are able to do a lot with small teams and low costs,” he added.

“It used to be big companies doing triple-A titles on consoles is where all the money is. It’s shaken things up quite a bit with all these platforms. In some sense all the little mammals – small developers, new companies – have an opportunity right now to fill new niches that are expanding rapidly. They might be small opportunities now, but they very well could be huge opportunities in the not-too-distant future.”

This has an added bonus of allowing developers to take on riskier projects.,

“On the plus side there’s very little risk in trying something new, as opposed to spending 40 bucks on a game and maybe you’ll like it and maybe you won’t,” Wright noted.

“I think people were a lot more risk-averse under the old model, the shrink-wrap model. It has its pluses and minuses; it is bringing in a much wider group of players than we had before. The demographics are expanding, which long-term I think has to help.”

Free to play is the thin edge of pay to win. I don't like it.

Considering Sony already does it and Nintendo is willing to embrace it...I don't think "running scared" is accurate enough.

Either he had a bad day and mixed/confused a lot of things in that article or something is messed up.

Free-to-play and cloud gaming aren't the same thing, after all (and please correct me if I'm wrong) to use OnLive you have to pay a monthly fee, and I don't know if you also have to buy the games, so it is anything but free. I've been corrected by Euphoria: You can either pay a monthly fee or buy the games, not both. Either way, you are still paying.

And then he adds into that the notion of small developers/teams like if he's talking about indie/mobile games, which most of their games are still sold.

Regarding Free-to-play, in my opinion it has a place, yes, but I can only see it working with MMOs, and other multiplayer focused games like FPS and racing games. For the rest of the genres, the traditional business is still the way to go.

And regarding small games, all the "console guys" have their channel for them with Xbox Live, WiiWare and PSN. And all things point out that they will focus even more on that segment of the market.

This is how it was the last time I checked.

I agree with what the article is saying about the direction game distribution is are heading. But I don't think running scared is the state of mind of MS, Sony or Ninty. I think they are at a cross roads and if they take the road that tries to work against the changing tide then they will be swamped with no where to run. But if they ake the road that goes with the flow then they can evolve their gaming divisions to take advantage of where things are headed.

I am scared of it too. I am afraid games will become diluted and dumbed down when developers get access to this broader audience. It's like a mantra, this talk of attracting a broader audience as if it is a good thing.

@Euphoria14: Thanks for the info. I'll edit my post acordingly.

Still, you need to pay to play although you don't have to buy another hardware to do it unless you want to play on the TV.

i'm not sure i agree with whatever Will said but i agree with one thing -- the entire industry has been running scared since about 2006 for any one of several reasons. motion controls. apple's really cheap apps. free to play. onlive. rising development costs. piracy. used games market. digital marketplace. things are going every which direction at once.