The end of games consoles according to Twitch Boss
When it comes to gaming hardware there are two ways you can look at it.
The first perspective is from the game developer who sets out to build a game for the latest hardware and spends two years in development. At launch the game runs great on the intended system and even better on a modern PC. From this perspective do you need to upgrade your PC, No.
On the flip side looking at it from content consumers, aka gamers and companies building the hardware they are often annoyed at the development lag in games. To them upgrading isn't because you need to but rather because something broke and the hardware maker no longer has parts to support it. From this standpoint do you need to upgrade your PC to play modern games? Again, No.
The twitch co-founder claims that because of the long 7 year lifecycle of a game console that it will ultimlatly lead to the end of the gaming console completely. Thing is, gaming isn't always about the hardware but rather the game itsself, if the game is good and plays well on a console people will play it. Likewise, if a game plays better on a PC then people will swing to that camp. In fact, the only way to get games off a console is for game developers start building games that won't play on a modern console and is something they will never do.
“The problem is, the seven-year upgrade lifecycle doesn’t work in the face of the two-year upgrade cycles for every other hardware platform,” he said. “It’s so intrinsically built into how consoles get manufactured and made and the full business model, that I’d be surprised to see another generation.”
Shear, who co-founded the live video game broadcasting platform that now has more than 100m monthly users, suggests that future consoles will be more like set-top boxes: designed for a multitude of uses, and with a much shorter life cycle.
The above quote (mispellings courtesy of The Guardian) is pure speculation and is basically saying that eventually someone will create an affordable steambox or steam machine style computer that will eventually replace the console. (read: Syber Gaming style or BRIX style) Chances are these game machines will be branded Xbox or Playstation however, the one thing that makes game consoles successful is the guarantee that when you buy a game for Xbox 360 or Xbox One it will be playable on those machines. When you start changing the hardware around you lose that assurance.
Related Web URL: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/mar/23/...
