The future – according to EA Chief Competition Officer Peter Moore – sounds like a dark and scary place.
In a recent interview with The Daily Orange, Moore suggested that the rise of streaming means that traditional consoles may well go the way of the VHS, the walkman, and Macaulay Culkin’s career. Could we see a Netlix type model rise up for gaming?
Moore said:
I’m not sure there will be consoles, as we know them anymore. Games will be accessed by streaming technology, so we don’t need hardware intermediaries in between the two. If you and I want to play Battlefield 12 against each other, we’ll just jump into a game via whatever monitor we happen to have in our homes. It’ll be on a chip, rather than in a box.
It’s certainly an interesting idea, and certainly something I could see happening in the future, even as I clutch desperately to my beloved plastic box.
Moore also mentioned that the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One are well set up to evolve as technology does. Interesting, especially considering all the rumours flying around regarding big upgrades for both consoles.
Of course, what Moore is talking about could well be a far future prediction, rather than something that’s gonna happen next week.
Still, it seems more and more that consoles are on the way out whether we like it or not (and I’m not sure that I do). For instance, Sony aren’t even sure if there’s gonna be a PlayStation 5.
It’s an exciting time for the videogame industry, that much is certain. If the robots don’t rise up and murder us first, it’ll be awesome to see where the tech takes us.
Ewan Moore is a journalist at UNILAD Gaming who still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase. After graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2015 with a BA in Journalism & Media Studies (thanks for asking), he went on to do some freelance words for various places, including Kotaku, Den of Geek, and TheSixthAxis, before landing a full time gig at UNILAD in 2016.