The Days of Consoles Are Numbered, Says EA Founder

[Logan Westbrook]

The Days of Consoles Are Numbered, Says EA Founder

It won't matter whether you play games on a PS3, Wii or Xbox 360, says EA founder Trip Hawkins, because in the future, platforms won't matter.

Hawkins says that videogame developers need to stop thinking of games as products, and start thinking of them as services, and that platform boundaries would become unimportant, as games became cloud based.

Speaking on Scott Steinberg's web show Game Theory [http://gametheoryonline.com/2010/08/10/video-game-industry-sales-nothing-changed/], Hawkins said that for a long time the industry had a single platform, "winner takes all" focus, but that it was clear that that wasn't a viable business model any more.

He said that game makers would need to be agile in the future, and not be locked in to developing on any single platform. Ultimately he said, platforms would become irrelevant as people would sign in to the same experience from a variety of different devices, and that the important thing would be making the process simple and convenient.

What Hawkins is describing sounds a lot like services like Onlive or Gaikai, that allow gamers to stream games over the internet. Both services are in their infancy however, and it will take time to get gamers used to the idea of cloud based gaming and to set up the kind of infrastructure that it would require to really supplant existing models.

Source: VG247 [http://www.vg247.com/2010/08/10/ea-founder-predicts-the-death-of-console-exclusives/]




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[Lost In The Void]

They keep talking about services instead of product. You know what I'd like my video games to remain a product. This reason being that I enjoy "owning" the product instead of paying for a service. That sounds like a way for them to charge more for less

 

[Sniper Team 4]

May I be dead and buried before this happens. I like my systems, and I like owning a physical copy of my game. Granted, the idea of getting rid of multiple counsels sounds appealing, but let's be honest here. Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo will never get along enough to agree, "Yeah, I'll get rid of mine (and promise not to make a new one) if you get rid of yours."

 

[RollForInitiative]

I'm going to be blunt. I disagree wholeheartedly with statements like this and, personally, I hope that things like Onlive do not become the standard. Why? It's very simple. I like to go back and play older games from time to time and I can do this because I don't have to worry about whether there's a server out there somewhere that still supports it.

I purchased Mercenaries 2 and can no longer play the multiplayer elements of it because those servers were shut down. What happens when we start losing servers that cut us off from games we've paid for entirely? Does somebody plan on refunding me the money that I spent at that point? See, I pay to purchase my games, not to rent them for some indeterminate amount of time dictated by somebody's willingness to continue shelling out for a server.

 

[Jumplion]

Probably, yeah.....well, yeah, what else can I say? I doubt that consoles will become eradicated in the next decade, or even the next 5, there's still many problems with online services like OnLive/Gaikai/STEAM/Windows LIVE/etc...the main one being that if the server crashes you can't play your games, or in the worst case scenario you lose them completely.

Besides, I'm pretty sure I read a while back on the Escapist here that most gamers prefer their physical media, and consoles/PCs fill that requirement at the time being. I personally do prefer my larger games on a disc, I love the smell of that plastic case.

 

[Johnnyallstar]

So are the days of automobiles, and jeans, and cancer, and aids, and carburetors, but that doesn't mean it's today, or tomorrow, or even in 20 years.

 

[Dioxide20]

I like to go back and play older games from time to time and I can do this because I don't have to worry about whether there's a server out there somewhere that still supports it.

^this^

As well as the fact that we here in America don't have Internet that would be fast enough to support such a service. I'm blessed to have 1.5 mb/s, my friends in the same town barely get half that...

 

[Grimheart]

I don't like the concept of cloud gaming or cloud anything really. I prefer having physical copies of my media and i'm not the only one that thinks so. cloud gaming might become a 'platform' some day, though i'm sure that day is far off seeing as there are many bugs to work out.

 

[Talvrae]

They keep talking about services instead of product. You know what I'd like my video games to remain a product. This reason being that I enjoy "owning" the product instead of paying for a service. That sounds like a way for them to charge more for less

^^Agreed at 100%

 

[silver wolf009]

Doubtful, Possible buy heh almost anythings possible, but still doubtful that consoles would just dry up and blow away.

 

[Sebenko]

It would just be simpler if in the next gen of consoles they all got together and made everything cross compatable. One giant service all connected via your favourite system. PS3, Xbox, PC... Not the Wii because that's just too far behind.

That would eventually ween people off consoles. I knoe competition breeds originality. But I think if every console could connect to the same network things would be a lot smoother.

I vote Steam. Then the idea of a unified game network might not suck. Can you imagine if Live took over? Ugh.

 

[samsonguy920]

Why am I reminded of Atari and its swift downfall back in its console days? It's stupid imagning like this that destroys companies, and I hope for EA's sake this guy is not involved with their operations anymore.
Consoles may change their medium, but they will always have a place in people's homes.

 

[Dexiro]

It's been said 10000000000000 times, people like to have physical copies of their games. I'll admit i do have a hefty amount of downloaded games, but like hell am i giving up on physical copies completely.

Services like OnLive just sound plain terrible, and for more reasons than just not giving you a physical copy. They practically blackmail you into maintaining a subscription, or else you lose your games forever.

 

[Jared]

I still highly doubt it. The market for them is still large with the public, and the problems with what he is trying to put forward, is, it just wont stick. People are set in there ways and like them!

 

[Generic_Dave]

Tell it to Nintendo. Unless Games "services" start getting packaged in with Pay-TV, Broadband and phone in packages, there is no WAY you'll get the "casual" mainstream audience to pick up another bill. I mean most can barely be convinced to buy more than two or three games for their Wii or DS.

This is Blue Sky thinking of a man who wants more money. Plain and simple. And these things must win the "Core" before they can get the casual money, they alienate the core by charging more for less and ALSO adding a finite life to your game. There is no WAY that Core gamers who play mostly single player games or that play multi-player on X-Box Live and PSN are going to fork out the same on the game plus a sub for membership. They already have a sub for playing games.

Also your streaming game services don't seem to offer the tangenital benefits such as DVD (or Plu-ray) streaming, etc... This "On-Live" service model might work for multi-player games where they charge less for the full product, but people are NOT going to pay the same as they do in stores for a product they do not own that can leave at any moment.