Former Xbox Europe VP says consoles will be dead in 5-10 years
By Nilay Patel 
posted March 28th 2008 8:31PM
posted March 28th 2008 8:31PM
The last time we heard someone proclaim the death of the game console, it was EA's head of international distribution saying that an open gaming platform distributed within cable and satellite set-top boxes would take over within 15 years -- a prediction at which we laughed pretty heartily, given that most cable companies can't even manage to get a functional DVR out the door. So it's fairly surprising to hear the former VP of Xbox Europe make the exact same prediction, and bump up the timeline pretty dramatically: Sandy Duncan, who was with MS for 15 years, recently said that dedicated game devices "will die in the next five to 10 years," and that "most of this stuff will be 'virtualized' as web services by your content provider." Of course, Duncan's now with YoYo Games, which is a web-based gaming company, so he might be a little biased, but there's truth in his statement that the console gaming market is risky and that launch costs of new hardware are incredibly high. Still, as Duncan should know first-hand, it's an investment that can definitely pay off, and we think consumers are always going to demand choice and quality -- two things that aren't exactly synonymous with cable and satellite hardware.[Via GameDaily]
Anyone ever played with a Duncan Yo-Yo? Ironic, eh?
I think the debut of Windows Vista has helped to secure the future of console gaming.. at least until Windows 7 comes out and proves that messing with what works only makes it worse...
i predict 1 more console generation.
this cant go on, computers are WAAY more practical in terms of gaming.
in 10 years im sure computer technology will be advancing so fast that having a single console with the same technology for 2 years is gonna SUCK.
and its already happening with the 360 moving on to a new processor, and the ps3 even getting a 45 nm die shrink.
my guess is that in 2 or 3 years another badass generation of extremely powerful consoles (what would they call the new xbox... DUDE xbox^3? and playstation4? they need a new name) will come out, but after that i just dont see it surviving.
but hell i could be 100% wrong
Sounds to me like you're one of the die hard PC fanatics a bit pissy because you have to upgrade every 12 months to play newer games, while console gamers don't.
Enjoy your looking at the back of boxes and sighing when the minimum specification is too high for your PC.
sorr bud but ive got a pentium D and a 7900gts with 2 gigs of ram and it performs PERFECT.
He means the XBOX will be dead as a console and that he will be buying a PS4. LOL I betcha!
The console may not die, but simply evolve into something that would no longer represent what used to be known as a console
Step 1: Internet Connection
Step 2: Improved Aiming and Controls
Step 3: Customizable parts
Oh wait, that's a computer.
It's not so much that settops will replace consoles so much as consoles will envelop settops.
Take a look at the Xbox Live service. I can download games, rent movies, watch television shows...
It would be a stretch to see settops competing with game consoles, but it wouldn't take much for my xbox to take over my television programming.
The AVGN should have a dump on him.
Chris Hanson: "Sandy Duncan? AIM Screename: fuckDemConsoles? Why don't you have a seat over there."
This idiot actually gets paid, my god.
Sure the cable companies would love a system like this. Sattelite wouldn't really work. They would charge $20 a month for game box rental on top of the $10 for the cable system, maybe $10 more for HD. So you are paying $40 a month to rent a box. In one year you will pay $480 to rent a box from the cable company. Sounds great.
That is why the cable companies killed cablecard. Imagine if you were allowed to buy a cable card for $100 that would work with any cable system. The cable company wouldn't be able to keep charging you for something that has been more than paid off 2 or three times.
I guess in 5 years there will be this great system where everything is processed on central servers and your box will just decrypt the feed. There will be no input lag whatsoever and gigabytes of information will flow every second into your house. Nobody will actually go buy anything anymore and just have everything delivered straight to thier computerized systems.
Wait wasn't that supposed to happen before and didn't that lead to the biggest stock crash since 1929. The system to make this possible is not in place and will not be for quite some time. Unless companies get off thier collective asses and bring us true broadband at a fair price, plus cut out price gouging at every turn the consumer will never pay for it over a closed system like a console.
Maybe a console "crash" in 15 (which I seriously and highly doubt), but dead?? Though he might be on to something, I think he's on something as well.
It's only the beginning of HD gaming... given that in 15 years 1080p will be mainstream (anywhere from small to big screens)... consoles themselves will have the same resolution (I'm betting that if the big N hasn't stopped rehashing its old libraries by now, it never will - I honestly prefer the classics over rehashes any day though - to each their own.. a lil' off, now where were we?)... However it's all in features, and what you stick onto (or in?) the console that makes it live or die (either software or hardware, take your pick.)
Now, what my actual point is... companies are always filing patents, and always building off new technologies that emerge *daily*... Engadget wouldn't exist if that weren't true (well it would, only, tech news just wouldn't be posted 5-10+ times daily ;) ) Given that, would consoles die in 15 years? PS3 will probably last for 7 years (maybe nore, who knows... PS1's were still being sold in retail about three years back); I could see the 360 going on for the same amount of time - since it is in the same generation; And Nintendo will follow its own trend (which isn't a bad thing... it's family/young/social oriented)
In 7 years: whatever "they're" testing today will be there tomorrow. The technology itself will die, yes - because technology updates every so often (neat stuff I say)... consoles are just getting more room to play in!
Older games are always fun to play on for hours on end... so it's not just what's "in the box", but: what's in the game itself. Oldskool rocked (and still does) for a reason ;)
Hey, I've had my NES for twenty years now, and it's still not dead... I doubt all of my current consoles will be dead in ten years :p
Sandy Duncan AND Duncan YoYo? Oh Engadget, you make it too easy. Next, you're going to tell me that his middle name is "doughnuts!"
But yeah, this guy is a moron. Bill Gates made the exact same prediction in a computer magazine fifteen years ago, and look how well that worked out for him!
Indeed...
I think the guy is probably correct, the various network owners need new services to extract maximum value from their networks and I include digital and optical TV network delivery systems (Advertising revenue their traditional income stream is falling fast) and there is more money in distributing games over a network than selling them via DVD.
Dedicated consoles are already dead. We have entertainment systems that play games, movies, music and more...
Wasn't this obvious years ago? It won't DIE so much as merge into the set-top box, in much the same way as cell-phones merged with PDA's. Network, cable and telephone companies merge. XBOX and PS3 will continue to incorporate multi-media capabilities, and grow their network-services brands, which is where the money is at. Games will become subscription channels.
Here's what your magical, grand central games server would have to do:
Push out a unique, 1080p signal to 50 million people or more simultaneously. That's 50 million individual 1080p signals.
Do all the graphics work to make every one of those 1080p signals indistinguishable from a regular HD broadcast for each gamer and do all of that in real-time. (That is what people will expect from console-based games in 5-7 years, if current advances in processing/graphics power continue. Do you remember the quality of the graphics on the PS1?)
Then think about whether you could build a back-end system like that? In a few years, if you spent $1 billion I suppose it could be possible. Not a killer figure in relation to the costs of building a new console from scratch.
But even if you do build the Data Room From Hell, the true killer is network capacity. Where are the fiber optic cables as thick as a bus running all over the country to support that kind of insane bandwidth? The internet backbone couldn't handle that kind of traffic, let alone the last mile.
If you want to play pong or minesweeper, the cable box will have you covered. Don't hold your breath waiting for "Call of Duty 8 featuring Direct Neural Interconnection" as a channel on your cable box.
The current generation of console games works because they are using a distributed model. Each console does the graphics work for one user and so the processor demand doesn't scale as additional users are added. The smart client in the console also means relatively low bandwidth requirements. The local machine just needs the location and the actions of the other players, it does all the processor intensive animation work locally. That model fits best with today's infrastructure as well as tomorrow's. It isn't going away anytime soon. You are going to see at least two more iterations of XBOX or Playstation and probably more than that.