Gadgetory

there are hundreds of millions of people who love video games right there's hundreds of millions yeah hello no comment all right games consoles are the way that gamers have been enjoying games for years and years and years now but is the era of the console at an end with me is a man who doesn't think so it's Rob crossly from CNET sister site GameSpot Rob you think that game consoles are not going anywhere I slightly disagree tell me to start with games consoles why are they staying aren't we done aren't we done no absolutely not done at all there is a audience of gamers who absolutely adore the stuff and they've been going going on for 20-30 years nearly four years now these are people who will pay 50 pounds 50 dollars for a premium video game ok these are people that love Lee against these are people that talk about video games and there are quite a few few million of these people ok there's tens of millions of these people and and and their passion for video games have not them has not diminished if anything has become more intense in Internet age as you could probably have probably seen oh yeah yeah mm-hmm so these people if you have an audience that love video games and if that audience is huge ok the audience might have shrunk just slightly but if you have that audience then you have a business and so consoles are going to carry on absolutely but looking at the most recent generation of consoles so you sue your Wii U and the Xbox one ps4 Q the sort of surprise from industry onlookers when all of these games consoles were announced had like a CD drive for example whereas it felt like we aren't we sort of at the point where actually do we really need like a CD drive and then you start thinking well hang on actually sort of if if everything sort of downloaded to even like really need a like a box could we not just have like a hard drive with a PSN subscription or something like that I don't like it feels like the constant the role of the console is just sort of being eroded and eroded and I think maybe these boxes that sit under our televisions soon they'll be gone okay consoles have definitely become media centers certainly in the case of Playstations lines and in case of Xbox line Xbox is the line of consoles they're becoming media hubs but nevertheless you know grand theft auto 5 in launched in 2013 we released last year and this year that's the best-selling solace video game of all time so there's still a massive audience for these games yeah definitely but is there a massive audience for them so in the way that we're getting them at the moment because you're right like this of that's the interesting point about retailers but but you said that's what disks is sort of hanging on in there and you're right and compared to other mediums like if you look at music what's happening with Spotify and like Apple which is expected to launch a streaming service if you look at TV and the rise of like Netflix and things like HBO's streaming service if it doesn't it feel a little bit like the video game industry you know which was once a sort of pioneer of the of the digital medium is is slightly behind because of these big chunky boxy things full of bits of electricity and components enough that it feels it feels a bit cluttering Oh well I'll tell you something that there was a service called online and that that was announced in 2009 okay yeah I remember yeah pre Netflix pre I hate for you go free Spotify yeah and this was an idea of streaming games yes people's households yeah about any wires and what you explained it didn't do too well and that's because yeah video games I mean a song is 2 Meg or something like that and a video game is 50 gigabytes streaming an interactive form of media which is 50 gigabytes is not easy and it's going to take a long time before it's feasible there's PlayStation now right now that's a place not PlayStation now right now but is it service called PlayStation now and that's Sony's game streaming service yeah it's not doing too well it's kind of it's not doing so great they're not putting the thrusters behind it they're not fully backing it because people because when you stream a video game we just doesn't work at the moment the technology is not there the internet is not ready for it basically right so yes games are a bit archaic in terms of their software delivery as you say but that's the Internet's full and then the other games it's the the theoretical speed or the Internet's full okay I'm all right but when you talk about technical limitations like that I think there's an argument to be made that consoles generally are just not as profitable as they could be in fact I think that generally the whole sort of console idea it's sort of a mug's game really like it so yeah I don't really know why Microsoft and Sony giant tech behemoths that they are but persisted with this console idea for so long because it when when the generation changes look at like let's say that let's sort of I don't know this is going to be controversial but let's say that Microsoft was pretty much the company that was on top of things in that within the last console generation right with the Xbox 360 he had a lead it had so many Xbox fans when I think of all of the fans that a sort of loyal customers that Microsoft much of must have lost because it stuck to this weird sort of rigmarole cycling through the hardware thing where it released a console at the same time at like they all release consoles at the same time and it's just basically saying to your customers like look here's on it here's our next thing here's what everyone else is doing as well it's a chance to hop off what the sort of games you're absolutely right I'll make sure that you're winning and if you look at the companies that are making you know the most money in in today's tech world it's companies like Apple and Google and it they're companies that lock you into an ecosystem like you know like Netflix or something you know you're sort of you're in and you in suddenly you find you can't get out because you spent so much money and like soft and and Sony both have those ecosystems set up so I don't know why they are giving their customers a chance to hop off the bus that is an excellent point thank you and you've got me at my most nervous right now because that isn't really however you're still wrong okay good because you're at sea right and everything and happy with Nintendo every single time they release the console apart from the Wii every time they released a new console lesson less customers a chance to drop off as you say yeah you don't trap them in the ecosystem mmm but but this is an inevitability consoles do you need to look better consoles do you need to upgrade overtime and and the the by product of a concept grading is new excitement amongst that massive group of gamers if you have new hardware you have new possibilities new games new visuals and people being excited again alright well that is what we think about games consoles but what do you think do they have a future or is it time to call an end to the days of the games console let me know and stay tuned