The Future of Console Gaming: Not For Dinosaurs

As recently as a few months ago, the CEO of Rovio (makers of every soccer mom and auto mechanic's favorite game: Angry Birds) made a pretty strong declaration. He basically said consoles will die, because phone gaming is cheaper to produce, innovates faster, and reaches a broader audience. Upon reading I laughed to myself and closed the browser window.

Then one of my business associates began asking me, "Do you think consoles have a future?" I assured him they did, and closed the chat window.

Now I load up Kotaku and find a fairly complimentary article about Nintendo, which basically says the same thing.

Is it true? Will my NES, SNES, PSX, PS2, Xbox 360, etc. all become relics of a bygone era? Will the power of mobile phones so rapidly outstrip consoles that history will repeat the tragic murder of the community arcade?

I really doubt it. Most people who are talking about these things and cherry picking their facts. In fact, I would say these predictions have two citing factors: 1) Almost everyone has a cell phone and the capabilities of modern cell phones will soon rival consoles and 2) Games on cellular platforms make a boat load of money, meaning money not going into console developer's pockets.

The first point is very fair. I'm not here to say that mobile gaming is not here to stay, a huge industry, or a legitimate source of sustainable income. I just think it's garbage to say that it will destroy the console game industry. Why?

Well, first I'd like to call your attention to another industry that's in a similar boat. The Movies. Now to my understanding, home entertainment systems have been at nearly movie quality for about 5 years. You can get ridiculously high def tvs, ridiculously high def speakers, ridiculously high def popcorn, all in your own home. Going to see a movie in theaters once, costs a little more than half the price of owning the movie for ever. "Traditional movie viewing is too expensive" people should be saying, "You don't have to deal with the crowds, you get a front row seat, and you don't have to drive!" they should be saying.

People saying that would be idiots. Movie theaters aren't going anywhere. The experience of going to the movies is too appealing to die. The screen is huge, the speakers are huge, the popcorn is huge. Gaming's going to be the same way. It doesn't matter how powerful a phone gets, playing a game on your phone is never going to compare to playing it on a TV.

Secondly, I really think as time goes on the two markets will move in very different directions. I believe there are a few games for mobile that offer a compelling single player experience, but generally their time wasters. There's nothing wrong with time wasters, but are we really saying that time wasters are going to destroy a narrative form? Please.

Thirdly, controls. This is probably a bigger one that most people are going to give credit to, but not having to fit all your tech in a space less than a cubic 4 inches gives you lots of opportunity to make shit like Kinect, Move, and the Wii. Maybe the rise of mobile gaming will force the industry to innovate harder. In that case I say more power to mobile developers! Put the console makers on point and everyone will benefit!