Blizzard exec: consoles to be obsolete in 5 years.

PC News | No plan to have WoW on consoles either.

Blizzard's vice president of development Itzik Ben Bassat believes that gamers may no longer have consoles sitting in their living rooms in five years time, suggesting that PCs will deliver all the content you need.

Reason being is that he believes consoles are slowly becoming PCs, observing that “The PC is becoming an entertainment hub - you use it to watch videos and TV, play games, listen to music. […] Consoles are becoming sophisticated PCs which sit in the living room. [...] Maybe in five years you won't need a console because you'll have one PC which delivers content all over your house." The PS3 and Xbox 360 are largely becoming PCs with each console providing a variety of entertainment purposes.

Despite the gaming transition, Bassat is still unconvinced that home consoles can handle the company’s massive online game World of Warcraft. "We are not going to develop WoW for consoles. […] Online console gaming is still in its very early stages" Bassat explained. "It needs to be developed further to provide opportunities of a scale which will be interesting to us."

While he believes that World of Warcraft wasn’t suited for consoles, he did however point out that the company is interested in the development of online console services, and in particular giving the thumbs-up to Microsoft’s Xbox Live Arcade. "Personally I love XBLA - I think Microsoft has done an excellent job developing it and there are lots of exciting things there. [...] I'm impressed by the people who do it, and the service is very easy, very intuitive. I love it."

These comments came from a two-part interview over at GamesIndustry.biz - part one can be found here.

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43 Comments

ObsoletE

3 years ago

i really do think you're mis-reading him.

he's not saying that Consoles will die out, he's saying that they won't be the same as consoles as we know them now.

tbh, he's more saying that Home PCs are becoming a thing of the past, with them fast approaching being the central entertainment unit of the household, with all our music, movies and games being routed through them, rather than requiring several different units to do it all.

and to that end, he sees Home PCs as assimilating the console into themselves. so in all likelyhood, we'll still be playing them as we do now, with a control pad or Wiimote, and a disc that automatically plays on entry, but it'll be through a Playstation PCI-E card, or an XBox PCI-E card that plugs into a motherboard of a computer.
---
i really can't see how you think a Hard-drive in a console was a bad thing. saving games is a necessity these days, and have been for a long time, and when Cartridges were the norm, it wasn't an issue, but once optical ROM discs became the format of choice, it was really only a matter of time. memory cards were alright for a time, but they are incredibly fiddly. a HDD just makes sense.

if anything, it's a return to the battery backup style of playing, where you don't need to juggle 2 devices to play a game. (not yet anyway.)

i also think you're over-representing PC gamers in the equation.
imo (and i might be wrong) PC Gamers are by far the minority in the scheme of gaming - which is more an indication of PCs becoming more like Console, than vice-versa.

admeister

3 years ago

ObsoletE wrote

I suppose you're right, maybe I'm ranting too much. I think I'm on the right track by saying that stand-alone consoles seem to be set to disappear. If they become cards as you say, PCs will become the dominant form of entertainment, able to do everything. They will have the functions of the console, as well as a PC. I suppose it makes sense to have both in the one device, though I reckon the fiddly part would be in switching between functions. If PCs could do everything, image the list of functions you would have to wade through! PCs of the future better have a good interface!

I realise that PC gamers are the minority, but PCs themselves are not. Most people these days have a computer (and this will only increase in the future), and if consoles become one with PCs, the it will be hard to distinguish between console and PC. It seems that PCs will ultimately win, and be our main source of entertainment. DVD players and the like would be obsolete. If you wanted to watch a movie, load it into the computer. If you wanted to play a game, load it into the computer. If you wanted to play music, load it into the computer. It seems that we'll just end up with a big computer hub in our lounge rooms in the fututre, instead of multiple devices like we have now. I wonder how long it will take.

Spanca

3 years ago

^ Ranting would suggest you have a point. What you're posting is incoherent and unintelligible babble. You sometimes speak of convergence as a bad thing, then you'll flip and talk of how great the Wii's channels are, then you'll talk of your fear of convergence again.

admeister

3 years ago

Heh, I guess I see the upsides of both then.

I don't do it on purpose. But i have to say that I'm certainly pro-games consoles and not so much convergence. As I said, that was my original gripe with the Xbox (even though it wasn't a major offender, it was a start).

legend166

3 years ago

Anyone else think the Blizzard Exec looks a bit like Steve Carrell?

seany

3 years ago

Well if that is true they better make computers quieter, more reliable. I love consoles. If I buy a PS3 game I know it will work on a PS3. It is not the same with PC games. Depending on your computer you may have to load new video card drivers on reduce video settings etc etc. Boring. I personally think we will continue to have multiple devices but the data will sit on a home server and be distributed to all rooms. Much like I do at home. Moving data around.

Gamesta

3 years ago

The day consoles become obsolete is the day I give up gaming.I have little to no interest in gaming on PC, I hate keyboards for games.I wont deny the fact that I do play some games on PC but for me consoles are the ultimate thing to play games on.I began gaming with consoles and I will end gaming with consoles.

Sin Ogaris

3 years ago

Not really into real time strategy or fluid first person controls I take it?

Anyhoo, it makes sense to confine it all to one system although I can't imagine this happening in five years, unless we get some ultra mega integrated houses going (that said, this kind of thing is happening in the UK at least, a mate of mine installs electrical appliances over there and if you've got the cash you can hook up some crazy connectivity, I'm not sure whether the PC is the epicentre of all this though).

wobbler

3 years ago

What a pc really needs to take any advantage away from consoles is a dedicated gaming operating system (Which could be dual booted) that is designed to only play games with a few sanctioned controllers and a sort of grading system that allows games only to be played that meet a certain hardware requirement. Sort of what Vista does with its hardware score but without loading all of the functionality that we have come to expect from a PC. When the original Xbox came out it had what many thought (myself included) was superseded hardware specs but it showed that without a fully functioning OS the hardware could handle games quite well.

Gamesta

3 years ago

Sin Ogaris wrote

I hate RTS, The only one I ever really enjoyed was Warcraft 2.I have no trouble whatsoever playing FPS on consoles I find them extremely easy to play on PS2.

Jellyfish

3 years ago

Sin Ogaris wrote

Not really into real time strategy or fluid first person controls I take it?

RTS definitely need a mouse (or an on screen tablet) to play. Keyboards can easily be replaced by a more intuitive system. You really only need a "select additional *" button and create/select group buttons. I won't comment on FPS because I'm quite aware how outnumbered I am on this forum

Personally I see Keyboards and Mice becoming obsolete before PCs or consoles do. Refer to Minority Report and Star Trek IV

Sin Ogaris

3 years ago

If there is ever a day where I have to play a game by dragging holographic images around using gloves I can assure you my gaming days are over (of course if they created some sort of virtual reality that hard wired the game into my brain I'd be happy, then I could just sit around and play games in my head, slightly antisocial maybe, but at least I wouldn't succumb to RSI).

mrcivic

3 years ago

The only time when I'll give up console gaming is when PC's don't become outdated every 3-6 months and we're forced to upgrade to get the latest super-dooper-bump-specular-lighting in a character's nose.
Plus who wants to play WoW? It's a waste of time and money. (yes, I said it

)

Ellegarden

3 years ago

Sin Ogaris wrote

When that happens lend me your copy of dead or alive xtreme .

DancesInUnderwear

3 years ago

38 posts and nothing along the lines of "so in 5 years consoles will have 9500 posts on a message board"? I'm surprised.

admeister

3 years ago

DancesInUnderwear wrote

38 posts and nothing along the lines of "so in 5 years consoles will have 9500 posts on a message board"? I'm surprised.

Very funny.

I'd wager that I can beat that easily, anyway (I'm almost half way there).

Anyway, I like the idea of a dual OS sort of set-up, with one of them dedicated to gaming. That would be nice, and have some semblence of what we call games consoles today (except that there would no longer by a seperate unit). I wonder if the three companies would each make their own OS and produce games specially for it. Most likely. Each OS would probably have some authentication method, so if you tried to load a competitior's game, it wouldn't let you.

3 years ago

We all know that more PC's are sold into homes in one year than Sony, Nintendo & Microsoft combined have shipped in the past five to six years. The current base of PC's in homes is greater than a Billion computers! It's a great platform - but unlike consoles; software media is not so easily protected and hence many publishers are happy to focus on consoles.

A PC versus Console comparison whilst interesting it is not valid because Consoles are a closed standard specialty appliance and PC's are an open computing platform. There are advantages/disadvantages with each. Unfortunately; the confrontation between PC's and Consoles is being re-ignited over the media-center "convergence" opportunity, and the evolution of communications and content delivery.

As tempting as it may seem; I honest believe that it is a dangerous move to add too much functionality to a video console and try and push what should be a cheap, easy to use, single purpose appliance into a market segment controlled by the PC platform. Firstly it greatly inflates the cost of the console, Secondly it increases the complexity of the console & need for costly support desk functions, third DRM hurdles could seriously undermine licensing; the consoles primary revenue base, and finally by opening up the market to computers you invite competition who leverage greater economies of scale and component sharing. Consoles probably could not win such a confrontation.

Conversly; PC's would have a hard time attacking the current position held by specialty appliances that are a fraction of a PC's cost. Thats the law of the jungle. Get big and ugly or go specialised. Those in between are lunch.

renegadesx

3 years ago

Gamesta wrote

Sin Ogaris wrote

I hate RTS, The only one I ever really enjoyed was Warcraft 2.I have no trouble whatsoever playing FPS on consoles I find them extremely easy to play on PS2.

I like RTS and I do not mind FPS (although I am getting a bit bored with them I admit) I just really need a mouse and keyboard to enjoy them

I make no bones declaring I still think Starcarft is the best PC game of all time

Andrew Cathie

3 years ago

I think that his comment is a bit stupid. How is console's becoming more like computers going to make consoles obsolete? I think it's more likely that the opposite is going to happen and it's going to be pc's that are going to become obsolete (maybe not for business stuff but mostly for multimedia and gaming) and consoles are going to take over.

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