Forty-one years ago, Magnavox introduced the first cartridge-based console, the Odyssey. Seven generations later, the boxes have become fixtures in our entertainment centers. What’s not to love? Consoles represent the pinnacle of electronic engineering (the PlayStation 4’s graphics processor, for example, can perform 1.8 trillion operations per second). Yet despite that, it’s been a rough couple of years for console gaming. Sales and rentals of disc-based games, like the ones that are core to the Xbox and PlayStation ecosystems, dropped by 21 percent last year. The console won’t be far behind.
The issue isn’t that gamers have suddenly stopped playing; they’re just getting their games in different ways. Virtual shops, such as Steam, have made it easy to download titles without relying on brick-and-mortar stores. (Digital downloads spiked 16 percent in 2012.) And cloud services such as OnLive stream games directly over the Internet. As a result, developers no longer need to choose between the Sony and Microsoft ecosystems or spend time coding titles for both platforms. Games can now be console agnostic.
Beyond that, what passes for a console is also changing. The Razer Edge Pro, a Windows 8 tablet, can download and render console-quality titles, such as Dishonored and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. The Nvidia Shield, an Android-based handheld, can stream PC games. Both devices have powerful enough graphics engines—the Shield’s chipset can handle nearly a trillion operations per second—to drive an image on an HDTV over HDMI and do so with little sacrifice in quality.
In this democratized gaming world, where consumers have more places to get games and more ways to play them, consoles can’t compete. Right now, a couple of people in a basement can release a game instantly in the Google Play store and make a solid profit charging a few bucks per download. And it won’t stop at small start-up vendors. If tablets can play blockbuster games, big-name developers can cut themselves off from Sony and Microsoft too. Consoles are going the way of CD players—and for better or worse, the eighth generation will likely be our last. —Colin Lecher
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