To Console or Not? Why the future of console gaming is safe from the mobile-platform threat.

Despite being 44 years old and a founding member of the I-gens, my love for gaming didn’t begin until a few years ago while I was a film school undergrad at Cal State University at Monterey Bay. My roommate, a 21-year old music student, was the first to introduce me to the wonders of console gaming on the brand new PS3 that I had purchased.

I have to admit that, at first, I was genuinely intimidated. The rapid pace of play combined with a seemingly impossible to acquire, level of hand-eye dexterity, caused me to question whether I would ever be successful, let alone have any fun, at modern gaming. But after months and months, and months, of frustration, anger, and sheer determination, I found that not only could I play, I was actually pretty good. That’s when the addiction began, and I have never looked back.

Now, several years later, I am anxiously awaiting the release of the new consoles and what do I read on tech and gaming blogs? That the time of console gaming has come to an end, and that the future is all about the mobile platform. First, let me clarify that I am not a neophyte when it comes to technology. My entire professional career has been spent designing and building enterprise-level networks, data warehouses to be exact. Moreover, I have been wiring home entertainment systems and theatres for nearly two decades, and I am an expert in consumer entertainment tech. In other words, I know some shit about all of the components that are the basis for a compelling, console gaming experience. Thus, when I read that console gaming is on the decline and that mobile games are taking over, I just don't get it.

Many so-called experts of the gaming world: people who have written about gaming for the past decade or more and those that were fundamental in the development of the console’s initial popularity, point to the steady decline in console game sales, and the rapid rise of mobile gaming as clear indicators that the latter is supplanting the former in popularity. In addition, they suggest that console manufacturers such as Sony and Microsoft have failed to keep pace with industry trends. Their products are, as Dr. Greg Zeschuk recently stated, “same old, same old repackaged.”

What troubles me most about this recent mutiny against console gaming is its obvious lack of reasoning and foresight. Mobile gaming and console gaming are very different experiences, and thus, comparing them as equals, or suggesting that one will replace the other, is like suggesting that Big Planet will become the most popular FPS. It doesn’t make sense. Both console and mobile can, and should exist, side by side as related but individual expressions of the same technologies. In other words, the fact that I enjoy playing Angry Birds on my smartphone, in no way compromises my love of playing Battlefield 3 on my 46” Plasma, nor should it.

As consumer entertainment technology continues to evolve, so will console gaming. To suggest that we have seen the best that consoles have to offer is as unrealistic as it is near-sighted. Just imagine what an FPS like BF3, or the soon to be released BF4, in multiplayer is going to look like on a 72” Ultra-HighDef TV connected to a multi-band high-speed network. Or, what console gaming will become once manufacturers like Oculus VR, perfect the 3D gaming interface.

While the size and shape of console may change (technology tends to get smaller over time, for ex. Ouya), they will still be necessary as game developers and studios begin to take advantage of the incredible bus speeds and graphics cards which will feature heavily in the next gen of consoles, (see. Sony PS4 specs).

This is not to suggest that tablets and smartphones are poor delivery mechanisms for games, they are exceptional. But not games that require a significant viewing area to enjoy the fine detail of the game play. Mobile gaming is still in its infancy so it is possible that twenty years from now there will be a very powerful console that is the size of today's cellphones, (A significant size reduction should take place once the Cloud realizes its full potential in the gaming ecosystem, and manufacturers can choose to go to solid state or flash drive memory, and finally get rid of the disk-based Hard Drive).

But that has never been the pattern, and there is no reason to expect the paradigm to change any time soon. There have always been game programmers and studios that have tried to keep pace with the latest graphics engines and processing/memory tech advances. DICE, 2K, EA, are pioneers in the home entertainment business as it relates to games that require significant hardware resources to make them compelling. They have brought the current technology to its zenith, and still, their gaming values continue to improve. The advantage that consoles have over any mobile platform is their ability to support graphically-intense gaming environments. 

If there is one thing I have learned in my decades long experience in IT, is that there is still no substitute for horsepower when it comes to creating realistic software-based environments. Mobile platforms like tablets and smartphones will NEVER (yes, I said “NEVER” because technological power is, and always will be, about real estate, i.e. how many chips can you fit on the bus), be able to compete with a computer dedicated to rendering 3D images, motion graphics, and high-quality audio. Instead of predicting the demise of the console, therefore, we should be anticipating the next generation of graphic, audio, software, and memory technologies that will drive these machines ever closer to the point where the “uncanny valley” becomes a thing of the past. So long as these technologies continue to improve so will the gaming console experience and I, for one, couldn’t be more geeked to see what the future holds.