Gamer News – Tv the next “gaming console”.

By NewbCrew

‘PS4, Xbox 720 aren’t the next generation – your TV is’

This is the bold statement made in an article on the CVG website. Here is a summary of the article, it make for some very interesting reading…

“Making consoles is a thankless task, for one simple reason: they don’t actually generate any profits until they are past it and in need of replacement.

Hence the adamant denials from Sony and Microsoft execs that they won’t showcase the replacements for the PS3 and Xbox 360 at this year’s E3. At least Nintendo continues to do its own thing.

But with the forthcoming generation of consoles, even Nintendo has to an extent joined the arms race – the Wii U will at least be more powerful than the Xbox 360 and PS3, so will be able to run cross-platform blockbusters.

Sony and Microsoft’s next-next-generation consoles will surface soon enough: their devkits are out there, details will inevitably leak out.

So with a proper three-way console arms race about to break out, how will it pan out, and will the Wii U, PS4 and Xbox 720 constitute the last crop of consoles as we know them – as many commentators are suggesting?

Beware the multimedia creep David Perry, head honcho of cloud gaming company Gaikai, he argues that consoles are no longer consoles:

“For me, the definition of a console is a gaming device for the mass market. They plug in a cartridge, they flick a switch and a game appears on the screen.”

I think they’re going to stop calling them consoles and they’ll start calling them something else – media something or entertainment something.” Perry, of course, has a vested interest – Gaikai facilitates proper, hardcore gaming which makes no demands on whatever hardware it runs on, because it arrives via the cloud. But it’s difficult to argue with what he perceives as the next threat to the consoles:

Perry says “The digital TVs are also including all of that media stuff. I think the mistake that the console companies are making is not a mistake of their choice – it’s the evolution they have to go through.” read the full post here.

We believe this idea do really open up a pandora’s box of ideas and questions of what is possible with the televisions of today. For starters the hardware and capabilities of todays TV’s can probably already match that of some of these aging consoles. Add to that the size of hardware like ssd’s and multicore processors and GPU’s and it is easy to see that you can squeeze the mightiest computing power into even the slimmest television.
Another factor that greatly count in the favour of televisions is that most of them are already internet ready and allow for cloud gaming.
The question is what is gonna happen to Playstation and Xbox. They have no choice but to adapt, but how?
I think to get an idea we should look now further than todays smartphones.
There are hundreds of smartphones available on the market today yet most of them run basicly of just 2 major OS’s namely iOS and Android. My prediction is that Playstation and Xbox will becomes OS’s that can be installed directly on TV’s to run their respective games. It will be between them and the tv manufacturers to decide what TV get sold with what Gaming OS.
Sound far fetched?? Maybe, only time will tell
One thing’s for certain, exciting times lay ahead for gamers and the platforms they use.