Star Citizen and Wing Commander creator Chris Roberts has said the next generation of consoles won’t be as important as this one, thanks to the PC’s continuous ascent to glory.
“I think consoles will be there and they’ll do decent business but I don’t think that the next generation of consoles will be as big as the last generation,” Roberts told NowGamer in an extensive feature about Kickstarter.
“Essentially, I can build a high-end PC now that’s much more powerful than the new consoles that will be announced this year.”
Roberts said that PC pricing for consumers is always coming down, while hardware prices for console manufacturers are on the rise, so that the end cost of console or a PC of similar schematics will eventually equilibrate.
“So they’re going to be on an even footing with everyone else, whether it’s Steam Box or whatever, and then what’s the best platform?” he added.
“Is it a closed platform, which is controlled and curated like Microsoft, Apple and Sony, or is it an open platform that isn’t controlled? There are good and bad things about both sides but that’s basically the PC platform?”
Roberts also raised objections to the “walled garden” model of consoles to date and the cost of updates.
Historically, whether industry insiders are calling the death of the PC or the death of consoles depends largely on what point of the console cycle we are in, but the increasing ubiquity of PC tech in the living room, growing power of portable devices, and increasing cost of console development has brought about an unusually high number of console detractors this cycle. Valve’s Gabe Newell said he expects Apple and PC hardware manufacturers to battle it out in the end, with consoles fading into obscurity.
Thanks, GamesIndustry.
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