Dedicated game consoles like PlayStation 4 and Xbox One may be the very last of its kind, as Twitch TV co-founder Emmett Shear believes Microsoft and Sony must adapt to a changing market if they wish to stay relevant in the gaming space.
"The problem is, the seven-year upgrade lifecycle doesn’t work in the face of the two-year upgrade cycles for every other hardware platform," he said in an interview with The Guardian. "It’s so intrinsically built into how consoles get manufactured and made and the full business model, that I’d be surprised to see another generation."
How can Microsoft and Sony continue to compete in an ever-evolving marketplace? According to Shear, the platforms need to be more like set top boxes with upgrade cycles similar to that of smartphones.
"They’re going to have to change form. You can already see this on both Xbox and PlayStation where there’s a tighter upgrade loop for both the operating systems and the games," Shear added.
"This is the first step toward being able to iterate the hardware platform. I could imagine a version 1.1 product from both Microsoft and Sony which adds in slightly more speed and slightly more memory very similar to how phones and tablets work today. I think it’s going to look more like the mobile phone market over time."
Do you think Sony and Microsoft need to change their approach to video game hardware?
