Will consoles become extinct with in the next few years or will they continue live on though, I don’t know, the X-Box 720 or Playstation 4? I ask this question because I don’t really see the point new version of the consoles currently available. Amongst these two you can play muti-player games online, play games using voice command, body movements, gun controllers, guitar controllers, drum kits controllers, DJ controllers, microphones,  you can watch movies,  buy movies and games, browse the net, and I’m sure the list goes on.  What more is there to offer?

This stream of thought was first bought up when visiting my friend Vinnie. When small talk got boring Vinnie whipped out the latest i-phone. There were a few generic apps and games that you would expect to see on a phone. But then he opens this game that looked like a mini version of Skyrym. The game controls even resembled that of a consoled controller with its touch screen thumb stick. Finally the graphics were, dear I say, just as good as you would get in a console game.

Later that week while searching blog-worthy stuff on Youtube I found this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnzZYFnxwPg

Basically this guy uses an i-pad to interface with his television. While he demonstrates this he suggests that tablets, like the i-pad, could be the future of gaming because they have high quality gamming capabilities as well as the ability to access online game and can connect to the T.V. When we consider what we currently have in terms of online gaming such as MMOGS, Xbox live gaming, Steam (in which games are accesses and saved online, not on a hard drive); all of these elements combine, provided they are developed further, could displace the consol.

Consequentially, this may also mean that gaming will be further opened up to those who might not consider themselves gamers. Lets face it, almost everyone with a cell phone is guilty of spending too much time mucking around with snake and Sudoku.  If console-like games became the standard kind of game one would play on an i-phone or an i-pad, people would become far more game literate. This would encourage the market to invest more into the type of gaming that is A) accessible via the Internet and B) games that can be played on portable devices.

Even if the Xbox 720 or the Playstation 4 were released what could the possibly provide that we don’t already have? Hey, the might be able to suck us into a digital world like Tron…. But even so, pricewise, these consoles would be around a thousand bucks, limiting the demographic that can afford them. Comparably i-pads and phones are relatively cheap and provide a lot more functionality. All the gaming industry needs to do is exploit this pre-existing widespread medium of technology and the PWN console games into extinction!