Developer: Game consoles aren't the future
BioWare co-founder Greg Zeschuk had some rather interesting things to say this week about the future of the gaming business.Zeschuk, whose company has created major console hits like Mass Effect 2, said that going forward, the video game industry won't rely so heavily on the console market. In fact, he believes consoles could be a relic of the past as more players turn to portable devices to get their game on."The future isn't necessarily on console," Zeschuk said at the Develop Conference, an event for European game developers. "That's the past. It's going to be a strong thing going forward, but the future is in all of these new businesses that are starting up."Zeschuk went on to say that kids, the next generation of gamers, are playing titles "on iPhones and iPads." He also said that Nintendo's upcoming portable-gaming product, the 3DS, "looks pretty amazing," and a device that BioWare will be focusing on in the future. Interestingly, Zeschuk even said the company had a DS game in development, and stopped building it to "look at the iPhone instead."Zeschuk's comments, while undoubtedly a little annoying to hard-core gamers, might make some sense when applied to the latest gaming data. According to Flurry Analytics, which calculated portable gaming market share recently, the iPhone is growing at a rapid rate as a desired gaming platform.In fact, from 2008 to 2009, the smartphone's market share jumped 14 percent from 5 percent market share in 2008 to 19 percent in 2009. Over the same period, Nintendo's DS market share slipped by 5 percent. Granted, the iPhone leans more to the "casual" side than the DS, but given how limited the average gamer's entertainment time is, Nintendo might want to worry.(Via Eurogamer)
