There’s a big movement in the video game industry right now. We’re seeing more and more services pop off with cloud gaming in mind. With PlayStation Now, Xbox xCloud, Google Stadia, Amazon Luna, Nvidia GeForce Now, among others, there are several services readily available to let you game whenever and wherever. However, some gamers may have assumed that this could be the end of video game consoles in general with companies putting more focus on software or cloud gaming. When this concern was brought up to Xbox head, Phil Spencer, the Microsoft company doesn’t have any plans to stop putting out console hardware yet.
While cloud gaming is certainly taking off in a bigger way than ever, there are still two major console platforms hitting the marketplace this year. I’m of course referring to the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. Sony hasn’t put anything else out there to compete with the likes of Game Pass and with it the likes of Project xCloud, but Microsoft seems to be more in tune with going in the route where they offer a streaming or media subscription service, granting players access to a catalog of video games. Recently, Phil Spencer was interviewed by Yahoo Finance when the question came up regarding cloud gaming and the future it may hold at Microsoft.
Specifically, the publication was interested in if this upcoming-generation of video game consoles could be the last. According to Phil Spencer, Microsoft still has plans to bring out hardware after the Xbox Series X, but even with the hardware in the works, the focus right now is with the player. Microsoft wants to see the player being at the center and having the ability to play video games on any device much like how you see other media mediums.
We’ve seen streaming come into play for movies and music, so naturally, there is a progression coming for the video game industry. Cloud gaming is still in its infancy but we may watch it evolve over the next few years. Do you think we’ll see console hardware start to dwindle after this coming generation?
