Ubisoft CEO Thinks the Future is in Streaming

PS4.5, Nintendo NX, and the hardware upgrades for the Xbox One... it's clear that the biggest hardware developers in the gaming world have identified a problem with our current system of console cycles. A fair problem to identify: back in the past it was fair enough to make new, improved gaming systems every couple of years, but we're fast reaching the point where the technology necessary to make a bigger, badder, all-around radder console is getting prohibitively expensive, and would really begin to fragment game developers from their audience.

A halfway console, which would offer a performance boost for those with the means while still providing games and entertainment to those who have more reasonably priced consoles, would certainly be one solution. But Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot sees a different solution in the future of the industry: rather than demanding players buy increasingly more powerful and expensive machines, he thinks the true future of gaming lies in streaming.

"We expect there will be new consoles that are going to make this market continue to grow and we feel it's... we'll still have another generation of consoles before we have new types of consoles coming to the market. We believe in streaming--it demands lots of bandwidth. We think it's going to grow but today, with the types of games we have, it will still take a bit of time to be more popular. For the new consoles, there's nothing official on that so my expectation is we will have another cycle of consoles before we go to streaming,"

Streaming games has been attempted--usually with disastrous results--in the past, but the Ubisoft CEO clearly thinks its the future, getting rid of the hardware middleman and going directly from TV to gaming. A cool idea, I guess, as long as we have internet... but not to be a bummer or anything, I feel compelled to remind you that we're currently running out of bandwidth.

So if we can fix that, great! Otherwise... well... his plans for the future (and a lot of people's plans for the future, I add) will be slightly off. Still, if we can do it right, I don't see why direct streaming wouldn't be a good idea. I might prefer a subscription to buying a full machine, although... I guess we'd have to see all I'd have to pay for. Lots of questions. Maybe one day we'll get answers.