Twitch Boss Predicts Death Of Consoles As Dedicated Gaming Devices

Playstation And Xbox Booths At The 2014 Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) In Los Angeles — IN PHOTO: People walk past the Playstation and Xbox booths at the 2014 Electronic Entertainment Expo, known as E3, in Los Angeles, California June 10, 2014. Reuters/Jonathan Alcorn

Emmett Shear, the founder of Amazon owned live streaming service Twich, has a rather grim prophecy for consoles. The Twitch boss believes that this could be the last generation of videogame consoles in their current avatar solely dedicated to gaming.

Shear made the startling prediction at the Changing Media Summit in London, according to a Gamespot report. He believes that the long development and life cycles of consoles is at odds with the much shorter product cycles of contemporary electronic entertainment devices such as smartphones. An average console has a life span of five to seven years, after which a new generation is heralded along with a slew of contemporary software to go along with it. Shear believes that maintaining such long product cycles isn't feasible in the current scenario.

"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," said Shear, as reported by 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."

For the initial part of their life cycle consoles tend to match high-end gaming PC spec-wise at a much lower cost. The manufacturers choose to absorb the ensuing loss through videogame licences, as a good game library is crucial to sell the console itself. Shear believes that the lower shelf life of consumer electronics in today's world, and the rising competition from increasingly powerful mobile devices, will pose a risk to the very existence of consoles dedicated for gaming.

Shear believes that like smartphones, future consoles will have to get better at doing tasks apart from gaming. Adopting a more set-top-box like approach seems to be the solution according to the Twitch boss. CNET reports that he believes that adopting a smartphone-like yearly upgrade cycle will be instrumental in maintaining profitability for consoles.

"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," said Shear, while advocating a more rapid upgrade cycle. "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."

This trend can already be seen in Xbox One, which hardcore gamers have already been decrying as a set-top-box instead of a dedicated gaming device. Sony has been integrating a host of content services through its PlayStation banner into PS4. With the recent push for free-to-play game model in the industry, the future could see consoles shift from a hardware-based to a service-oriented model.