Gaming Consoles on the way out. Mobile devices to replace big, bulky units in as little as 5 years?

Are gaming consoles, the very thing that has kept many a geek enthralled for years, on the way out? Is their relevance slowly disappearing as mobile devices become more and more powerful with scalable options and outputs that are ever increasing?

To highlight this simple though looming question, look at the iPhone. While on the device itself the hardware isn’t too spectacular compared to current gaming champs such as the Xbox 360 and PS3, the iPhone is quickly pushing the idea of mobile gaming ahead quicker than it has ever moved before. If someone asked you years back when the original Playstation was released if they ever dreamed that within 15 years someone would be able to play the same games on a phone, chances are you’d laugh and discount them as crazy. Yet here were in 2009 with very playable Playstation One games running on emulators aboard jailbroken iPhones.

But simple on device hardware isn’t going to kill traditional consoles alone. What about those late night parties and weekend frag fests with your friends? If everyone stayed in their room and kept their nose in their own little device, who would have fun gaming anymore? The expanding options to connect phones to TV’s is coming. Looking ahead to 2010, several phones are rumored to be coming with HDMI-out. Watching movies via your phone will be easier and more fluid than ever. If the same phone has the graphical muscle and supporting games to make the most of that muscle, such connections will ultimately make the traditional gaming console obsolete.

Just think, in as little as 5 years, a LAN party could involve nothing more than 20 people showing up at a gaming event with nothing more than themselves and their phone. Again, it’s crazy to think about because even now, LAN parties require some pretty meaty laptops. Ok, so maybe 5 years to the day won’t see gaming laptops reborn inside of phones, but I bet you if we stretch that limit to 10 years the outcome will more substantial. Besides the expanding power of mobile devices, one can also look towards the increase in game downloads, streaming, and other types of cloud services that are beginning to render physical media obsolete as we speak.

The addition of high definition outputs on mobile devices coupled with the push online is only making a market ripe for the taking of any young and forward thinking entrepreneur. Even traditional consoles are relying more and more on cloud based services and features. Though such consoles will always suffer from one big flaw — the cords that tether them to the walls. With battery technology of the near future coupled with the increasing advancements in mobile graphics and computing technologies, the day of the gaming console may be nearing the end.

I’m not trying to drum up mass hysteria and panic by putting a date on console gaming’s death. Though the brains behind such projects as the Xbox and PS platform should be looking at mobile gaming with at least one eye intently trained on it. Whether they like it or not, mobile devices will one day become the go to hardware. Will the golden oldies reinvent themselves or will they suffer the same fate as several other aging industries (namely US auto and newspaper industries) have faced?

What do you think, will the Xbox 720 and PS4 be the last of a dying breed?

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