Some people think that cloud gaming will replace traditional gaming consoles in a few years. However, Gaikai co-founder and CEO Dave Perry thinks that the biggest threat to traditional consoles comes from iOS devices.
“We don’t think we’re a threat to console. I think the threat to consoles is actually Apple, said Perry. “I think the concern there is that they’re generating hardware so quickly now. If you’re creating and shipping new hardware every 12 months, and during that 12 months you’re also giving pretty impressive upgrades, the features that people want, and you’re giving them those every six months and hardware every 12 months, I think the idea that you would have five to seven years on hardware refreshes is becoming a technical problem.”
“I think the handhelds are getting challenged very aggressively by the mobile phones,” he added. “I find myself spending a lot of money on iPhone, and if you look at a handheld today, the ones that people keep making, they still make them as a gaming machine. Kids today… don’t want to carry anything that just does one thing. They carry their phone and it does everything. And so if you make single function devices, then you’ve got a problem. That’s my concern for handhelds, is this single function side of it. I know they’re adding Netflix and stuff, but they really need to be that sort of multifunction device to survive. And if you think about it, that ultimately turns them into cell phones. So I don’t think cloud gaming is their problem.”
Source: GamesIndustry.biz
