Death of the Gaming Console? From the Motley Fool -- a Lot more at the source.
Consoles are still thriving, but the big growth is in mobile
Nintendo's plan to launch a new gaming platform in March 2017 and AMD's recent announcement that it will supply chips in three upcoming consoles virtually confirms that gaming hardware will see a historically quick refresh. Doubting the viability of consoles as sales are at a high point and more hardware releases are peaking over the horizon might seem odd, but shorter lifecycles for gaming systems point to pressure from mobile competition -- with more frequent hardware updates now potentially necessary to maintain a significant capability gap between consoles and mobile devices.
Nintendo's plan to launch a new gaming platform in March 2017 and AMD's recent announcement that it will supply chips in three upcoming consoles virtually confirms that gaming hardware will see a historically quick refresh. Doubting the viability of consoles as sales are at a high point and more hardware releases are peaking over the horizon might seem odd, but shorter lifecycles for gaming systems point to pressure from mobile competition -- with more frequent hardware updates now potentially necessary to maintain a significant capability gap between consoles and mobile devices.
Mobile gaming looks to account for the mainstay of growth in coming years and is set to overtake console and PC revenues this year. Publishers including Electronic Arts and Activision Blizzard stand to benefit by growing their customer bases outside consoles.
In addition to its movie and image-sensor business, video games are a core pillar in Sony's turnaround effort, which CEO Kazuo Hirai indicated was past the halfway point as of October 2015. The PlayStation 4 has thus far outperformed even optimistic targets before its release, and the platform's incredible momentum makes it likely that its upgraded sibling will be a win for Sony -- at least in the short term.
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