While streaming and the more open nature of game development and distribution may be making some wonder just where the path is going for dedicated hardware, someone not too concerned about it (at least in the short term) is the CEO of Take- Two, who sees the next generation consoles coming next year as a big opportunity for the industry.
In the recent Take-Two financial conference call, Strauss Zelnick talked about the upcoming consoles from Sony and Microsoft. While he said that there’s always challenges with transitions, he doesn’t think that we’ll see a lot from this generation to next, citing increasingly similar architecture and increased digital distribution transforming the nature of the console business. In fact, he says that he sees the next generation as a “significant net positive.” Zelnick thinks that both the console and PC market are going to continue to create “record” growth with these new systems.
Zelnick is an interesting guy, who has bucked a lot of items that’s become traditional to the industry, such as the level of content game needs, and has been skeptical of the many subscription services popping up and their ability to survive. But let’s hope he’s on the same page as everyone else about the industry continuing to grow, and let’s hope everyone on that page is right.