Why do you have a games console? I don’t mean ‘why do you like games?’ – I mean to ask what the reason is for the actual physical console. Simple: it whirs away under your TV spinning discs. But it’s days are numbered, due solely to that thing in your pocket.
Rumours have been spinning around for a little while now about how the Xbox 720 could be launched next year. It probably won’t, but then, it probably needn’t bother: if the next generation of consoles remains the same in principal as today’s, they’ll be dinosaurs by the the time they’re half way through their life-cycle.
Last week we wrote about how the prospect of quad-core phones might be wasted on a generation not ready for the power, but there’s one use for burgeoning smartphone specs that’s crying out to be harnessed – as a games console.
How quad-core phones could be wasted on us
The idea is far from science fiction. Gaming is moving ever further from a reliance on physical media to an online space. In doing so, the need for a bulky, disc-spinning console is becoming increasingly less obvious and the possible sources for stellar home gaming are becoming smaller.
This will go one of two ways, but both involve your mobile phone and an HDMI cable, and both are equally as likely:
1. Specs and hardware
Imagine, as is entirely likely, mobile phones continue to build up their innards to the point where processing power is on par with today’s consoles within a couple of years. You’ll be able to play Angry Birds like it’s made of buttery silk, but you’ll also be able to download and play games with graphics and production values to best something like Uncharted. Just look at Infinity Blade now:
Playing a console game with touchscreen controls on a portable screen will be useless, but if you stick an HDMI cable into it and run it into your TV, you suddenly have something incredible. Controls still too fiddly? Add a Bluetooth controller. Boom: you’re playing a console-quality game through your phone.
Android, Apple or Windows Phone handsets would alter their respective app stores to show two different categories of games: ones you can play on the train or ones made specifically for the home.
You’d carry your games library with you everywhere: you’d be able to go to a friend’s house and play Gears of War 4 simply by plugging it in. The best case scenario would be that TV manufacturers started shoving a standardised HDMI dock into the back of their sets, so you could eradicate wires altogether and charge the phone at the same time.
2. Game streaming
Of course, that all requires that we wait around for the technology to improve and for higher levels of onboard mobile data storage to become far less expensive. There is another, more tantalising way – one that could be done today.
You’ve heard of OnLive. It’s the streaming service that lets you play top-end games on any web-connected device thanks to a mountain of powerful servers based in America. It’s been criminally under-promoted thus far in the UK depsite some positive coverage in the press, but that may only be a temporary hitch: HTC has a stake in it.
Along with BT, HTC is set to bring Onlive to the HTC Flyer tablet. With the help of a Bluetooth controller and a monthly subscription, you’ll be able to play the current crop of chart games on a 7-inch tablet that doesn’t even boast a dual-core processor.
OnLive, HTC and BT are all hoping the following notion gets into consumers heads and sticks: as long as you’ve got a fast enough internet connection, the specs become irrelevant.
While the current thinking is that you’ll only want to play these games on a tablet due to its larger screen size, it can’t be long before HTC et al realise that the device you’re streaming to doesn’t necessarily have to be the device you watch the playback on. As more and more smartphones ship with HDMI outputs built in, more and more people will find themselves with a willing home games console in their hands.
HTC would be missing some very vital brain cells if it didn’t think that helping to bring OnLive to your mobile phone would be worth the effort.
3. Time to strike
So why HTC? They’ve nothing to lose by pioneering it. Microsoft won’t want any part of it, as it would eat into Xbox 360 or even Xbox 720 sales. That basically rules out Nokia by proxy. Sony Ericsson doesn’t want to conflict with the Playstation brand, while Samsung, LG and more are currently pumping out Smart TVs, which in theory could offer the same (or a rival) games streaming service.
But all that will take time. Not everyone will be buying a web-connected TV in the next 5 years, but we’ll all be buying new mobile phones. If HTC pounced on Mobile World Congress in the spring with an Android handset baring an HDMI output (or even a wireless HDMI output and receiver) and OnLive built in as a proprietary app, then the console market as it stands would have to react in kind.
As an OnLive customer I’m relatively biased here, but the fact remains: the days of the standard console are numbered, and the possibilities of what your phone can really do are only just presenting themselves.
