PlayStation 4’s lead architect has played down suggestions that traditional video game consoles are going the way of the Dodo in light of high-end PCs and mobiles muscling in on the market.
Speaking with Kotaku, Mark Cerny was quizzed if he thought the likes of PS4, Wii U and Xbox One still have a place in an increasingly-competitive market.
“Of course they do,” replied Cerny.
“If you look at the set of people who have smartphones and the subset of them that play games on their smartphones, it is enormous,” he explained. “And games as a result have had explosive growth on tablets… Within that context, console gaming becomes a smaller portion and so it’s very easy for the analysts to question if consoles have a role. Of course they do. It’s a huge fanbase. It’s just that the rest of the world is now coming in.”
Cerny is a PlayStation verteran of over 15 years, having worked on a number of iconic games including Crash Bandicoot, Jak & Daxter, Resistance: Fall of Man and Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune. He took centre stage at February 2013’s PS4 event in New York City, where he unveiled the DualShock 4 for the first time.
What do you think of Cerny’s comments? Do you feel that PS4 will be the last dedicated Sony console? Or do you feel they still have plenty of life left in them for another cycle beyond this one? Sound off in the comments section below.