Electronic Arts Chief Competition Officer Peter Moore discusses what he thinks the future and its advanced technology will mean for video game consoles.

There's no denying that there's a divide between gamers on different devices. While Sony and Microsoft may be trying to bridge the gap between the PlayStation and Xbox, it's generally still impossible for friends to game together if they have different consoles. However, technology may evolve to the point where that problem doesn't exist anymore, at least according to one Electronic Arts official.

Peter Moore, the Chief Competition Officer at Electronic Arts, sat down for an interview at Syracuse University recently. Although his company develops games and not consoles, Moore believes that he has an idea on what the future will hold for gaming consoles, and the ways that it will affect gamers. Moore thinks that in the future, all gamers will be able to play together with whatever monitor they already have in their home:

"I’m not sure there will be consoles, as we know them anymore. Games will be accessed by streaming technology, so we don’t need hardware intermediaries in between the two. If you and I want to play ‘Battlefield 12’ against each other, we’ll just jump into a game via whatever monitor we happen to have in our homes. It’ll be on a chip, rather than in a box."

Moore might not be all that far off when it comes to the future of console gaming. Since many gamers already own Smart TVs with wireless internet capabilities, it's not too far off to imagine a TV that could natively access gaming networks in the future. However, televisions don't yet have the extensive processing power and graphics needed to allow gamers to play together.

In addition, as more people have gained access to high-speed internet, the number of gamers downloading games rather than buying physical copies has increased. There is a strong likelihood that as technology improves, the processing power needed to play modern games could potentially fit on a small USB device that could simply be plugged into a television or monitor.

While Moore's imagining of the far future could become reality, the near future of gaming consoles isn't as clear. While some rumors have suggested that a PlayStation 5 will never happen, both sides have also had leaks or hints that slightly upgraded versions of the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One could be released. In any case, while PC gamers can already use streaming devices like the Steam Link to play their games in another room, it's may take a very long time for technology to grow to the point where no external gaming device is needed at all.  This progress may be stymied even further by the added computing demands of VR gaming, which is still in its infancy.

There's no denying that as technology improves, smaller devices are capable of pulling off bigger and better feats than their larger predecessors. Tiny gaming consoles like the GameCube have produced stunning visuals in years gone by, and simplistic computing systems like the Raspberry Pi can already fit on a tiny chip. Predicting the future of technology is hard, but Moore's vision seems like it's entirely possible.

Source: Daily Orange