The eighth generation of consoles--that is Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Wii U--"could be the last generation of dedicated hardware." That's according to video game market research firm EEDAR chief product officer Geoffrey Zatkin, who made the claim during a panel called "Awesome Video Game Data" today at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco.
Zatkin didn't say what might come next if it's not another round of consoles, but he's not the first to say that the current wave of consoles might be the last. Tekken producer Katsuhiro Harada said last year that the
future of gaming is not dedicated hardware, but rather services.
For its part, Sony said in October that the PlayStation brand will become
more service-oriented going forwardthrough cloud-powered programs like PlayStation Now. Microsoft's Xbox One also
leverages the power of the cloud extensively.