Ubisoft CEO Says Cloud Streaming Will Kill Consoles, Next Generation Will Be the Last

It almost feels as if no month passes without a relevant figure in the video game industry predicting the end of gaming consoles in one form or another. The most recent to make this prediction is Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot, who just said that the next console generation will be the last. It will then be replaced by cloud streaming, which is a rising trend in the industry.

The Ubisoft boss made his comments during an interview with Variety, which also covers how Microsoft is no longer focusing on platforms as much as it did in the past. Apparently, Guillemot sees this as a sign that gamers will increasingly want their games to become available on any device that they have, thus making the titles platform-agnostic.

“I think we will see another generation, but there is a good chance that step-by-step we will see less and less hardware,” Guillemot told the publication. “With time, I think streaming will become more accessible to many players and make it not necessary to have big hardware at home. There will be one more console generation and then after that, we will be streaming, all of us.”

These sentiments echo statements that Guillemot has made previously, where he noted that the ability to play games on multiple platforms instead of making them exclusive to just a single console is one of the best things to happen to the industry. At the time, he expressed his belief that it will spur growth faster for AAA titles.

As pointed out by IGN, this isn’t the first time that the Ubisoft CEO has made such a prediction. Guillemot also said the same thing in 2013 with regards to the same subject. Suffice it to say, not everyone agrees with him.

Among those who believe that Guillemot couldn’t be more wrong is Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aimé, who says that consoles are going to be around for quite a while yet. He highlights the popularity of the Nintendo Switch to prove that there is still quite a high demand for consoles and adds that “it has much more to offer in terms of unique experiences.”