Sony CFO Thinks Cloud Won't Make Consoles Obsolete in Five Years; it'll "Take Much Longer"

Today, during Sony's quarterly financial conference call for investors and analysts, Chief Financial Officer  Hiroki Totoki talked about the future.

[PhoenixUp]

There will never be a time when cloud gaming makes consoles irrelevant period

[RevXM]

I think you are right, mostly because networking infrastructure isnt going to be completely sufficient all over the world anytime soon. its likely to be multiple decades away before everyone has access to fast low latency internet.

For many who has say fiber or even really good copper connection then streaming could very well be a viable choise in terms of having a good user experience and that is fine, and I expect it will be increasingly popular. I dont think those who have superb internet will always choose streaming only. home hardware does have perks, and it is different. I'd prefer that even if I have a conection that is good enough for streaming already. Internet isnt reliable and I like owning not only my games but what Im playing them on too. obviously that doesnt mean Ill never stream a game, but Ill always love hardware and owning copies of games I love and have them where I am on a disc, or just on a harddrive. they cant be taken away from me and if internet goes down or something is wrong with my conection I can still play.

[rainslacker]

It may come. But not somuch cloud gaming, as.game streaming.

But whoever said 5 years was way off track. Markets dont shift that fast.

Even digital only isn't a majority if console game sales. Some people, and maybe companies, are trying to jump ahead a few.steps

[KickSpinFilter]

"There will never be a time when a "wheel" will make horses irrelevant... period."
Sure you don't wanna change your statement?

[rainslacker]

The wheel didn't make horses obsolete. The wheel was around long before horses were domesticated for physical work. Horses were a way to make the wheel into something practical in another way. The wheel on its own, in terms of transportation, was never relevant on its own.

Care to amend your analogy?

[PhoenixUp]

@ Im

The practicality of consoles will always be a factor that will keep them relevant.

For starters people love their physical games and you’ll have a difficult time convincing the majority of gamers to give that up entirely. Second even digital games have their practicality as well since you’re playing from local hardware.

Lastly with cloud gaming you are forever at the mercy of any potential lag, license removals, service terminations, online outages, continually paying a subscription, etc. that you generally don’t have to deal with at all with conventional systems now.

Sony & Microsoft will undoubtedly continue to push their services, but too many consumers will still prefer to game on the console like they have for past 47 years of console gaming that to force everyone to give that up is suicidal for any brand.

Cloud gaming can be a viable option, but it’ll never be the absolute standard.

@ Gal

There are far more negatives to move console gaming primarily to a cloud based structure than it was for majority of PC gamers to get their games digitally. Even then PC gamers still had the option to continue gaming physically as opposed to forcing console gamers to altogether give up physical and digital games in favor of cloud based gaming.

Options are important here. PC gamers can still opt to pick up a physical copy of a game despite the digital way being so prominent. Same goes for movies, music, & television shows. That option is still viable for many consumers across various mediums for various reasons. It’s pretty absurd to acknowledge this and say that people will suddenly give up on physical and digital gaming on a console in favor of exclusively cloud based means. Not everyone is going to be in a situation where they can effectively game on the cloud like they’ve effortlessly done for the past almost five decades.

Second PC is an open format so it’s far more reasonable for consumers to adopt to the digital format because of the various methods in getting games on PC means there’s competition from distributors to make their service the most attractive method. With a cloud based console you’d only have one way of getting games and that just sounds like a true nightmare. There’ve been benefits in the various ways people have gotten games on consoles through different retailers so that they’re not at the mercy of digital prices all the time.

Finally think about how third party publishers will functions as a result of cloud gaming. There’s a reason you don’t see every publisher rushing their new games to release day one on Game Pass(even though it’s not a cloud service it still functions as an on demand service that cloud gaming generally would be). Publishers have more profit when they sell games digitally and physically rather than for an on demand service. To force all of them to given that up as well is pure sacrilege.

@ Kick

You really think cloud gaming is as essential as the wheel? That such a ludicrous notion that I’m not even going to dignify it with a rebuttal.

[Soap_Z]

Sony and Nintendo won't say such thing would happen in several years because they have strong gaming lineup and huge success in gaming. They have much better insight in industry and no need to push "idea" to sell their products.

Do you remember at the end of last generation there are a lot of reports on "console gaming is dying"?

[BLow]

Yes and we have seen articles as well about how Sony is repeating the same mistakes as MS blah blah blah.

I just want to asked all the fanboys who NOW think streaming games is great. Those of you that are pretty competitive in online shooters, how is your console connected? Wired or WiFi? I think all of you should be on WiFi right because it's just as good as wired right? If you are still wired, then I ask the simple question, WHY???

[gangsta_red]

Not sure what a strong gaming line up has to do with switching to the cloud.

Sony and Nintendo will still have a strong gaming line up but offer their games through a cloud type service.

[Smokingunz]

He pretty much trying to say consoles and AAA games are still selling in big numbers so why the rush to streaming. Will see what happens. Consoles over everything. I rather physical all my life. I love to own my games plus they are worth more . Money left me know how resale of a streaming game works for you. I think they should always be an option

[rainslacker]

Strong games which support the need for the cloud, by implementing the cloud are needed before the talk about it taking over. Same with streaming. The services have to become more relevant and lose a lot of the stigma they have now, before they can take over.

Too may people in the media, and in the forums, tend to put the cart before the horse in claiming what the future will be, and more often than not, tend to think it's going to come in a time frame which isn't reasonable, because huge market shifts don't usually happen that quickly. Some exceptions exist, like the rise of mobile gaming or smart phones, but that is usually due to being new technologies that provide something that isn't available elsewhere, coupled with a company that is capable of making people think they absolutely have to have such products.

I don't see cloud gaming or streaming doing that, as its not as viable an option, or is it really all that exciting to think about.

[Smokingunz]

Yes sir, you're correct, you made a very strong point

[Kabaneri]

Even if internet speeds do improve, streaming is never going to be as reliable as physical hardware, especially the physical hardware in the future.

[crazyCoconuts]

And people keep forgetting that bandwidth requirements keep going up. We're now expecting 4k streaming and VR is just going to make streaming even more difficult. As our experiences get more robust so do the bandwidth requirements and the network will always be behind...

[sprinterboy]

Crackdown 3 says otherwise/S haha

[Smokingunz]

Crackdown 3 was a flop lol your point was moot

[CaptainCook]

@L7CHAPEL

Don't listen to him since he's a biased fanboy

[OffRoadKing]

Um two things, first off the game hasn't come out yet and secondly /S in a comment means he was being sarcastic.

[Fluttershy77]

Five years from now? 2024? Who knows... We'll see

[sprinterboy]

Xbox 4/ps7 Imo, around the 2032 mark.

[Omnislashver36]

Uhh, think more around the year 2150.

[xenz]

Couldnt agree more. Streaming games will always no matter how good internet have worse latency and compressed image.

Streaming will never become the only way to play games. I believe we will see both streaming and digital/physical co-exist.

[bluefox755]

Seems like something that should be obvious, lol.

[Stanjara]

Thank you. I would hate streaming games with low bitrate and lag.

[Sirk7x]

I was part of the Project Stream beta, and AC: Odyssey ran through Chrome at 1080p/60fps with hardly any noticeable lag at all. The tech is being heavily invested into already, and I was quite amazed at the performance.

[rainslacker]

When it works, it works fine. But it doesn't work consistently for enough people for it to make consoles obsolete anytime soon.

[Stanjara]

Yes, but how many people was using this service, and it was only one game. And the best servers from Google. We shall see what Microsoft will do with their Azure cloud no disc Xbox Scarlett...or Anaconda. Actually I really don't know what I'm talking about. This is all new tech. All I know is that I would still like to own my hardware and software.

[Elda]

Consoles will be around for the next 25 years.

[Cryptcuzz]

That's what I like to hear from Sony, as it aligns with how I feel as well. I don't want a day where if network maintenance is happening and I won't have the option to pop on a physical copy in and play in the mean time.

[kevnb]

Consoles will make cloud gaming obsolete. Going server side makes no sense at all except to clueless shareholders and short sighted ceos who like the control it would give them.

[uth11]

they should know, they've been running ps now for at least the last five years, and hasn't exactly seen explosive growth

[ApocalypseShadow]

Especially when they own half the streaming market and don't even push it over exclusives which is great.

[Smokingunz]

Consoles will be around as long as manufacturers want them to and people keep buying them. If cloud gaming and streaming would affect consoles it would've long time ago. The final nail in the coffin for consoles ould be whenever manufactures decided to pull the plug themselves regardless of how us gamers feel, pretty much shoving stream boxes down our throats. Anything to save a buck manufactures will pull the plug on consoles when they are ready. I think then I'll probably only play my old consoles and those are the consoles that's going to be worth a lot of money just because they'll be out of print. I dont think free to play is a threat to AAA great storyline games, strong sales of spiderman, last of us, zelda etc proves that. If anything those free to play games is what's going to kill the gaming industry lol it's the younger generation that's buying up these stupid free ro play games because they dont know any better. Gaming to me lost its flare I'm not even looking forward to next gen unless they impress me.

[The_Sage]

I agree.

[oneconsoleonly]

cloud is just casual. We need physical console and games fully installed and functional that we purchase without any online checks or subscription model

[Einhander1971]

Someone talking sense for a change.