Yesterday Michael Pachter (Wedbush Morgan analyst), Seamus Blackley (Head of Games Department, CAA), and Dan Hsu (Former EIC, EGM) had a little chat at Gametrailers about the future of video game consoles. The bottom line: the next five years might be the end of game consoles as we know them.

Among other topics they were talking about the expanding casual market, the Facebooks and MySpaces of gaming, and the future connectivity of all devices - but the main focus was on the future of the current leading consoles, on how could they move towards a "much broader context". Speaking of connectivity, Pachter stated that with the original Xbox Live "Microsoft had the vision", while Sony may be overdoing it right now, and Nintendo is "there" with the Wii Channel. (We can't help but doubt the latter sentiment.)

Dan Hsu has pointed out that the hardcore market and the idea of lesser complexity don't exclude each other necessarily, that we can have the best of both worlds without spending too much (see Nintendo this generation). Speaking of console lifecycles Pachter got round the usual answer and talked about the lifecycles of colour television. He stated that "there will be new models" for the existing consoles and companies may name them PlayStation 4 or Xbox 720. But without a paradigm shift, like holograms or VR devices, we won't have anything "next gen". It just "doesn't make any business sense" - Pachter argued - to develop, launch, and feed with multimillion dollar games a system, which is already on the market. After the big (third party) exclusives, after every console has the same features and services, it's all about brand loyalty. Generations can be maintained via OS updates, expenses can be reduced by longer lifespans and online distribution: everyone wins.

Nintendo especially.