Take-Two Interactive's CEO Strauss Zelnick said that the future will erase platform walls and while they're bound to come down eventually, he thinks game streaming should facilitate this. He also thinks Microsoft are already there.
Zelnick spoke at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia Conference, where he stated, "Eventually, I think we will be in a cross-platform world, for a lot of titles", at least when it comes to mainstream consoles and the PC. "The closed system walls are coming down", he added.
Take-Two's CEO pointed out that Microsoft is "basically already there" with Xbox Play Anywhere, which would correctly imply that Sony has a lot of catching up. Microsoft's store currently lists 46 Play Anywhere titles, including the likes of State of Decay 2, Sea of Thieves and Forza Horizon 4, hence the usage of "basically", but this list will only expand.
Zelnick stressed that another contributing factor to the tearing of platform walls will be game streaming. the prominence of which he expects to grow over the next three years. He pointed out that "companies that operate 'hyperscale' data centers around the world are the best positioned to have success", because of latency related issues. Even though not specifically mentioned, Microsoft again qualifies.
Zelnick estimated that there are currently 120 million console users compared to some 2 billion master race specimens, but they're all ultimately gathered around the gaming fireplace. With that in mind, collapse of the borders that divide us is not only likely, it's inevitable whichever way you think about it.
"We're all here for the consumers. If you're going to create rules that don't benefit the consumers but somehow you think benefit your enterprise, you're mistaken. Consumers will go elsewhere. You have to pay attention to what the consumer wants", Zelnick said. I honestly wish someone from Sony read this, although I'm also certain that some fanboys couldn't be pried away from their PlayStations if Sony were kicking them in the teeth.
Microsoft
Well, even if they don't read it, the also-inevitable war between PS5 and Xbox Two, Scarlett or whatever it's called, isn't going to last very long if Microsoft has the advantage of key infrastructure, which they sure seem to moving towards.
