Technologically speaking, these are very different times from the previous golden age of consoles, and this is partly due to Microsoft’s development of the original Xbox.Console manufacturers no longer develop their own graphics hardware, but instead rely on PC hardware manufacturers such as Nvidia and ATI to do the job. There’s very little to separate a console from a PC in terms of hardware now, and this is massively different from the days when the SNES had a completely different architecture to a 386 PC.

If you’re using PC hardware, then there’s little need to develop a separate console. All you really gain with a console over a PC is easy setup, a different controller and the knowledge that any game will run without issues. I know a few PC gamers who’ve switched over to consoles because they got fed up with the costs of upgrading, which is fair enough – but let’s not forget that an Xbox 360 wireless adaptor costs £60!

Future tech historians may well laugh at what I’m about to say, but the console as we know it is now obsolete. However, as with PC gaming, this doesn’t mean that console gaming is dying, but rather evolving with the times. I think this console generation will be the last with proprietary, state of the art hardware and physical media, but people will still want easy-to-use gaming systems at home.

If there ever is a PlayStation 4 then it’s going to be very different from the consoles we know now. Instead, with fattening broadband connections, mainstream gaming is probably going to go towards the way of OnLive, where one big bank of hardware can churn out the power needed for broadband-connected gaming machines, without needing to fill a loss-making box with proprietary hardware. In fact, limited bandwidth is the only obstacle to this technology taking off worldwide.