Spector: console hardware is "frozen" while mobile & tablet continue to evolve

Veteran developer Warren Spector has suggested in a new column that next-gen home consoles will face competition from the home entertainment space, and that console tech is stuck in a frozen rut, while mobile and tablet devices continue to evolve.

In his latest column over at GI,biz, Spector was asked if Wii U, PS4 and Xbox 720 would indeed surpass the success of their respective predecessors.

He replied, "Prediction is a fool's game, so I'll give you a qualified 'maybe.' It seems likely that success will come less than usual in the pure gaming space and more in the home entertainment space.

"And there, the consoles are going to be up against some stiff competition. But it seems likely that the multi-purposeness (is that a word?) of the consoles will be enough of a differentiating feature to keep consoles going for a while, at least.

"The biggest risk associated with consoles, at least to me, is that they're frozen, hardware-wise, while mobile platforms - phones and tablets - will continue to get more and more powerful.

"I mean, where do you think the iPad or Kindle Fire or Surface or whatever will be in 3 years? 5 years? It's crazy to think about. And the consoles will still be right where they were in 2013 or whenever they come to market. That'd be a little scary to me if I were a console manufacturer."

What do you make of Spector's perspective? Do long console dev cycles mean that they will be stuck in their ways for the entire generation while mobiles and tablets change over time? Will this even matter? Share your thoughts with us below.

Thanks Nintendo Life.