Will Wright doesn't think consoles are "doomed"

Will Wright is of the opinion game consoles will always have place in the home even should the importance of such machines become minimal.

"I don't think they're doomed, I think they're not going to become the mainstay of the market like they had been," he told GI International. "Games really used to be something that were targeted to 16-year-old boys. Now we have people of all generations, genders, walks of life, playing games"

"I think there'll probably still be dedicated game machines going forwards, sitting on a shelf next to your HDTV. I think that they're going to be catering to a very specific kind of player, which probably isn't that different from what they were catering to before. It's just that a lot more people are now playing games, and they're not playing it on that device."

Wright feels the biggest change in the market is social, which is becoming more popular and integrated into everyday life, including games and the systems people play on.

"I think over the last five years or so it really is the diversification, not just of platform, but alongside of that, of the players, the demographics," he said. "Now we have people of all generations, genders, walks of life, playing games, a lot of them on their cell phones, or on Facebook, or whatever.

"I think that the explosion in platforms has also driven a very healthy diversification of our audience."