The $2 billion maker of 'Assassin's Creed' says the games console is nearly dead
- Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot predicted the next generation of consoles will be the last.
- After that, he believes cloud-based streaming services will dominate gaming, with blockbuster titles available on any screen.
- Streaming services for gaming are still niche, but as the technology improves Guillemot believes they will move into the mainstream.
The CEO of the $2 billion gaming company behind "Assassin's Creed" has predicted that games consoles are heading for extinction.
In a recent interview with Variety, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot said: "I think we will see another generation, but there is a good chance that step-by-step we will see less and less hardware."
He added: "With time, I think streaming will become more accessible to many players and make it not necessary to have big hardware at home."
Guillemot said the death of consoles will be good news for blockbuster games like "Assassin's Creed" and "God of War."
"It is going to help the AAA game industry grow much faster," he said. "We have to work on the accessibility of those games, to make sure they can be played on any device, but the fact that we will be able to stream those games on mobile phones and television screens without a console is going to change a lot of the industry."
Games being powered by server farms rather than home-bound consoles might seem like a distant future, but there are already streaming services available that allow people to play on basic laptops and screens.
Playstation has its own paid streaming service "Playstation Now," Nvidia's "Geforce Now" is currently in free beta, and in May Valve released a beta of its "Link" service, which allows people to stream their games to smartphones - albeit provided the phone is connected to a PC which is in turn connected to a router with an ethernet connection.
These services are still relatively niche, but Guillemot predicts that as the technology improves they will become mainstream. "We think it's a trend and that it will continue to evolve. Eventually, the technology will improve dramatically, which will allow us to have a very smooth experience in the big cities of the world," he said.