‘Consoles will be for hobbyists’, EA Founder Predicts
Trip Hawkins EA Founder and former Digital Chocolate CEO
Trip Hawkins believes that consoles will be an item for enthusiasts and hobbyists, those who normally represent a small fraction of a larger market. In an interview with IGN, the Electronic Arts founder and former Digital Chocolate CEO said consoles are shrinking as gaming becomes a mass market endeavor.
Hawkins believes that as more convenient ways of gaming interfaces are developed, the console experience will be just for those who extremely love it, saying, “The console market is always going to be with us, because there’s always going to be a hardcore segment, a segment that likes innovation. But it’s going to become a smaller market, and it’s going to be more like a hobby market. You look at airplanes. Most of us just want to be a passenger, but there’s a hobby market for people who are really into aviation and want to take flying lessons and maybe someday have their own airplane. I think that’s what’s happening to the console market.”
“But there are billions of people now playing games. The gaming industry is finally becoming mass-market. It’s across two billion PCs and four billion mobile phones, and within a few years a billion tablets. In terms of total audience size, we’re getting into really big numbers.”
One of the big advantages that Hawkins sees with new platforms is that their browser and cloud-based offerings let people play the same games wherever and when they have free time. Further saying “It was more natural to use a mouse because of how it conforms to the human hand-eye tracking system than it was to expect that we would all just type on keyboards.”.
“In the old days I’d go down to the basement to play Grand Theft Auto,” Hawkins said. “But the Facebook gamer is able to play at work, at home, in a hotel on a PC. They can get access to a browser just about anywhere. People are thinking about convenience first.”
