Mobile devices
But perhaps the casual mobile video game player has little in common with dedicated console gamers who might spend many hours a week glued to their games. And clearly a “core” gamer who might put 100 hours into a role-playing game like The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim has little in common with someone who might be content to spend 10 minutes playing the latest Candy Crush Saga game on their mobile phone. If anything, dedicated PS4 or Xbox One gamers might fire up a mobile game to have a little fun on the go, but it’s clear that mobile video game experiences won’t replace AAA console games like Far Cry Primal for the average gamer anytime soon.
Microconsoles
Microconsoles are no doubt seen as a hot item by technology companies like Apple and NVidia. Apple has released the Apple TV device, a media player / streaming / microconsole hybrid, which has the capability of playing video games. But it is unlikely that video game players will get to enjoy anything resembling new-gen graphics on an Apple TV as its more a of a small footprint, lightweight multimedia device that has other functionality like playing video files. And while NVidia’s Shield microconsole can stream recent AAA games like Mad Max from the cloud, it remains to be seen whether performance is any good for most users.
Also, other microconsoles like Sony’s PlayStation TV did not sell well and were discontinued, as that machine could only handle a limited selection of PS3 titles and PS Vita games (which might not have looked that great on a High-Def TV anyway). So clearly it’s unlikely that microconsoles will be a threat to the PS4 or Xbox One for those who are into cutting-edge gaming and the latest AAA game releases.