Amazon gaming boss predicts future where players no longer need consoles

Amazon’s head of gaming Jeff Gattis has told the BBC he believes the rising cost of tech means people will turn to streaming games online rather than buying new consoles.

He said the tech has developed a lot in recent years, making it more viable than it used to be – but accepted some people will still buy their own hardware.

While cloud gaming has long been billed as the future of video games, previous efforts have failed to gain widespread adoption – leading to the high-profile closure of Google Stadia in 2023.

Many firms already offer this as part of their subscription services, including giants Sony and Microsoft, but people continue to favour installing games on their own machines.

Gattis’ comments come as Amazon has announced it is integrating its cloud gaming service Luna into the Prime Video app to sit alongside its shows and films.

Cloud gaming allows players to stream and play games online from a remote server using a phone, tablet or controller, rather than downloading and running it on a PC or console at home.

Gattis argued there was still a huge untapped audience beyond traditional console owners which Amazon was trying to reach.

“There are somewhere between two-and-a-half and three billion people who play games around the world, but only a fraction of those own dedicated gaming hardware,” Gattis said.

He said streaming games could help people who do not want to spend hundreds – or even thousands – of pounds on a console or gaming PC.

“As hardware becomes more expensive, and as streaming technology continues to improve, I think you’ll naturally see more people asking whether they actually need that dedicated device,” he said.

Recent years have seen the price of gaming hardware climb as the cost of components also rises, with Sony and Microsoft increasing the cost of their consoles and Valve pricing its new Steam Machine from £879.

Christopher Dring, editor-in-chief and co-founder of The Game Business, said there was likely an audience of people looking to play high-end games like the upcoming Grand Theft Auto 6 “but are put off by all the technical requirements”.

He said streaming still faced several obstacles, including the fact that many high-end games still require a controller.

Amazon Luna is already included as a Prime subscription, but it has largely existed as a separate destination, whereas now users will be able to view it under the “Games” tab on Prime Video on Fire TVs in the US and UK.

Dring said the sticking point for many big games publishers may still be the subscription model, due to the impact it could have on traditional sales “where there is significantly more revenue”.

And he said he felt it was unlikely people would want to pay a game’s cover price – typically £60-70 – just to stream a game.

Stadia was touted as a “Netflix for games” when it launched in November 2019.

But by January 2023 Google had shut down the service, saying it “hadn’t gained the traction with users“, the company had hoped.

By necessity, cloud gaming requires a sufficiently fast internet connection.

Joost van Dreunen, a professor of games business at NYU Stern, said the concept has still not reached mass market adoption due to several reasons including “latency issues, inconsistent experiences, and the absence of a robust business model”.

“Gamers are willing to trade a little fidelity for convenience, but not to pay premium prices for something they don’t own which stutters when the Wi-Fi dips,” he said.

However, he said the rising cost of consoles could change that.

“For the first time in the industry’s history, consoles are getting more expensive toward the end of their lifecycle,” he said.

“I’m skeptical that it will immediately push more players to the cloud quickly, but I do predict a gradual adoption of alternatives.”

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