'As Soon as tablets can stream on to TVs, there's no reason to buy a console anymore', says Crytek CEO
The future of consoles will be free-to-play and away from boxed retail, Crytek’s CEO has claimed.
Speaking to CVG, Cevat Yerli said however that console manufacturers were being held back from introducing the payment model on a large scale due to pressure from retailers for boxed products.
“Hardware manufacturers are reliant on distribution and retail businesses, and those companies who are not reliant on third-party retail business such as Apple can go 100% digital,” said Yerli.
“They don't have the problem of retailers saying, 'I will not sell your hardware if you do not give me boxed games too'. That is the culprit of the problem.
“Apple says, 'screw you, if you don't sell my hardware I will sell it anyway in my own stores'. So really the number one issue that needs to be resolved is how companies like Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo become independent from retail so that they can go fully digital.”
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Yerli added that the next-generation of tablets would be close in power and capability to current-generation consoles, so manufacturers would have to ship new systems soon and adapt to the market or face an uncertain future.
"I've believed for about a year now that as soon as tablets can stream on to TVs, then there's no reason why you should buy a console anymore,” he said.
“We're still pushing the tablet game market ourselves, and you'll see both casual and hardcore titles from us.”
Yerli recently announced Crytek's intentions to become a free-to-play only studio after its currently in-development boxed titles had been completed.
The studio's first F2P game, self-titled "triple-A" PC online multiplayer shooter Warface, currently has more than one million registered users in Russia.
I do not want to constantly be annoyed by developers who are trying to constantly sell me something. F2P is basically glorified advertising, it is great for b-list multi-player games that I will not pay 60 bucks for, but it would totally suck if that was the only business model available. You can't just make a blanket statement like that, I am sure F2P games will exist to some extent or another, and will definitely get bigger, but they won't be the sole model simply because its annoying to play for long periods of time, the gameplay is usually(lets hope Warface is an exception), and other models are constantly being thought of. Your argument has very little validity, just because it is digital doesn't mean it has to be F2P, look at steam. Some games are F2P, alot are not, I play F2P like RotMG, but if that kinda of game is the only one that exists, many consumers would just leave and look for a market with a different model and Steam would just die. Your argument is a nice one, but its just wishful headed thinking because you are making a game that is F2P. Don't let yourself become biased about other games because of your own.
