The problem with the quote is that it assumes community based games are not possible in the consoles.

Plug in a keyboard, and may be a mouse, or an advanced version of both that can be operated without a stable surface underneath and you just turned it into a gaming PC...a better one from both a developer and consumer point of view. No more upgrading every year, everybody sees the game the same way, fewer cheaters...

And World of Warcraft is just one game on the PC that sold so much. May be a couple others. But look at console games...Halo, Metal Gear Solid, Mario, Gran Turismo, Tony Hawk, Resident Evil etc. They sell millions at each iteration. If you compare the total PC game sells and the console game sales since WOW came out I am very certain the consoles will outsell the PC by a huge margin. Heck...PS2 alone might just do it. Plus sports franchises, such as Madden, NHL typically sells more on consoles than on PC.

How I see is that PC will be a good platform for tech demos, to show off the latest and brightest every year. It would be a good platform for casual games too, games that you play when you take a break from work. Classic example...solitaire, minesweeper etc.

Finally, we can not predict the future. Most of the speculation that we make now will be of laughing matter when the time actually comes. Much like how you laugh now when you read how at predictions of the future from the 30s-40s. There will be unforeseen hardware changes that will change the market in unexpected ways. We just have to make sure we can adapt to the change quickly and make the best of it.

Hmmmm....console gaming gone? I don't think so. It's just getting started. Consoles are now doing things that were only possible with PC's in the past (mods, online communities, etc). PC's are very finicky when it comes to what games are going to work on certain rigs. Consoles are absolute and you know that particular game is going to work on every single unit. Not to mention hand held games. I couldn't imagine hand held games disappearing, so why would their console brethren disappear? If not there will be vast advancements with hand held and console connectivity. We have yet to see any major handheld hookup until this gen, so by 2020 I'm sure there will be something much more advanced, but I couldn't say what at the moment.

The ones in command should always remember that casual players are just that casual, they never lead purchase flagship sku's or console releases UNTIL AFTER they become big hits; in large by the hardcore community. The real secret is to turn a casual user into a hardcore user, and then you've got them.

In regards to 2020, nothing is going to go away and everything is going to become synthesized into an all in one entertainment/life center. Your mobile phone/console/PC machine/credit card/ipod/digital stereo system will simply plug into your keyboard/mouse and off you go. However there will be a large backlash of people who still want to go outside and rent their movies from BlockBuster or goto to Best Buy. You see buying a game has more to do now with a social event and collateral purchases and collateral experiences. You might be at BestBuy to buy a game and then also decide to get the latest Head Phone set, then you run into someone you haven’t seen in a long time and decide to exchange Avatar information. Or going to BlockBuster to rent a game and checking out the babes in the Action/Adventure section is all part of the experience. I doubt that replacing a real experience with shopping online, perhaps winking at an Avatar to whose identity is conspicuous at best. Collaterally, you might be on your way to buy a game and decide to stop by StarBucks. The real secret here is to tie those collateral experiences together. For example, buy a game get a discount at StarBucks or vice versa and your console/everything pod will keep track for you.

The MMO phenomenon seems to be both a gold mine and an endless mineshaft. I as many others wonder where do all these MMO start ups expect to get their communities? For one, the design of an MMO is to keep them in your world longer, keep them investing, keep them coming back. I only expect this to become an even sharper design in the future, as I said above tying in collateral experiences in the virtual and real world will be the new gold mine. After playing Warcraft for 8 hours after work what makes any MMO start up think that that the consumer is going to jump on board to play their MMO for another 8? No one, absolutely no one has come up with a strong model or plan other than the wish that they are about to make the WOW killer (remember the Quake-Killer phenomena?). I’m only expecting the minds at Blizzard are trying to figure out a way to cross jump their players from WOW to GOS (guessing Galaxies of Starcraft). In this model players will seamlessly jump for either game for a little bit more a month.

I know what I want to see in 2020, like every gamer out there, I expect a real 3d experience! I want to be able run down a dungeon with a bunch of my buddies and slay an ogre, maybe even break a real sweat while swinging my virtual ax. Or wear my 3d Nintendo Vii ™ glasses and walk down my real world street and have it change the world at runtime. Like a Virtual Acid trip. Hey why not use this same technology for business meetings or take a walk in the city of Cheney near downtown Iraq? Now where talking community! Shoot maybe I can virtually visit Madden himself at the geriatrics home and ask him for advice on Madden 2020?

All I know is I get that gut wrenching feeling every time I hear that the main core experience of what makes games great is going to go away. Like the time between Atari and the first Nintendo games, it felt like a long cold winter. In the final analysis the future holds a whole cross experience reality which will encompass great games, great realities and collateral communal experiences.

umm..no?
I don't really know who this guy is but I think they only put his quote cuz he some has nice position somewhere.
there are HUNDREDS of games STYLES that will never die.
SHOOTERS, SIMS, ARCADES, etc etc. and those can't just be place into a mmo..
well, they can, but it would be sorta way off the game idea.
putting real games into an rpg instead of mini games. suit yourself.
I still think there would be variety OUTSIDE an mmorpg or whatever.
people can be fun of horror games, and there might be something called RESIDENT EVIL that might never die, or SILENT HILL.
this guy is definitely off.
I agree with Muhammad Ahsan in the part where all consoles togather beat the 1 pc by FAR.
so...yeah. go preach people up somewhere else.

The real problem here is folks are assuming a stable, viable economy with folks who have time and money for online entertainment. By 2020, global warming could put most of those ideas in the trash.

The day consoles die is the day no one plays video games. Consoles are built just for that; so they do it better than PCs! There will always be the "Next Best Thing".
Never played WOW but I've played Final Fantasy Online and would still be playing if it were free. I just couldn't justify spending that much on it. Half of all gamers playing online? Maybe if its free. Mobile gaming should be in the Casual Gaming category, no one will be playing WOW or Halo on a phone.

And when they come out with a mobile Coffee Table that plays all the latest consoles and surfs the internet and plays WOW count me in. I gotta go eat dinner and play Wii Boxing at the same time.(Yes I'm that good ;D)
Later

Console gaming gone? With the current gen PS3 you can plug in a keyboard/mouse, surf the web, plug in your MP3 player, download movies, store music, play Blu-ray movies, chat with friends via headset or video chat, even install Linux and use Linux applications.

It seems that the PS3 might be a closer vision of the future than a PC is... especially if WoW gamers were able to play the game on a 56" HDTV.

I wouldn't be surprised to see the next generation of Xbox with a full Windows OS install... and maybe WoW gaming on your TV!