With the highly anticipated release of the PlayStation 5 and the Xbox Series X happening later this year, fans on either side of the line are looking forward to getting their hands on the latest gaming consoles and putting them through their paces. While this upcoming generation of consoles is but one of many, it does make one wonder about the future viability of gaming consoles in the face of an ever-growing market of streaming platforms and services. Though the future may be uncertain, Xbox boss Phil Spencer thinks that gaming consoles won’t be going away anytime soon.

During an appearance on The AIAS Game Maker’s Notebook podcast, Xbox boss Phil Spencer was asked about Microsoft’s Project xCloud, and whether or not cloud gaming services such as that one would eventually result in video games as a whole moving from consoles to the cloud. Spencer responds by saying “I hope not,” going on to state that he believes that, at least for him, there’s still at least a decade left before physical consoles begin to phase out.

“I do think getting to a world where you don’t have to own one device to play specific games helps the industry, and not everybody believes that, I get that,” Spencer says later on in the podcast. “That doesn’t mean that owning a device isn’t part of my gameplay experience.”

I think I’m going to have a game console plugged into my television for the next decade plus. Like, I think it’s going to be the best way for me to play on my television is to have a local device, download the game, and play, but sometimes I’m not in front of my television. Sometimes I’m not in front of a device that has the native capability to play, and that’s our bet on cloud.”

It’s interesting to see that even the Xbox boss himself thinks that there’s a finite lifespan on the viability of video game consoles, though anything can change with the advent of new technology. For now, we can at least look forward to the release of both the PlayStation 5 and the Xbox Series X in Holiday 2020.

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