EA DICE Head: Web Will Dominate Gaming

A top DICE developer said the web, not future iterations of consoles, will dominate the future of gaming.

"People talk about which of the two, PlayStation or Xbox, is going to be the big platform of the future," said Ben Cousins, Executive Producer at DICE and Senior Producer for the free-to-play online game Battlefield Heroes.

"I think the web is going to be the big platform of the future, whether it's running on an iPhone or a Mac or on the PC."

Asked specifically about the possibility of a one-console universe, he repeated his point: "Yes and it's going to be the web, and it doesn't care if it runs on a phone or runs on a Mac or the PC."

Cousins appeared to be commenting on the ubiquity and compatibility of casual Flash and Java titles that rely on neither proprietary hardware nor expensive video cards to perform well.

DICE is responsible for the latest upcoming iterations in the Battlefield franchise - including a console-only game, Bad Company.

Source: Gamesindustry.biz

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If the web is the future, I think that future is still quite a long way away

Both consoles and web gaming will exist and offer gamers different experiences... for a long time. Then again, I have no idea idea where Ben's head is at. When I think web, I envision Flash games in the browser. Is he talking about streaming 20GB PS3 games? ;-)

The internet is a medium. What matters is how you connect to this medium, and thus the tool still matters a lot. I don't think you can put the PC, phones, consoles and whatever in the same bag.
He's not taking much risks either in his pronostics. We all know that a virtual network stretching over all the planet is only called to become greater year after year, and games will be a part of this.

But games internet does not make.