Final Fantasy producer ‘believes 5G will attract players away from consoles’

Final Fantasy producer Naoki Yoshida has reportedly said he believes the rollout of 5G mobile networks will soon attract players away from games consoles.

That’s according to a report by the Financial Times (paywall), which claims the Square Enix executive stated that the improved streaming speeds would “herald the long-term demise of the dedicated games console” as a primary medium for gaming.

“Once 5G becomes the global standard, there will definitely come a time when we can transfer images to any device,” Yoshida is quoted as saying.

“Players can enjoy a high-quality gaming experience on any device by not being tied to a gaming hardware or TV monitor. We’re definitely heading in that direction, and I don’t think coronavirus will slow this shift,” he added.

“With home consoles, you need to sit in front of the television . . . and turn on the power and wait for the hardware to start up, so it was a time-consuming entertainment,” Yoshida said. “With stay at home, there were more opportunities to turn the switch on.”

Many corporations are currently pushing cloud gaming services, including Microsoft, Amazon and Luna. However, sales of games hardware seemingly hasn’t faltered, with PlayStation 5 currently the fastest selling video game hardware platform in US history, according to market research firm NPD Group.

Microsoft hasn’t provided Xbox Series X/S shipment figures, but it has also claimed that hardware revenue is up significantly year-over-year “driven by continued demand” for the new consoles.

Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan said in April that the company was devising a cloud strategy that will be “unique and only on PlayStation”.

Sony acquired cloud gaming company Gaikai in 2012, before using its technology and intellectual property to launch PlayStation Now, which provides subscribers unlimited access to a library of some 700 PS4, PS3 and PS2 games.

Meanwhile, Microsoft’s head of gaming was seemingly still hopeful of making the company’s xCloud streaming service available on rival console platforms as of August 2020.