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Mark Rein: Future Consoles Could Be Portable
Speaking to Develop, Epic Games Vice President Mark Rein mused that future iterations of the Xbox or PlayStation could be portable in nature. We’re not talking handheld systems, but instead a hybrid experience that wouldn’t require you to be tethered to your television.
“Imagine a future Xbox 360 that is actually a tablet you carry around,” said Mark Rein described to Develop Online. “It will have more power than 360 does today, with technology like Kinect built right in."
Rein continues on to detail some of the ideal functionality of the product, forecasting that you would be able to walk into a bar and prop the system up on the table in order to play games like Dance Central or Kinect Adventures at will. When returning home, the device would then utilize technology in the vein of AirPlay to sync up to your big screen, allowing you to jump back into traditional console experiences with ease. This hope for the future is based on Rein’s belief that mobile gaming is unstoppable in terms of momentum. Epic itself is in the process of building a mobile version of the Unreal 3 engine.
“A lot of gaming is going mobile and I believe that console-style gaming is going there as well,” Rein continued. “It feels like there’s a great opportunity for game consoles to cease to be something you plug into the wall and rather become something you take with you. Of course it will be more than just your game console; you can have your productivity apps, your documents, and your media collections on it as well.”
It's an interesting vision of the future, to be sure. Would you like your next core system to be a handheld/console hybrid?
Check out the full interview here.
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