Consoles Will Be History in Five Years Says Dead or Alive Developer

In an interview with Polygon, Tomonobu Itagaki, the outspoken head of Valhalla Game Studios, developer of polarising Wii U exclusive Devil’s Third, has branded the PS4 Pro a mere token move to support VR technology and has claimed that game consoles will be dead within five years. Itagaki, lead developer on the Ninja Gaiden and Dead or Alive series while at Team Ninja, spoke about why Devil’s Third 2 is likely to be a PC exclusive, and in the process took aim at Sony for its “rhetoric” over the supposedly more powerful PS4 Pro.

“PlayStation 4 Pro is just rhetoric,” Itagaki told Polygon. “The current gen doesn’t have enough power to support VR, so they’re releasing it to support VR. I’m going to get in trouble again for saying this, aren’t I? Microsoft and Sony are going to be on my case for saying shit like this. PS4 Pro is not really their motivation. VR, which is what the upgrade is for, requires a lot of processing power.”

Itagaki is no stranger to confrontation, having maintained a feud with Tekken director Katsuhiro Harada while working on rival beat ’em up series Dead or Alive.

“My current standard is PC,” Itagaki added. “The PC allows me to have direct access to the users, and I’m very comfortable with that right now. That’s why Microsoft rolled out Windows 10, even though it was a little forced. They’re going to gain a billion users.”

While Itagaki fully expects both Sony and Microsoft to release next-gen consoles after the PS4 and Xbox One, he predicts that console gaming will come to an end within five years.

“Think about it in percentages, though. If 5 percent of those billion users can play games, that’s still 50 million users,” he explained. “Compare that to the install base of console users. The end of console systems is within five years.”