Amazon’s gaming boss Jeff Gattis has solved the console problem by predicting it out of existence. Rising hardware costs mean people will simply stream games instead, he said, as if the laws of physics and latency were merely marketing obstacles.
This is the same prediction we heard in 2009, 2015, 2019, and 2023. Each time it was delivered with the confidence of someone who had never actually tried to play a competitive shooter over a residential internet connection while their roommate streams Netflix in 4K.
Streaming gaming has a corpse count that would make a horror franchise jealous. OnLive burned through $150M and died. Google Stadia launched with the subtlety of a brick through a window and exited with the grace of one following impact. PlayStation Now exists in a quantum state where nobody knows if it’s still running. GeForce Now is technically functional if you already own the games elsewhere, which defeats the entire premise.
Why do tech executives keep resurrecting this particular zombie? Because hardware is hard. Manufacturing consoles requires supply chains, component costs, actual engineering. Streaming requires a press release, some optimistic infrastructure projections, and the fervent hope that network infrastructure will magically improve while you’re talking.
Consoles aren’t going anywhere because they work offline, they work reliably, and they cost less than the broadband required to stream 4K gaming without artifacts. But that won’t stop the next prediction in 2029. The vision will be exactly the same. The confidence will be exactly the same. The internet will be exactly the same speed it is now.