Will tablets be the next console generation?

[Necromancer]

I don't have the patience or inclination to sit through the 26 minutes of the first article, but the second one is just plain dumb.  It's filled with logical fallacies and false 'facts': consoles always sold at a loss, yet the Wii never was and the PS3/360 only in the beginning; if you care about graphics you'd buy at launch or game on a PC, which totally ignores cost and people waiting for specific games to come out; that tablets/phones are automatically more convenient, even if the library is thin and they don't offer any where near the same type of multiplayer experiences (online and real life); or if you want more from a game experience than what Angry Birds has to offer, you'll migrate to a pricier, more trouble prone PC platform.

I'll agree that phones and tablets will hurt console sales (even more so on the portable side), but it ain't going to kill 'em.

[Duo_R]

Very interesting article, I saw all the arguments coming but it was still pretty neat to see it presented. Its pretty sad however that the consoles are dying.

[HercTNT]

Hardest part in all of this is phones and tablets, as has already been pointed out, do not have proper controls. It says alot about the direction gaming has gone when millions complain very little about having there thumbs over half the game screen. You can only have so many touch screen gravity controlled knockoffs, before the depth of the games suffer. I realize there are always exceptions to the rules, but i find the trend towards tablet and phone games are dumbing down there quality significantly. worse is you don't need nearly as many people or as much money to make the games. so it benefits the developers to dump shit on phone and tablet platforms from a financial standpoint, quality be damned.

[SnethSS]

Consoles and physical media as we know it are going away.  They will probably make it partially through this next generation.
After that, I imagine most content will be digital download and cloud based.  Most of the business world is switching to cloud based software, and i see the games market doing the same thing.
Cherish these last few consoles.  Onlive is ahead of it's time and will probably die out.  But history will know it was the beginning of the end.

[_joshuaTurbo]

Very interesting article, I saw all the arguments coming but it was still pretty neat to see it presented. Its pretty sad however that the consoles are dying.

I still don't get how this is being forcasted or predicted.  Didn't the Wii/PS3/360 generation completely blow out every other console generation as far as total sales of systems?  All three had healthy lives and sold really well.