John Romero, best known for his on Wolfenstein 3D, Doom and Quake says that consoles are being killed off by PCs and mobile consoles.
Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz at the Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, New York, Romero said that free-to-play is shaking up the industry.
He said that with a PC you have free-to-play and Steam games for five bucks,” said Romero. “The PC is decimating console, just through price. Free-to-play has killed a hundred top studios.
Romero’s games involve providing the first episode free and if play more, then you pay up.
He said that everyone was getting better at free-to-play design, and it is going to lose its stigma at some point. People will settle into the mindset that there is a fair way of doing it, and the other way is the “dirty way.”
Romero said that with this model there were some technological advantages of PC over consoles.
“With PCs if you want a faster system you can just plug in some new video cards, put faster memory in it, and you’ll always have the best machine that blows away PS4 or Xbox One,” he said.
Romero also thinks that VR headsets are unlikely to make a significant impact on the gaming world.
He said that before using Oculus, he had heard many vets in the industry saying this is not like anything they had seen before.
While he thought that it was amazing, Romero could not see a good future for VR right now.
“It encloses you and keeps you in one spot – even the Kinect and Move are devices I wouldn’t play because they just tire you out,” Romero said.
“VR is going away from the way games are being developed and pushed as they go back into multiplayer and social stuff. VR is kind of a step back, it’s a fad.”
