Atari founder Nolan Bushnell thinks that consoles as we know them are at “the end of an era.”
The founder of Atari, creator of Pong and honorary godfather of gaming, Nolan Bushnell, just can’t get the hang of the Wii U. Moreover, he doesn’t have much hope for the future of any next gen console, whether Nintendo’s or anyone else’s. “It feels like the end of an era,” said Bushnell to the New York Times.
Bushnell proclaims himself baffled by Nintendo’s latest console. “I don’t think it’s going to be a big success,” he claims. This isn’t the first time Bushnell has taken a swipe at Nintendo; a short while back, Bushnell argued that the Nintendo DS would give way to mobile devices, and tablets and smartphones would become the platforms of choice for mobile gamers.
Bushnell’s previous statements on the future of gaming in general haven’t been particularly enthusiastic, so his latest prediction regarding next generation consoles should perhaps be taken with a grain of salt. In the past he’s called modern games “pure, unadulterated trash,” and has argued that online gaming just isn’t social. Perhaps his Wii U bafflement and console disenchantment ought to be seen in that context; less a prediction, more of an an admission that things have changed considerably since Bushnell’s Atari days.
Source: My Nintendo News
