The era of the dedicated games console may be drawing to a close, according to Amazon's head of gaming Jeff Gattis, who has predicted that rising hardware costs will drive players to stream games online instead.
In an interview with the BBC, Gattis said the increasing price of gaming technology means more people will turn to cloud gaming — playing games streamed from remote servers on phones, tablets or controllers — rather than buying new consoles. "As hardware becomes more expensive, and as streaming technology continues to improve, I think you'll naturally see more people asking whether they actually need that dedicated device," he said.
“Amazon gaming boss Jeff Gattis says rising console costs will push gamers to stream online instead of buying hardware.”
His comments come as Amazon integrates its cloud gaming service Luna into the Prime Video app, placing it alongside films and TV shows under a new "Games" tab on Fire TVs in the US and UK. Luna is already included with a Prime subscription, but previously existed as a separate destination.
Cloud gaming itself is not new. Industry giants Sony and Microsoft already offer it as part of subscription services, and Google tried — and failed — with Stadia, which shut down in 2023. Players have so far preferred to install games on their own machines. But Gattis argued that the audience for streaming is far larger than traditional console owners. "There are somewhere between two-and-a-half and three billion people who play games around the world, but only a fraction of those own dedicated gaming hardware," he said.
Recent years have seen the cost of consoles climb sharply. Sony and Microsoft have increased prices, and Valve's new Steam Machine starts at £879. Gattis said streaming could help people unwilling to spend hundreds or thousands of pounds on hardware. He acknowledged, however, that some will still choose to buy their own machines.
Christopher Dring, editor-in-chief and co-founder of The Game Business, said there is likely an audience keen to play high-end titles like the upcoming Grand Theft Auto 6 but put off by technical requirements. But he warned that streaming still faces obstacles — many big games still require a controller. He also noted that for publishers, the subscription model remains a sticking point because of its potential impact on traditional sales.
The shift to streaming is not guaranteed: previous efforts have stumbled, and behaviour is slow to change. But with hardware prices rising and technology improving, Gattis' prediction may be less a question of if than when.