Between NVIDIA's (NVDA 0.74%) Tegra K1 chip, expected to bring console-quality gaming to mobile devices, and AMD's (AMD 0.17%) progress in the PC arena, dedicated consoles such as Xbox One and PS4 may soon have to defend their territory.
On the scene at this year's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Foolish tech and entertainment analyst Tim Beyers joins Rex Moore to share his thoughts on where the K1 and other new developments could lead.
A full transcript follows the video.
Rex Moore: Another area to watch is right behind us; mobile gaming, or gaming in particular. There's more stuff here at CES than I could look at, but you had a little bit better look than me. What did you think?
Tim Beyers: I really like what NVIDIA is doing.
Moore: NVIDIA.
Beyers: NVIDIA, with the Tegra K1; essentially, its graphics system is unified. It used to be different, where the Tegra mobile processor did have graphics rendering capability -- meaning that you could play a game on your mobile device -- but it was different than what they had in their historical technology.
They're a big player in gaming, especially consoles and PCs [with] the GeoForce platform -- and those two things used to be very distinct. Now, with the K1, it's unified. The idea here, over time, is that on a tablet you will get a console-quality game, and then be able to put that up on a TV, and then maybe connect it, via Bluetooth, to a wireless controller. I think that's coming. I don't think it's coming soon, but NVIDIA is really leading in this area.
We also had a chance, recently, to talk to AMD. They are being very aggressive in what they can put on a PC, so we're going to see a lot more development here.
I think the message for me is, consoles are under threat. They're doing very well right now -- the Xbox One and the Sony's PS4 are both very good consoles -- but I don't think it's an accident that the Xbox One is much more than a gaming device, because you have these other platforms that are starting to crop up and threaten the hegemony of a console.
