In addition to stand alone GPS, recordable optical discs, e-readers, low-end digital cameras, and DVD players, Yahoo Shopping predicts video game consoles will also be extinct by 2020.

Popular video game systems such as the Wii, PlayStation and Xbox may still be in homes next decade, but they will look much different. Rather than buy a separate console, Enderle expects that consumers will instead buy smart televisions with a gaming system built into it, not to mention tablets and smartphones that will continue to ramp up their gaming options.

“It looks like analog game systems won’t make it until the end of the decade,” Enderle says. “You are already seeing the Wii have a tough time holding on to the market and PlayStation has been struggling for a while.” The gaming systems that will succeed in the future will be those that manage to move away from being focused solely on video games and more on other entertainment options such as movies, evolving from a traditional game console into more of a set-top box.

Thanks, Ben.

In a recent edition of the Iwata Asks series, Satoru Iwata interviews Hisashi Koinuma of Tecmo Koei.  In edition to talking about the upcoming 3DS game Samurai Warriors Chronicles, they also chatted up a bit about how Koinuma was introduced into gaming. His story got me thinking about how I first became interested in video games.

My first memories of anything relating to video games is from my daycare center La Petite where I played Castlevania on the NES when I was four. I immediately begged my parents for a ‘Nintendo’ for what felt like a lifetime until finally one glorious day my parents came home with a second hand console, complete with Super Mario Bros./Duckhunt, Ninja Gaiden, two controllers and a Zapper. I was hooked for life.

So tell us world of Infendo, how did you find every body’s favorite pastime, video games?

I unsubscribed to Kotaku last year. Nice folks and all. It’s just their coverage became too esoteric for my liking and not as fun or game-focused as they used to be (same goes for Joystiq).

In any case, Kotaku launched a redesign yesterday. From a usability perspective, it’s horrible. Like a return to frames. Or a flash site that makes you scroll within frames as opposed to the entire browsing window. It’s bold, I’ll admit. But web users like scrolling. And this has unorthodox use of it. So my guess is traffic will decrease.

Either way, what do you think? And while we’re on the subject, what are some of your favorite gaming websites?

In the summer of 1983, the original Famicom was unleashed on the Japanese market – a small, affordable home computer system with just three launch titles: Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong 2, and Popeye – each nearly dead ringers for their arcade counterparts.  The console was an instant hit, and it wasn’t long before Nintendo started to look to the west, eventually releasing the legendary Nintendo Entertainment System in 1985 – but before the NES, Nintendo had something very different in mind, something that could been the difference between success and failure in the North American market.  This is the story of the Nintendo “Advanced Video System”

(more…)

This is a very awesomely done traditional/sprite animation done by a team of awesome artists. The art was done by PersonaSama A.K.A. Jonathan Kim who did the traditional hand drawn art, and Paul Robertson for the sprite animation.

This is all pretty awesome. I wish I had an energy drink that made life like a video game.

[Via PersonaSama on Youtube]