Wed, Sep 28, 2011 | 08:18 BST

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GameStop: Consoles will continue to be industry’s “gold standard”

iPhones are flying off shelves. Your grandparents frequently go on 27-hour Farmville binges. OnLive and Gaikai may actually be powered by magic. So, this triple threat has consoles six feet under, right? Not even close, says GameStop president Tony Bartel.

“We continue to believe that the console is a strong platform and will continue to be the gold standard,” he told IndustryGamers. “People will begin to digitally download first a lot more downloadable content.”

“Eventually, full games will become more relevant to some consumers who want to do that. Then we think that streaming will continue to grow. As you get additional bandwidth, we think that it’s going to become more prevalent over time, which is why we’ve invested in it.”

Assuming consoles begin to go with the flow instead of against it, I can see where he’s coming from. For now, though, we live in a world of needlessly involved certification processes, arbitrary Xbox Live friend limits, and made up “point” currencies, because – I don’t know – real dollars are scary or something. This is going to be an uphill battle.

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