日前，芬兰开发商Rovio董事长Peter Vesterbacka在SXSW大会上发言表示，他认为掌机游戏正在走向“灭亡”。与此同时，他还宣布《愤怒的小鸟》下载量已超过1亿次（包括免费版本，以及99美分付费版本）。

Peter Vesterbacka

游戏邦获悉，Vesterbacka在演讲中声称传统的40美元掌机游戏已经不合时宜了，因为这类游戏“很难升级”。不过来自诺基亚的一名发言人Tero Ojanpera却另有看法，他认为掌机游戏仍然会很有市场，因为玩家将平板电脑接入电视机的日子还没有这么早降临。

不过Vesterbacka还是承认了一个事实，即目前的社交游戏领域“还没有人摸索出”一个长期可靠的运营模式，他以《愤怒的小鸟》为例，说明Rovio的运营模式可以带来一个极具潜力的发展机遇。Vesterbacka希望为社交及手机游戏正名，让它们摆脱“休闲游戏”的标签，他认为“休闲电影”这种说法并不存在，“休闲游戏”这个词语也同样缺乏根据，他表示与任何硬核游戏一样，社交及手机游戏也同样可以为玩家带来引人入胜的激情游戏体验。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，转载请注明来源：游戏邦）

Console Games are ‘Dying’: Angry Birds Developer

Speaking at the South by Southwest Interactive conference, Peter Vesterbacka from Rovio, observed that console games are “dying”. He also refuted the fears about the industry moving into a casual mode with the resurgence of casual social and mobile gaming; especially with Rovio’s recent announcement about Angry Birds surpassing a whopping 100 million downloads. Then again, such comments prophesising the doom of a rival camp aren’t uncommon in the industry. But with console camp drumming the death of PC gaming since long, it’s amusing to see a relative newcomer return the favour.

Speaking at the interactive conference, Vesterbacka was all ridicule for the $40 price tag on traditional console games, which according to him doesn’t make sense as its “difficult to upgrade”. However, Peter’s reasoning was refuted by fellow panel member Tero Ojanpera from Nokia. Ojanpera argued in favour of the relevance of consoles, since, according to him, there’s still market for console games as gamers won’t be plugging tablet devices into their televisions any sooner.

Vesterbacka, however, conceded the fact that “nobody has figured out” a long-term, reliable business model for this new wave of social gaming. He cited the success story of Angry Birds and contended that there is credible a business opportunity with Rovio’s model. He also appeared rather desperate to drop the tag of “casual games”, and used the example of the movie industry by arguing that since the term “casual movies” does not exist, “casual gaming” is moot by the same logic. He stated that gamers can be as passionate and involved with mobile and social games, as they are with any hardcore console game.（source:techtree）