Richard Garriott thinks that the future of gaming is in free-to-play, along with synchronous and asynchronous gameplay that is platform agnostic. What he doesn’t think is the future is dedicated game consoles.
“I think we might get one more generation, might, but I think fundamentally they’re doomed,” asserted Garriott. “I think fundamentally the power that you can carry with you in a portable is really swamping what we’ve thought of as a console.”
Source: IndustryGamers.com