When I'm (Commodore) 64

Rock Band Beatles was announced by Harmonix at the recent E3 event; in a moment of play.com madness I bought the original Rock Band game which came complete with a full range of plastic instruments. I really enjoyed it, however I rarely touch it now and the peripherals lie dismantled behind the sofa. It's primarily a multiplayer game, so living room solos are nowhere near a much fun as combining it with friends and booze. Unfortunately that means having to persuade a trainee super-group to come all the way out to the 'burbs, put the drum kit together, find working batteries and so on... Inevitably it becomes a shambles and I doubt very much my neighbours enjoy the game as much as I do.

Regardless of the success or otherwise of these infrequent jam sessions, one thing that's clear is that these type of games largely work for even non-gamers because the control scheme is fairly intuitive. I can give anyone an imitation guitar and they know how to hold it because it looks and feels like a cheap plastic guitar. I wouldn't give a non-gamer an Xbox controller and expect them to play Halo 3... I've grown up playing games since my godfather introduced me to Pong on the Atari 2600 and my gaming memories are defined by the transition from keyboards to joysticks to game pads and now the wii-mote (and its upcoming imitators.) Controls still play a big part in my gaming decisions, I prefer Xbox over PS3 because the controller fits more comfortably in my hands and it just makes sense to have the triggers underneath, especially if I'm playing a first person shooter.

The Wii has of course brought a degree of parity to the gaming world and unfortunately revealed that I'm as bad at bowling on screen as I am in the real world. Inclusivity is the new name of the game and Microsoft's Project Natal looks to take this a major step further than Nintendo by getting rid of the physical controller altogether.

Last year I worked on a project with a company called WildTangent that runs an online games portal. WT's outspoken former CEO Alex St. John (pronounced “Sinjin” I discovered later but everyone was too gracious to correct me at the time) widely and loudly proclaimed that this would be the last generation of standalone consoles. He argued that the games industry would surely embrace digital distribution as a means to cut out the retail middle man and thus take the fullest slice of profit whilst saving money on logistics. It would of course also negate the thorny issues of piracy and the resale market.

It's widely known that most current gen games consoles are loss leaders, hence Microsoft and Sony make little to no money from hardware and recoup this outlay via software sales. However, should the games companies choose to cut out the middle man it's unlikely High Street vendors would be unlikely to waste valuable shelf space on games consoles unless they could shore up their own margins with games. St. John argued that the current retail business model for video games is unsustainable in the long term, hence likely to go the way of the dodo.

It isn't surprising that his forthright views have proved controversial within the wider gaming community, not least because he was looking to plug Wildtangent's downloadable “virtual console”, Orb. However the success of digital download services from the likes of PSN, Xbox Live and Steam would suggest that he may be onto something... Both Nintendo and Sony have updated their hand-helds this year to focus more on digital distribution and thanks to improving broadband speeds and cheaper storage it would seem little by little consumers are coming round to the idea of downloading games, especially if we consider the massive success of Apple's app store.

St. John's other contention was that if we were to look at the rise and fall of the coin-op game business, the rise in ever more outlandish plastic-y peripherals as a means of interaction offers a harbinger of doom to the current games companies. I was recently in Bognor, at Butlins truth be told, a group of us escaped from the compound for an hour or so and made our way down the front to the pier. One of my guilty pleasures is to waste a few quid in arcades whenever I get the chance. After negotiating our way round identikit racing and light-gun games we found a Guitar Hero cabinet. Seizing any opportunity for two grown men to rock out in front of the (clearly impressed) teenage denizens of the arcade, a mate and I duly paid our one pound and got one song for our money... One song. The graphics were no better than the home versions and the guitars weren't as sophisticated, but to be fair the amps were at least of a quality you might expect from sound system in the boot of a Max Power fan. I've been through Asda car park on a Saturday night and I can testify those bad boys have got some bass.

I have got a lot of unused gimmicy peripherals cluttering up the flat so Project Natal will be a welcome space saver. Even if we see games taking up less space on shop shelves due to digital distribution, this is unlikely to diminish gaming's appeal. As an entertainment medium gaming is now well and truly established, and, as the logical extension of the Wii, Project Natal will likely bring more people to the hobby in the longer term. Therefore I don't think Rock Band and its ilk spell the end for video game consoles just yet, but I do think Project Natal may prove the death of game controllers. However, if I were Game or one of the other High Street retailers I'd seriously consider diversifying or investing more in online...