Sandy Duncan, the former boss of Xbox Europe, has said he believes consoles will disappear very soon as everything gets " virtualised" .

Speaking to ThatVideoGameBlog Duncan said, " The industry is fundamentally driven by technology. I think dedicated games devices, i.e. consoles and handhelds, will die [out] in the next five to ten years."

Duncan was with Microsoft for 15 years before leaving to co-found YoYo Games. Having established the Xbox business in Europe he knows a few things about launching new hardware, and observed there are huge risks involved. He predicted that as companies attempt to reduce these, there will be " a definite ' convergence' of other devices such as set-top boxes" .

" There' s hardly any technology difference between some hard disc video recorders and an Xbox 360, for example," Duncan stated.

" In fact in five to ten years I don’t think you’ll have any box at all under your TV; most of this stuff will be " virtualised" as web services by your content provider."