If you'd like to read about the press event Microsoft held today to unveil their new Xbox, the Xbox One, you should visit The Verge. There are all kinds of tech improvements over the last console, including audio commands, a Blu-ray player, a Kinect sensor, vibrating controllers, Skype, a Halo TV series, live TV, and exclusive games.

If you'd like to read a good piece about what the Xbox One (and the disappointing Wii U and whatever Playstation is working on) might mean, news intern Ansel Herz directed my attention to Luke Plunkett's explanation of why these new video game consoles are "bumming" him "out."

...I've got an overbearing sense of melancholy. Maybe even ennui. Not at the machines themselves; the PS4 seems supremely capable, and I've no doubt the next Xbox will be similar. No, I'm sad about the fact that this feels like the last gasp. A final hurrah.

The end of console gaming as we know it.

Maybe I can't see gaming's forest for the trees. Maybe I'm just bleak. But I can't see another round of console launches after this. OK, perhaps Nintendo can squeeze one more in, if only out of necessity, but the prospect of Sony and/or Microsoft having the will - or the money - to make a PS5 or Xbox 1080 in 5-8 years seems remote.

I am not a gamer—I can be a gamer or I can be books editor at The Stranger; I cannot do both—but this feels true to me. The idea of a single device to serve a single function feels like something out of the last century, and as much as these devices may try to make themselves into multi-purpose entertainment center devices, I think the idea of a gaming console is not long for this world.