After last week's condemnation concerning the future of home videogame consoles by Trion World Network Founder, Lars Butler, at the launch of Hewlett-Packard's plans to enter the PC market, now another high-profile industry player has admitted that he predicts a similarly bleak future for the likes of the Sony PlayStation 3 and Microsoft Xbox 360 - but curiously, not the Nintendo Wii.

Slipgate Ironwork's John Romero, whose credits include Doom and Quake, told Adrenaline Vault, "Next-gen console is big but its future isn't too bright with the emergence of cheap PC multi-core processors and the big change the PC industry will go through during the next 5 years to accommodate the new multi-core-centric hardware designs.

My prediction is that the game console in the vein of the PS3 and Xbox 360 is going to either undergo a massive rethink or go away altogether."

However, Romero was more optimistic about the future of the Wii, agreeing with Nintendo's policy of broadening the gaming market with a more accessible form of gaming:

"The Wii has the perfect design for a console that doesn’t pretend to be a PC and is geared more toward casual gamers than hardcore gamers," he explained.

"The hardcore gamers are going to either be playing on their PCs or a new PC-like platform that sits in the living room but still serves the whole house over Wi-Fi, even the video signal," Romero predicted.

What about that, then? Are consoles 'doomed'? Should Sony and Microsoft 'quake' in their boots after Romero's words? Hohoho!