Game designer and producer Naoki Yoshida has been with Square Enix for seventeen years, but only recently became a high-profile figure thanks to his stewardship of Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn, arguably the biggest comeback story in gaming alongside No Man's Sky.

　　Following his excellent work with the MMORPG, Yoshida was brought on board the Final Fantasy XVI project as a producer. Just over three months ago, he revealed that the next mainline Final Fantasy game will be action-focused, though there will also be a story mode for those players less skilled with action combat.

　　Now, in a fresh interview with the Financial Times, Naoki Yoshida shared an interesting comment on the industry of the gaming industry. According to the Square Enix producer, cloud streaming services are destined to take over once the 5G rollout is completed globally.

　　Once 5G becomes the global standard, there will definitely come a time when we can transfer images to any device.

　　Players can enjoy a high-quality gaming experience on any device by not being tied to a gaming hardware or TV monitor. We’re definitely heading in that direction, and I don’t think coronavirus will slow this shift.

　　With home consoles, you need to sit in front of the television . . . and turn on the power and wait for the hardware to start up, so it was a time-consuming entertainment. With stay at home, there were more opportunities to turn the switch on.

　　Indeed, 5G could be the way for Google Stadia, GeForce NOW, Amazon Luna, and Microsoft's XCloud to really breach the mobile market. While 4G connections allow for a passable experience, the difference with 5G is expected to be dramatic for gaming thanks to the much lower latency (estimated between 8 and 12 milliseconds).

　　5G rollout suffered delays in recent years, partly because of the COVID pandemic, but it's now expected to resume in earnest.