Is single-player gaming over? DEBATE

In an interview with Eurogamer ex-Sony head of development and now Infogrames president, Phil Harrison, has predicted the death of the single-player game:

Alone in the Dark is a beautifully crafted single-playeradventure game. I don't think the industry is going to make many moreof those. I just don't think consumers want to be playing games thatdon't have some kind of network connectivity to them, or some kind ofcommunity embedded in them, or some kind of extension available throughdownloadable content.

He says something similar in an interview with Gamasutra too. What do you think? We've sort of covered this before - back in March I mentioned my apprehensions regarding a possible massively-multiplayer GTA.At the same time, I know that every time I load up CoD 4 intending toplay through a few single player missions, I end up on the online modefor several hours. I went to see Midway's Wheelman last week, and itlooks incredibly impressive, but I was surprised when they told me it'ssingle-player only. Not disappointed, just surprised. Becauseit is, as Harrison suggests, going against the accepted orthodoxy ofgame design in our hyper-connected culture.
I think, though, that there is a disparity between consumer demand for multiplayer and consumer useof multiplayer. Online modes can be a sort of interactive equivalent ofDVD special features - the perceived value is many more times moreimportant than the practical benefit.
Think about Resident Evil, Metal Gear Solid, Final Fantasy and, yes,GTA - the experiences provided by these games are fundamentallydifferent to those sought through online multiplayer. They arecontrolled, choreographed narrative journeys - even co-op doesn'treally work.
It is still possible, amid the chaos of permanent social connection,to sit down alone and lose yourself in a book. It always will be.Playing co-op Resi would be like reading The Stand with someone tryingto look at the book over your shoulder.
And, lest we forget, Phil Harrison was the man who tried to claim rumble was a last generation feature.It just happens that Atari is edging toward a casual social gamingmodel, just like Sony just happened to be effectively barred fromemploying rumble due to a legal wrangle with patent-holder, Immersion. Nine times out of ten, prophesy is agenda.