Is the web and not consoles, the future of gaming platforms?

Ben Cousins, executive producer at DICE and senior producer for the free to play online game Battlefield Heroes, has told GamesIndustry.biz that he believes the web will be "the big platform of the future".
Duringan interview, Cousins talked about the dominant role that he believesthe internet and browser based games will take in the future of thegames industry.
"People talk about which of the two, PlayStation or Xbox, is going to be the big platform of the future," Cousins said.

"I think the web is going to be the big platform of the future, whether it's running on an iPhone or a Mac or on the PC."
Ina response to a question about the possibility of a 'one consolefuture' Cousins answered, "Yes and it's going to be the web, and itdoesn't care if it runs on a phone or runs on a Mac or the PC."
Cousins'comments echo those of respected designer Raph Koster, who in Februarypointed to the reach and ubiquitous nature of Flash games as evidencethat the "web is kicking in the console industry's ass."

That is a definite no. Obviously web games are doing better than consoles, and for a few reasons. First of all, they're free, which is a given. Secondly, any computer whether its a 2 GHz P4 or a 3 GHz C2Q, its going to work - you don't need to buy anything special. Thirdly, its something people do when they're bored. Nobody in their right mind would replace a PSP or a DS or a gameboy with their web-based phone. Nobody would replace their console or gaming PC with these crappy and cliched flash/shockwave games. We play the games cause we're stuck at school, at work, or we're bored of our larger games. I would bet $5000 that the average person won't say "hmm instead of me buying my kid a new console, I'll just tell him to play free games online because thats the most played form of gaming."

Cousins doesn't know what hes talking about.