Dough - Series 2: Game Consoles

Game consoles have come a long way since the 1970s but could their days now be numbered?

The entrepreneur, Sam White, returns with a new series of Dough - the BBC Radio 4 show which looks at the business behind profitable everyday products and where the smart money might take them next.

In each episode, Sam, and the futurist, Tom Cheesewright, are joined by product manufacturers and industry experts whose inside knowledge gives a new appreciation for the everyday things that we often take for granted.

Together they look back on a product’s earliest (sometimes ridiculous!) iterations, discuss how a product has evolved and the trends which have driven its profitability.

In this episode on video game consoles, the pair hear from expert guests including:

Seamus Blackley - the original creator of Microsoft's Xbox

Keza MacDonald - video games editor at the Guardian

James McWhirter - a senior analyst specialising in video games for the research firm, Omdia.

They trade opinions on the game console's 'game-changing' innovations and its most pointless, or least effective, ones too, before Tom steps in, drawing on his expertise as a futurist, to imagine where consoles might end up in the decades to come.

Dough is produced by Jon Douglas and is a BBC Audio North production for BBC Radio 4 and BBC Sounds.

Sliced Bread returns for a new batch of investigations in the spring when Greg Foot will investigate more of the latest so-called wonder products to find out whether they really are the best thing since sliced bread.

In the meantime, Dough is available in the Sliced Bread feed on BBC Sounds