With computers becoming cheaper and faster at an exponential rate and smartphones/tablets eating into the market of gaming consoles, will they die a slow death or will they reinvent themselves to stay relevant in the future?
People who don't heavily play games on consoles are usually the only ones that are curious whether consoles have a future.
Consoles are doing just fine...the thing most people tend to forget is that console games suffer from the age old "early adoption" slow start. Every system since the Dreamcast has, and it's primarily because people want to wait until there are significant software releases before they invest in a console, and consoles tend to come down in price by the point the bulk of the sales wave hits.
Computers are easily capable of out performing consoles in the basic way games are developed. PC's will not begin truly taking over the console gaming market until they are integrated into TV's, and we're still some time away from that...and by then, I think the clear line between a console and a PC will be much less clear.