For the past decade mankind has bathed in the ever developing and intriguing pool of technology. Todays households are a much different place from that of the late 90's. Set top boxes, wireless routers, HDTVs, game consoles, PVRs are some of the most prominent pieces of technology that adorns the average living room in the US and Europe. I'd put a firm bet on 95% of you reading this that sitting under your main TV is at least two pieces of tech. Currently sitting under mine is a Xbox 360, Wii, PVR, and a home theatre receiver. Whilst some of them can do the same thing e.g. play DVDs they still each have their own individual use that is only available to me from that unit. So it got me thinking, will we ever see the day where one box will sit under our TV that does everything we want in terms of entertainment? Is it possible at the current time to only have the one? and would you want to have just one box?
This trail of thought came along after I recently considered picking up a PlayStation 3. My main reason for considering the purchase was that I am a huge Metal Gear Solid fan and MGS4 just gets closer each day. However there is also the fact that the PS3 offers me Blu ray, a big hard drive that I can upgrade, online capability and in the near future I will be able to receive digital TV using the PlayTV attachment. So for £299 I would be getting a lot of functionality from just one device, I could potentially knock my current five device set up down to three or possibly even two boxes. Freeing up real estate under the TV means less wires, less to clean and best of all only 2-3 remotes/controllers.
There is however that single vital flaw in such a proposition: I don't get all the available options I had before. I gain HD disc based movies and lose Video Marketplace, I gain MGS 4 and Uncharted but lose Gears of War and Halo 3, I gain a media center but lose family fun. It comes agonizingly close to realizing the singular box dream for entertainment centers everywhere but falls short by just missing some minor details that can mean a lot.
Personally I would love to have one device that suits all my entertainment needs. A good example that I currently enjoy now is having an iPhone, all possible manor of functionality that I require whilst on the move is right there in the palm of my hand. It's simple to use despite having a large variety of functionality, it saves me space and above all it meets my needs. So how about something like that for the living room?
So I put it to you the Detoid faithful, one box to rule them all? Does putting all your eggs in one basket concern you? Would you be prepared to negate some functionality in favour of others? Have you already cut down on the clutter under your TV? Would love to hear your ideas on the subject.
Lazlow out.
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Dozen of companies have been bragging about their product being the true home entertainment center.
The major point why this is not possible and why I wouldn't like to see this happening is simple economic, market competition is good, 3 major player in the gaming industry is good, keeps them trying to please the customer as much as possible.
Yes if you live in a world filled with fucking flowers and butterflies and rainbows, you can imagine one company having the vision and will to be the only provider of entertainment, but it ain't this world.
Steve Jobs could probably have the vision to pull something like that out of his ass but he knows better.
Personaly I'm glad with multiple consoles, dvd players, receiver, amplifiers etc etc
The problem is that while Sony and Microsoft do publish some games, they are primarily hardware based companies, so neither one is likely to cut their losses when it comes to consoles and simply worry about software in the way that Sega did, so we'll most likely have to deal with this crap for at least a couple more console generations.
Unfortunately, it won't see the light of day in the U.S. because our infrastructure is completely inferior to that of Europe and JP. Not only that, but the cost per box would be insane. Even now, those crappy Motorola based DVR boxes that U.S. cable companies deploy are still $150 - $200 per settop.
At this point Microsoft is the closest to dominating the living room in this type of manner.
That being said I don't like the idea of having just "one box to rule them all" for a few reasons:
1.) Without any competition there's less drive for companies to push new tech and new ideas.
2.) The games market will be saturated and game developers will be less likely to take risks with original titles and will almost be forced to produce games that sell. You only have to look at the Wii line up of mini games collections to see that. With games like Brain Training and Mario&Sonic at the Olympics selling so well (at least here in the UK) developers will churn out more and more games like these because they will sell and fresh and original titles like No More Heroes will gather dust on the shelves more so than they are now.
3.) With only one box that one company effectively has a monopoly on the market and hence can dictate the prices of games and accessories. One of the reasons EA can get away with the extortionate price for Rock Band in Europe is because it's unique and there is nothing else like it that you can buy and so EA can charge what they want for it.
All in all I think the competition we have now between Sony, MS and Nintendo is healthy for the industry because it forces them to compete with their prices and drive new innovative features and games
...by pulling out the chain of RF adapters that were back there. I didn't even know I had A/V cables for my N64!