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Should Game Consoles Make Breakfast, Too?
Ryan writes "Is the idea of 'convergence' (the notion that a single digital appliance will handle multiple tasks) in gaming consoles even worth it? CNET News has an article discussing the issues of convergence related to gaming - it seems like a lot of consumers aren't worried about the bells and whistles, yet they keep throwing them at us." The article mentions the "underwhelming" response to Sony's PSX console/DVR combo, whose "arrival in North America--originally slated to happen in time for the 2004 holiday shopping season--is now set for an unspecified date in 2005."
Nintendo have always been sceptical of the "Everything and the kitchen sink" approach that Microsoft and Sony have taken with their consoles. They do but one thing -- gaming -- but do it well, unlike their other competitors who want to be a DVD player/CD player/PC/Internet terminal/TiVo. Their philosophy is to focus on one thing -- gaming, and make it our core competency, continuing to come out with seminal hits that people synonimize with the video game industry, Mario, Zelda, and so on.
They are continuing this trend with our future game consoles, and I do believe that because of Nintendo's laser-sharp and well-defined focus, that Sony and Microsoft's leads will be short lived in the next generation.
-- Samir Gupta, Ph. D. Head, New Technology Research Group, Nintendo Co. Ltd., Kyoto, Japan.
I don't know how they do things in Asia, but around here, Playing games and watching TV are very divergent functions.
On the other hand, can those things play games and record TV at the same time?
The optimist sees "convergence" while the pessimist sees "feature creep". Guess that makes me a pessimist.
if convergance is not desired.... why then do people mod x-boxes and add all sorts of cool functionality (like media centers, file shares, web browsers, etc etc etc)?
*Shrug*
e.
Build Your Own PVR/HTPC news, reviews, &
And not only that, convergence takes away choices...kinda like those all-in-one stereo pieces of shit.
If the CD player in one of those dies, you may as well throw the whole thing out, since it's made so cheap that the repair cost isn't worth the effort. This goes for almost any multifunction device.
I like my PS2...and I also like my TiVo, but when the time to upgrade to HDTV comes along, I'm really only going to want the new PVR/tuner. Even if I like the Sony PVR, what happens to the X-Box or Nintendo fan? They simply get junk they don't need and had to pay for.
I don't want to replace an entire system when a subset of that system either breaks, or I want to upgrade.
// Agent Green (Ian / IU7 / KB1JQO)
// IEEE 802.3: All 10base Are Belong To Us
if it was priced lower than US$600 (last I heard). I really love the device and would scoop one up in a second if I couldn't go out and buy a computer to do all the same things for less than the cost of the PSX.
I think Microsoft learned this lesson the hard way; offering too many unused features at too high a price. They seem to be steering the Xbox successor to more profitable waters, and maintaining the core focus on performance.
On top of it all, I think is Sony is trying to milk the PS2 market for all it's worth with the price of a PS2 around $149.99, four years later.
Just my 2 cents.
I would agree. With the game console, DVD player and PVR as separate units you can replace/retire one when it breaks or you get tired of it. With the combo units if one part breaks you need to replace the whole unit. So they have to offer lifetime warranties that are good for 5 years or more. Still I would not want to wait the 2-3 weeks it will take to ship the unit and get it fixed, since in doing so I lose PVR, DVD and Game functionality all at once.
Also they have to price the entire package at or close to the price of the most expensive component. You can get a $90 DVD player, Tivo's are at $100-$200, that leaves the game console portion. However you can build/buy a PC for $300-$500 that will do the same thing this will.
Have you ever seen a half million dollar game room? When you spend that kind of money, you have serious system designers, serious installers, and serious hardware. You have a $2500 Arcam FMJ DVD player, or an $8000 Carousel. You don't use your Playstation for a DVD player. Have you ever compared PS2-as-DVD player to even a $200 DVD player? I know the live-in-mom's-basement slashdot crowd thinks their PS2 connected to the RF input of their VCR displayed in fluctuating brightness Macrovision glory on their 27" Apex TV is the be-all-end-all of consumer electronics, but trust me-- it gets better than that. And the guy designing and installing a half-million dollar game room/entertainment space knows this, and will collect for himself the high margins associated with $2500 DVD players and all the necessary extra cabling. With that budget, everything can be hidden away effectively too, if that is what is desired.
I'd say that the PSX will be installed for shits and giggles in half-million-dollar-entertainment-room guy's bedroom, maybe.
HO
As a purist I'd rather that my Denon home theatre receiver didn't have an AM/FM tuner in it, because the tuner section is crap and because I don't listen to radio on my home theatre system, but I don't have to use the tuner, I could even put an outboard tuner in if I wanted to, so it does no harm except to my aesthetic sense.
Manufacturers of all-in-one devices would do well to ask themselves if jamming all of these devices into one box achieves any kind of synergy that makes the sum greater than the parts. Even when there are natural synergies that are inherent to the hardware, such as the ability of the X-box and PS/2 to play DVDs, you may still find that users don't find this useful, as evidenced by the number of people I know who own both an X-box and a DVD player or a PS/2 and a DVD player.
Of course it might be nice if software developers would ask the same question. Do users really need an office suite that does all of the useless crap that MS Office or Star Office does? Or would users be better served if developers looked for natural synergies in software products?
cheap labor conservatives - they want to keep you hungry enough to be thankful for minimum wage.
People always say convergence doesn't matter, and it doesn't, but it really does.
:-)
Lemme explain.
I would have bought the PS/2 for the same price if it didn't have the DVD player built in. Most people would have. But when I was getting a console, the fact that it had a DVD player built in mattered to my view of the value I'd get from the purchase. It made me feel good about it.
Now that we've used the PS/2 for a while, we find that we use that DVD player all the time. It's not the best DVD player on the planet, but it sure beats the VHS sitting next to it that we ignore. Because of that use, once again I feel I got good value for my money on the purchase. I think it's much more 'worth it' than I would if it didn't have a DVD player built in. It makes me feel good about buying more stuff from Sony, because I know they try to give me more than just the basic function listed on the box.
Contrast this with the ill-fated DVR version of the PS/2. With the regular PS/2, the DVD was a 'gift'. It was added value that I did't feel I was paying anything extra for. The new super box, on the other hand, was a lot more expensive. I would be paying for everything. And, because I already have a PS/2, I'd end up with actually less value then what is listed on the box.
So, to summerize:
Convergence is great if you get more than you pay for and it doesn't cost the manufaturer much more to give it to you (sony was using DVD as the media anyway. The DVD movie player cost them almost nothing to bundle in). It's great because the consumer feels he's getting good value for the money.
Convergence is bad if the consumer feels he's paying extra for a bunch of redundant stuff he'll never use.
I sure hope manufaturers are paying attention to this post
TW
Complain about something legitimate, and you are trying to be fashionable? Wow. I guess I have been fashionable since 2000. That is when I ditched my cellphone because it was a pointless cost. It is a sheer convenience that people have treated like a necessity. I had the first StarTac that Motorola produced, back in 96 I think. It was analog. Phones today give no better call quality than that phone did then. Once I realized that "digital" was no better than analog, I got rid of it. My wife and I have a pre-paid phone for emergency use only, and spend about $10 a month on it. We rarely use it, it simply isn't necessary. I don't know where you live, but I live near Chicago, and call quality sucks here. I get sick of hearing people yelling "Hello? Hello?" into their phones, or worse yet see people driving and trying to figure out if the call got dropped or not. And Nextel has their cool 2-way service, but I have never been able to understand what anyone is saying using that.
Don't believe the hype, you don't need a cellphone.
To answer the question of "Why do they keep making and selling crappy features instead of improving call quality", I have to ask: "Why do you have a cell phone? Have you given them a reason to improve call quality?" If you own a phone now, and keep signing contracts every year or two, then you are showing them that it doesn't MATTER if call quality sucks, people will still sign on the dotted line.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
The "convergence" move arose out of the success of the PC. The idea is that general purpose devices can work really well, and allow reuse of components. The problem is that the reason the PC did well is because it was open, general purpose, reconfigurable, and available from many sources. There is no General Purpose Cell Phone 2004 Standard. I can't just buy a "phone platform" and replace parts in it from another vendor. Instead, I have to buy an increasingly expensive, proprietary and complex system. On a PC, I can tone down complexity -- on a cell, I have to use whatever I'm offered.
On a "converged" open platform like the PC, I don't lose choice over what I buy. I might like WinAMP over Sonique, Wordperfect over Word, and Firefox over Internet Explorer. That's okay, because I can still pick and choose the elements of my converged device. On a closed (i.e. unsuccessful) converged platform, this is not the case. Cell providers sell these all-in-one packages, where one must use every element of one of several packages -- you either get phone model Foo or phone model Baz.
The same goes for game platforms, set-top/cable boxes, watches, and so on, and so forth.
May we never see th
I just bought a Sony R-series that does all that. It handles convergence fairly well, is pretty quiet, and comes with a remote control that lets you do most anything. Only problems are 1) It is really pricey. 2) I am now locked into XP Media Center edition, with little hope of finding Linux drivers for all the features in this box.
You're absolutely right (As my PS2 is my main DVD player), but I'd like to take the concept a bit futher...
I bought the PS2 when it was new... So I got a new gaming machine, and a DVD player. Two new things that I didn't have before. I thought it was a pretty hot deal, and I thought $200 was a great price.
Now, however, is another story. I already have a PS2, so I don't need one of those, and I already have a DVR... So I'm OK in that department. While the DVR is a new enough technology that people are willing to buy it, a lot already do. I'm certainly not an early adopter.
So, why would I buy one device that does two things, that I can do anyway? Even if I didn't have the DVR, I was happy with my VCR, and would not be able to justify the purchase of another PS2 gaming console... I'd buy a stand-alone DVR.
Sure, there are some people buying PS2s, but I think their timing with this new tech is bad. They should have released the DVR along with the PS3, so you had an option between a base model, or the model with a built in DVR. That way, you could entice people with a product that offers two new features, instead of watching them shy away from re-purchasing the same functionality.
~D
This sig has been enciphered with a one-time pad. It could say almost anything.
Well, These guys should make this gadget usb enabled so that you could plug it into your console. Now, with xbox live and ps2 net adapter, you could have all the sex partners in the world!
yush
Says you.
When I spent $200 on an Xbox, you couldn't get $40 DVD players then.
Plus, "convergence" is just natural. I mean, what should MS have said: "Duhr, we've got a DVD drive in our game console, hey, let's make it NOT play movies! LOL!!!111"? Yeah, that would've been great. Likewise, the first CD-ROM based game consoles could play audio CDs. Again, a capability of the hardware, being put into use. The Xbox wasn't made to be all-in-one, it was made to play games, and the hardware that went along with that had other abilities, and only a total moron would not exploit those.
Now, game consoles have hard drives. DVR capabilities are an obvious use of this. The hardware is there - one might as well include some software to make use of it.
People talk about the Xbox and PS2 and their future counterparts, as if they're being made to do everything under the sun. They're not. They're being built as game consoles, and then the other abilities of the hardware are being put to good use.
People aren't against the PSX because it is an all-in-one - they're against it because you can buy two PS2s and two TiVOs for the same price. Nobody bought the 3DO for its price either, and that had nothing to do with convergence.