Video game throughts
I'm a fan of the Wii. Not cause I really love any games on it, but rather cause on principal, I've kinda grown to dislike the videogame industry and their focus on graphically intense, high speed, complex-to-control video games which pretty much caters to a very elitist videogame community. So, when I hear that the Wii's topping out sales and kicking butt in comparison to hardware monstrosities like the Xbox360 or the PS3, I'm actually quite happy.
Nintendo's vision is great: make the Wii into a family friendly console. It's definitely an industry wake-up call. However, I think the Wii (in its current incarnation) isn't going far enough in pushing the edge. It's got a good broad appeal, but in the end, it's still a game system. The people who will buy it are people who think it's okay/good to buy game systems.
Seeing Sony announce its PlayTV kinda hit it home for me. The battle isn't over winning the video gamers, it's about willing the battle to consolidate your entertainment devices.
It's an old, but still exciting, vision: all your digital media needs in one box with one interface.
The complexities of modern media setups astounds me. You've got 5 distinctly different methods of connecting machines together (component, composite, svideo, hdmi, and in some cases RF) -- and that's just for video. Experiencing a full range of media requires a 6 disparate technologies: DVDs/HD-DVDs/Blueray, cable, ipod, DivX, online-videos (eg. youtube or joost), and radio. It's ridiculous. Someone needs to consolidate at least some of them. I mean, I even bought an Xbox just to run Xbox Media Center cause it was (and still is) one of the closer things to a unified system out there!
So moving back to the original point, of all the video game consoles, I think the Wii is the one that's best poised to try unifying the rest of the products.
So I guess what I really want is the Wii that can play DVDs/ integrated with an AppleTV.
Nintendo and Apple should really get together. And Toshiba + Sony should shake hands and allow hybrid players to be made.
Nintendo's vision is great: make the Wii into a family friendly console. It's definitely an industry wake-up call. However, I think the Wii (in its current incarnation) isn't going far enough in pushing the edge. It's got a good broad appeal, but in the end, it's still a game system. The people who will buy it are people who think it's okay/good to buy game systems.
Seeing Sony announce its PlayTV kinda hit it home for me. The battle isn't over winning the video gamers, it's about willing the battle to consolidate your entertainment devices.
It's an old, but still exciting, vision: all your digital media needs in one box with one interface.
The complexities of modern media setups astounds me. You've got 5 distinctly different methods of connecting machines together (component, composite, svideo, hdmi, and in some cases RF) -- and that's just for video. Experiencing a full range of media requires a 6 disparate technologies: DVDs/HD-DVDs/Blueray, cable, ipod, DivX, online-videos (eg. youtube or joost), and radio. It's ridiculous. Someone needs to consolidate at least some of them. I mean, I even bought an Xbox just to run Xbox Media Center cause it was (and still is) one of the closer things to a unified system out there!
So moving back to the original point, of all the video game consoles, I think the Wii is the one that's best poised to try unifying the rest of the products.
So I guess what I really want is the Wii that can play DVDs/ integrated with an AppleTV.
Nintendo and Apple should really get together. And Toshiba + Sony should shake hands and allow hybrid players to be made.