The modern console wants it allColumn Games are old hat, downloads are where the real cash is atBy Martin Lynch: Wednesday 28 March 2007, 12:25THE ERA OF GAMES consoles being just for games is over. It’s been on the cards, but now it’s a fact. The arrival of the PS3 last week and the unveiling of the much-speculated Xbox 360 Elite by Microsoft, have effectively shattered any barriers left between gaming and mainstream entertainment devices in the home.There has always been a dividing line between traditional entertainment devices - TV, DVD players, audio, home cinema, etc - and gaming devices like consoles or the ever struggling, Media Center PCs. Some would say the barriers have been down for some time but that’s only true for a small proportion of tech-minded folk that have no trouble hooking up PCs to TVs and streaming devices. For most people, it’s still gobbledygook. In fact, for many console users it’s still gobbledygook too but the new consoles – and existing ones with add-ons - are being groomed for new, interactive services.Both of these platforms are launch pads for interactive download services, from games and movies to TV shows, music and high-def video. You might read a lot about how great and realistic the new HD games are but that’s no longer what the modern console is all about. Apple TV might be the sexy newcomer on the streaming front but its real competition is going to come from consoles. Hell, you can already use the Xbox 360 as a Media Center Extender for getting PC content to your TV, although most users tend to stick with gaming and some online activities.Let’s look at how thing’s stack up on the online services front. The Xbox platform, through Live and Marketplace has the lead to date, thrashing the Playstation on the online front and racking up some impressive download numbers. According to Microsoft, downloads on its Xbox Live Video service are up 400 per cent since launch at the end of last November. The amount of content is limited but it’s growing fast. Microsoft puts its content at about 1,500 hours with iTunes coming in at 1,000 – expect that to grow quickly though now that Apple TV has arrived.Sony’s no slouch, however, and its announcement of Playstation Home, a virtual world reminiscent of Second Life, will certainly help it claw back a big chunk of what it’s been missing out on. Like the others, it too will be offering plenty of downloadable content when it arrives towards the end of the year. The community side will be important to Playstation gamers but it’s as a platform for flogging paid-for content that Sony will be focused on in the long run.It’s only now though that the hardware side of the console has been whipped into shape. Sure, Xbox 360 users have been able to download content but, to what? A weedy little 20GB hard disk drive that most likely is already filled with games and game-saves, not too mention the odd HD movie trailer. Still, that 20GB drive has been better than nothing on the rival consoles and has allowed Microsoft to command the download-via-console space. With the impending arrival of the Xbox Elite in the US on April 29, sporting an internal 120GB HDD, HDMI slot and bundled cable, Microsoft has a hardware platform designed to be an interactive entertainment hub. The same can be said for the PS3. With its 60GB hard drive, HDMI slot [but no cable, the skinflints], speedy processor and in-built Blu-ray drive, Sony too has the hardware in place to potentially supplant traditional consumer entertainment devices.It’s easy to be blinded by new console hardware specs – fat HDDs, HDMI blah, blah – and so get distracted from the big picture. For instance, the only thing that the Xbox 360 needs to become a fully-fledged entertainment hub is IPTV functionality and if you remember CES in January, that’s what Microsoft promised. This Christmas, Microsoft will add its TV IPTV Edition software platform to Xbox 360, effectively giving it all of the functionality you’d get with digital video recorders but with some added functionality. Again, look past the Elite console to what the company also announced yesterday, which was a raft of new content deals with companies like National Geographic, A&E Network and TotalVid.com. Paramount will also now start offering its movie downloads in HD.We are a long way from the consoles becoming all things to all men [and women] but the foundations are in place: bigger hard disk drives, HDMI facilities, HD-DVD and Blu-ray capabilities, broadband connectivity, wireless support. And don’t forget all those games. Realistically, it’s going to be the end of the year before we really get to see things like Xbox IPTV and Playstation Home kick-in but, come 2008, downloading and recording TV/video/audio content via consoles will be a boom market. µ
