Episode 33 – Just A Passing Fad

Is that what game consoles are? As I wonder this I am staring at an eBay auction for pogs. Yes. Those circle pieces of cardboard that had stuff printed on one side. One of the stupidest fads that ever hit the masses… it’s right up there with the pet rock.

But some things are destined to fade. Pogs and the pet rock were both very short lived. If you blinked you missed them. Music videos are on their way out too. You may think not, but how many channels show music videos? Not MTV, not MTV 2 (a channel created for music videos), Not VH1. The channel that pretty much brought about the invention of the music video doesn’t even support it, that alone should be a clear signal that music videos are going the way of the pog.

It’s strange to say that. Music videos were just a fad. But they were around for so long, they couldn’t be just a fad, could they? Well, they came and went and currently no one is batting an eye as they leave us. The drive in movie theatre left too, a long time ago. It had a really good run as well. With televisions getting larger and picture quality getting better and better I wouldn’t be surprised if in 20 more years there were no movie theatres. Going to the movies was something we did, and once the demand has diminished the market will move on.

I think consoles might be on their way out…at least what we think of as a console.

The console was created back when computers were very expensive and the price of a computer wasn’t justifiable if you were only going to use it for videogames. The Atari 2600 and eventually the Nintendo Entertainment System were cost effective solutions to getting computer games in homes. Launching at 200 dollars the NES brought videogames to millions of people who couldn’t afford a computer. Consoles did one thing. Play video games. Since it only did one thing it kept costs down and kept it way cheaper than buying a new computer.

That was true until this year. All three current generation game consoles do much more than just play video games. They play movies and music, you can buy television shows, surf the web, check the weather, leave messages for people on your console, leave messages for other people you know on their console… the list goes on.

Sony’s gaming console is 600 dollars. That’s not cheaper than a new computer. You can get a Dell for that, or a Mac Mini. But wait, Ken said it’s not a gaming console. It’s not? Then what the hell is it? A computer… like a Vaio? But it has a cell processor… ok, so it’s a SUPER Vaio. You can even plug in a keyboard and mouse you say? It’s not a console then. They call that a computer.

Microsoft’s gaming console costs 400 dollars. It’s cheaper, but not by much. What caused it to be so much money? There’s a freakin’ operating system in the damn thing. And it has more USB ports than my computer. Seriously, it has 3… I have 2 on my tower.

Nintendo’s gaming console is at least at the right price point. 250. I like the sound of that. But I bet if it didn’t connect directly to CNN for news, and checked the weather, and also had its own OS we could have had that cost down even more.

We are nearing the point where consoles do almost as much as the computers in people’s homes. Microsoft and Sony are competing to make their console a one stop home entertainment device. The 360 is a media center. It will play music and movies off your computer. You can also rent movies or buy TV shows off their service. That’s a pretty big draw. To also know that it does all that, AND if there is a game you want eventually down the road, you can play that too. Or maybe you just want some hot Mrs. Pac Man action… that’s ok too.

Sony’s not there yet. But it’s coming. I’ll bet you the ability to download anything from the Sony Pictures and Sony Music libraries then sync them onto your Sony Portable Media Player will be here by next Christmas.

Even Nintendo announced a Wii that plays DVD’s will be available by next year. That plus being able to store all those channels on the Wii Dashboard, or whatever its called, and having an SD slot for expandable memory. You could get yourself a couple of gigs of storage in that tiny box.

This could be very bad for gamers. Once a device starts to do multiple tasks, it begins to appeal to more people. Once it begins to appeal to more people something has to start suffering. Since there are more non gamers, than gamers, and that’s where there is an issue.

I see one of two things happening as consoles drift away from only playing games.

1) As they become more media center than gaming platform more people will buy the consoles, but there will be less games sold. With the decline of games developers will take less and less time with their games until we start getting lots of crap. Those small downloadable games become huge hit, but that because the people buying those aren’t gamers and they are more of a novelty and the smaller companies turn to developing those over new titles.

2) As the consoles become more of a media center the consumer doesn’t buy them. The price is too high and they can pretty much get a Media Center PC for a little more. Since the functionality has already been implemented in the consoles they have already seemingly turned their backs on gamers in an attempt to get more market share. But it doesn’t work. And with Games for Windows picking up speed we will migrate to PC gaming. Which won’t be a big deal because we’ll have a media center hooked into our TV anyway, and it will play our games.

I’m not a fan of either of these scenarios. I like the idea of one machine doing one task and doing it well. But our gaming consoles are beginning to do many things coupled with they are more powerful than our home computers. Right now there are small additions that are taking us away from consoles, eventually well… consoles may go the way of the pet rock.