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So the killer app for a game console is to watch videos?

Well, back in the day, one of the PS2 killer apps was playing DVD-video discs. xD

My "killer app" for a video game system was always playing games. When other people were jizzing in their pants over the ability to use their PS2 as a cheap DVD player, I laughed and considered it nothing more than a way to shorten the life of the system's DVD-ROM drive, thereby reducing the life of the system to do what it was meant to do to begin with--play games. I still view it that way; I would never stick a DVD movie in a gaming console. Similarly, I would not use my Wii to watch Netflix, either, and would only consider minor exceptions to using a Web browser (you can actually do some minor gaming-related things, like going to GameFAQS for example).

Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but I like my gaming systems to exceed with what they do best... everything gaming. Which probably explains why I have been steadily distancing away from gaming after the GameCube, and further with "New Xbox Experience" bullshit. Nintendo was the one company I could always count on, but with the latest portable DS systems (which I lost track of) even they're heading on a path toward never-ending non-gaming "features".

I don't know much about the Wii U, but I'm guessing it continues the trend--though maybe not to the extreme that Microsoft and Sony take it.

I mostly agree with you, though hacking systems can be fun.

This is all the more reason to do PC gaming these days; all a console gets you is sub-par hardware locked down tighter than Fort Knox, and no Steam sales.

Of course, co-op/multiplayer same-room gaming is always fun on consoles, but the number and type of games that support this is becoming limited since publishers apparently think it is more lucrative to sell network-only co-op games so that everyone has to buy a copy.

free from fiddling (with drivers, OS, and such) couch experience (not limited to one couch - its variant of portability). Even better around ~pub time (yeah, maybe the proportions of such games have declined, but what matters is the presence of sufficient number of good ones - and that includes titles from a generation or two ago, they are still damn good)

And overall, only recently an average inexpensive PC (which means a laptop with integrated gfx) became comparable to present-gen console.

Edited 2012-07-22 00:07 UTC

Gaming hardware is more or less general purpose these days for the simple fact that it makes them more appealing to more people, most don't want a half dozen single use devices that they have to find a way to connect to a TV that only has 2-3 inputs, they don't want another device drawing more power, putting out more heat and having more LED lights that always seem to be pointed directly into your retina when you are trying to watch a watching a movie in a dark room.

And the console companies know this, they are moving more and more toward making the console what it is, a dedicated HTPC, in the next gen or 2 we will likely see them add a cable card so they can have full DVR capability.

The only problem with game consoles from the big companies is that they are designed to be walled garden devices.

It's why I've been wondering for some time now why a company like AMD hasn't whipped up a game console, they halve all the necessary tech to make a very good one. All they'd need to do is hire someone to mod up a BSD for them so they can still allow for a more or less open platform to upstart developers from the PC gaming world, but still be able to appease the media companies and the console game companies that think DRM does anything.

Since the hardware would be more or less standard off the shelf x86 hardware each year they could slash production costs via die shrinks while keeping the same level of performance over the console's 5 year generational lifespan.

Without being a walled garden, consoles would possibly lose a large part of reasons why people get them (particularly now that they are networked). A successful console is much more than good tech (Dreamcast was quite good tech-wise, but...)

An open platform console would probably end up much more expensive up-front than competition, the model of subsidizing hardware being less viable on it. Hence hardly anybody would buy it, hence no support of big games, and/or more traditional makers would do some sweet deals with publishers. So we'd probably end up with effects reminiscent of those leading to 1983 video game crash, but limited to that one console (Atari 2600 was also quite open, as far as publishing games went; the idea of closed systems is what revitalised the landscape...)

BTW, present consoles also slash production costs by die shrinks (generally, revisions - die shrinks don't come as often as you paint it, every year), and generations now last (and likely will continue to last) longer than 5 years.

the problem is though that they've walled up so much that it's very hard to almost impossible for an unknown game developer to break into the console market, Which is a terrible thing since they are usually the only ones producing good games, since the big guys keep rehashing the same tired old games with new graphics every few months.

As for the hardware, true, there are die shrinks on all hardware, but the main difference is that when you are using custom hardware like the PS3, you end up reliant on a company that doesn't really care about your product line, this is what happened with IBM for the PS3's Cell and Apple's G5 PPC Macs, IBM didn't care enough about this low end hardware, it was distracting them from their own high end server line which they deemed more important to their own bottom line.

As before though, you get the added benefit that there isn't a game dev on earth that can't write for x86.

Edited 2012-07-15 19:51 UTC

It's not too bad, I think - with Xbox Live Arcade, Live Indie Games, or Apple Appstore, we have enough entry-level venues accessible to small devs.

But don't mythologise "unknown game developer" versus "the big guys" like that - rehashing the same tired old games was always more the rule than the exception. Most indie games are like that too, and generally not worth much.

WRT hardware: and yet, when looking at IBM-provided PPC tech in general, all console makers choose it, and continue to choose it (Wii U so far) - so I doubt the things you see are really a problem. It's not like the development of specific product line is that important (such development is what IBM abandoned, not PPC or die-shrinks in general), with console hw being set per generation.
Also, not many devs really target x86 specifically... it's mostly just what happens to be in most PCs, on what the most popular OS happens to run, and what the compiler targets.

Though playing CDs and, I imagine, DVDs differs a bit from reading game disks - it's very linear, with little seeks, and relatively permissive of read errors (with audio CDs, the drive will just skip it or repeat the preceding fragment; those are typically small fractions of a second, which we don't even hear). Quite easy on the drives, overall.
(and as far as personal anecdotes go - playing audio CDs on my PS1 didn't harm the longevity of its drive)

Very true, it was your idiot brother that yanked on the disk to get it out till he damaged the spindle that damaged the PSOne drives, if you taped down the disc it would still read fine though, my Dualshock edition PSOne still works fine today after more then a decade of use.

Yanked on the... what?!

And I believe all PSOne shipped with Dualshock, it was introduced as standard already in some late "classic" angular PS1 models.

you never had someone pull on the disc weird and crack the plastic of the spindle so that the ball bearings that where part of the disc holding mechanism fell out did you?

I saw this kill a great many playstations.

the original launch version of the playstation didn't have dualshock controllers, the controller looked very similar, but it had no sticks. Because of this almost no playstation games actually required the sticks, one of the few is Ape Escape, which required said sticks else the game was unplayable.

I agree with you 101%, I love game-only consoles and I don't care about playing videos in a console at all.

But, What We think is not always representative of what the market or the common people think.

History tell us that DVD playback was a very strong reason to buy a PS2 (same with Blu-Ray/PS3).

That's why I suspect that XBMC could be a killer app for Ouya.

No, you just don't like getting a lot of value for your money by using gadgets to their fullest, but enjoy laughing at people who do. I don't know much about gamers, but thats as un hacker as you can get. I'm not quite sure why someone like you is visiting OSNews. Most visitors enjoy doing things like installing software that was never meant to be on hardware, and using it in unique ways to explore the possibilities. Yes sometimes this occasionally ends up in heaps of smoldering electronics, but as a smart man once said " Science can't move forward without heaps!".

WHAT. You do know that the main thing that killed most PS2 drives was GTA: San Andreas.

I been using my ps2 as a DVD player for ages ... that and the upscaler on my Television being pretty damn good, I not needed to buy HD films.

Also the PS2 playback of DVD was fantastic, I think it even supported RGB colour.

TBH it bloody silly not to take advantage of the fantastic DVD playback the PS2 offered at the time.

WHAT. You do know that the main thing that killed most PS2 drives was GTA: San Andreas.

I been using my ps2 as a DVD player for ages ... that and the upscaler on my Television being pretty damn good, I not needed to buy HD films.

Also the PS2 playback of DVD was fantastic, I think it even supported RGB colour.

TBH it bloody silly not to take advantage of the fantastic DVD playback the PS2 offered at the time. "

The person you're responding to is a complete idiot. I used my PS2 as a dvd player for ages and still do with absolutely no problems. The PS2 was one of the few things Sony got right.

I gleaned that as well.

Actually, XBMC was the killer app of original Xbox. When Microsoft discontinued Xbox in favour of Xbox 360, it's price felt so low, that buying and hacking an Xbox was the cheapest way for a media center... and probably the best one back then.

halo was the killer app of xbox, not xbmc

Wrong, before XBMC, Halo was the ONLY reason to get an XBox.

Panzer Dragoon Orta, Steel Battalion, ...Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball?!

lol perv. Yeah, the XBox has been more friendly to pervy titles.

Though the PS2 had Rez, the Japanese version of which came with an interesting little addon for our girl gamers... Slightly NSFW http://www.gamegirladvance.com/2002/10/sex-in-games-rezvibrator.htm...

you need to work on your english

Yes, because it is already plugged to the TV. Would you rather have one more cable?

watch videos?

Does that even matter on a tiny phone screen?

I tried out the pre-beta yesterday and although the video played Ok the audio is choppy.

No hardware acceleration yet.

If the video file is 1080p, yes it does, as it wont play

Yes, but I hope we would mostly do it more sensibly ...like serving to handsets a lower-resolution variant (and indeed, virtually all streaming sites do just that), or transcoding HD videos on-the-fly to lower resolution (and smaller size) when copying them from a PC to mobile phone - something that Intel Quick Sync (for one example) apparently aims to do.