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Sony's Eye Toy is a game controller now--and could support videoconferencing in the future. Check out the demo.
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Karaoke on your XBox? Pat looks at Microsoft's new Music Mixer software.
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Networked gaming--sort of. Pat finds out how gamers can connect a Game Boy Advance SP to a GameCube.
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It's a cell phone and a gaming console: Nokia's NGage lets gamers play head-to-head over the cellular net.
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The latest version of the immensely popular Final Fantasy is going online this winter. Pat gets a preview.
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I'M NOT TALKING ABOUT using a game console for e-mail, word processing, spreadsheets, or any of the PC's other core competencies. I'm only talking about what we do for fun. And when I do, the news coming out of E3 makes the prospect of putting a game player at the heart of your digital living room more plausible than ever.
Game consoles are clearly on their way to becoming multifunction devices that do more than just letting you play Final Fantasy, Gran Turismo, or Madden NFL 2003. Consider the following developments:
• Starting in June, Sony plans to put a network adapter into every PlayStation 2; right now, it's an add-on peripheral. Xbox has offered connectivity from its inception. But Sony's move lays the groundwork for making 2003 a breakout year for online gaming and all the other things that go along with it, including voice over IP. That makes the game console a communications device.
• Sony also unveiled its new Eye Toy, a camera that will sell as a peripheral for the PlayStation 2 starting in October. The Eye Toy, developed in conjunction with mouse-maker Logitech, is equipped with sensors that allow you to control a game using body motions, letting you kick or punch your virtual foes. At the unveiling, Sony also showed us how the camera can be used for videoconferencing, which makes the game console even more of a communications device. (See a video of the product demonstration here.)
• Microsoft used E3 to introduce its new Music Mixer, due out this fall. (See the video here.) It turns the Xbox into a karaoke machine and jukebox. Music Mixer is meant to work with a PC, and bellowing "Love Shack" isn't exactly my idea of family fun. But Music Mixer underscores Microsoft's efforts to bring more functionality to its gaming consoles. James Bernard, the Microsoft marketing manager who oversees Xbox, told me we'll see more such products ahead.
Those announcements aren't the whole story, either. Game consoles already play music CDs and DVDs. Plans are afoot to start building big hard drives into them, allowing them to be used as personal video recorders, too.
And these developments aren't the only reasons game consoles could become bigger players in your household. As time goes by, kids--and many adults, too-- will become conditioned to see the console as an overall entertainment device.
FOR ONE THING, online gaming is going to become more compelling, and more widely available than ever. Final Fantasy XI, the next installment in one of the most popular video game series ever, will hit the market offering subscription-based online play. (See the video here.) Frank Gibeau, senior vice president of marketing for Electronic Arts, told me that EA will promote its free online play by sponsoring special contests, some of which will offer cash prizes.
With the simultaneous release of the game Enter the Matrix and The Matrix: Reloaded, movies and games have reached an important nexus. Dave Perry, president of Shining Entertainment, the company that created the game, claims that developers won't just license movie characters and titles anymore to create products after the fact. Instead, games will be made like Enter the Matrix was--concurrently and in close conjunction with movie production. (You can hear from Perry in this video.)
This conjunction will put the power of Hollywood's promotion behind game titles. Increasingly, you will be hit with a one-two punch: See the movie, play the game. Whether you like it or not, this promises to rivet even more of your kids' time and attention on the game console.
The idea that consoles will become the heart of the digital living room isn't new, but I never bought into it. Game consoles have been a one-trick pony, the PC a team of Clydesdales. But now that the game console is getting more horsepower, I think it really could give the PC a run for our home entertainment money.
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That wasn't the only news out of E3. Among the other bits I came away with:
• Nokia made a big splash by announcing the Oct. 7 availability of its much anticipated N-Gage mobile game player. The N-Gage isn't just a game deck. It's also a phone, an organizer, an FM radio, and an MP3 music player. Nokia thinks it's found a sweet spot, by positioning this device at the conjunction of three overlapping markets--gaming, mobility, and wireless networking.
But, at $299 for the device, $30 to $40 per game, and the ongoing costs of cell phone service, the N-Gage will find a hard time taking root with its target demographic. If you're young enough to want an N-Gage, you're not old enough to afford it. Hear what Nokia EVP Anssi Vanjoki said about the N-Gage and let me know what you think.
• During a press extravaganza, Nintendo President Satoru Iwata was refreshingly forthright about his company's challenges. It claims to be the No. 2 game company behind Sony, but its prospects appear increasingly dim. Nintendo plans to make a big play in online gaming but in a decidedly different way.
Its idea of multiplayer gaming is to connect Game Boy Advance users together by cabling four--count 'em--at a time to a GameCube. (See the video here.) If you ask me, this is Nintendo grasping at straws. I see the strategy: The company is trying to leverage one of its biggest strengths, the big base of Game Boys out there. But playing four at a time, hardwired to a box is not, it seems to me, the real future of multiplayer gaming.
What do you think? Would you use a gaming console for playing movies, making Internet phone calls, or (shudder) karaoke? TalkBack to me!
