Web Exclusive! Gaming Devices as Home Media Gateways
Need to surf the Net? No computer? No problem. Fire up your PlayStation2, Xbox or GameCube and you're ready to ride the Infobahn. Though designed for the youthful twitchy-finger set, they have serious formidable computer power under the hood. Web access is one of modern gaming machines' abilities, but that's just the beginning. New game consoles play DVDs, connect hard drives through FireWire and USB ports, and a whole lot more. In fact, game consoles can act as full-fledged home media gateways. Interested? I thought so.In its simplest form, a home media gateway provides a connection between broadband Internet access, like cable or DSL, and an inside-the-home network that connects all the digital devices, computer peripherals, game consoles, PVRs and more. Home media gateways are designed for easy setup and maintenance, including setting up additional items to the network as they become available at a later time. After all, we are talking about basing all of this on a game console. It has to be easy.
A new generation of gaming devices including Sony's PlayStation2, the highly anticipated Xbox from Microsoft and Nintendo's GameCube have extended the potential of what a gaming console can be. And from new potentials, new uses emerge. Sometimes, new features materialize that even surprise the designers.
Smart Game Machine Features
For starters, playing DVD video is one of the PlayStation2's built-in capabilities. On a game box? Believe it. The Xbox offers DVD capability on an expansion kit. The GameCube, at present, doesn't include this feature. This is a good feature for several reasons. For starters, in the wired household of today, one DVD player may not be enough. Maybe dad wants to view Saving Private Ryan, while little sister wants to watch The Little Mermaid, again, and junior wants to check out the latest Jackie Chan movie. For this family, one DVD player wouldn't do. A game console DVD player solves a lot of bickering, and cheaply, too.
All of these game consoles offer Internet access, crucial to their role as home media gateways. Their Net capabilities vary quite a bit. At the low end, Nintendo's GameCube includes a 56K modem, with a broadband adapter to ship in the future. For broadband capability now, check out the offerings from both Microsoft and Sony. The Xbox (U.S. release date: Nov. 8) will come with built-in 100Mbps Ethernet networking for cable, DSL or satellite broadband connections. The PlayStation2 provides broadband access through an HDD expansion unit. Two of these game boxes pack a 100Mbps Ethernet interface, allowing clean and fast data to stream in from the Net.
Both Sony and Microsoft have included a hard drive in their offerings. The Nintendo GameCube offers no hard drive at this time. The PlayStation2 unit, an add-on from SCEI (Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.), is an HDD unit containing a 40GB hard drive. The Xbox offers an 8GB hard disk. While it is a relatively small drive by today's standards, it is built-in, while the PlayStation2 offering is an add-on requiring additional expense.
PlayStation2 provides peripheral connectivity through USB ports, as well as i.LINK, Sony's version of the IEEE 1394 (FireWire) standard. The Xbox and GameCube offer four USB ports. Nintendo also provides for Smart Media connectivity. SM cards are a popular format for media storage in digital cameras, PDAs such as the Palm, and many post-Walkman MP3 players. With an accessory adapter, SM cards can access the two Digicard slots for downloading or uploading data, music and information off the Net.
Read the technical specifications of game consoles and you will realize that lurking under the covers, these are very powerful computers. As proof, take a look at the Under the Hood sidebar on specifications.
Connecting the Gateway
If it has a digital heartbeat, connect it. Home media gateways support dynamic Internet Protocol addressing, so that Net-enabled devices can all share the same gateway to the Web. Any device that uploads or downloads media of any sort, whether it's games, streaming video, MP3 files, digital photos, e-books, video on demand or data of any sort, benefits from a home media gateway connection.
The modem, broadband or not, gets connected to the gaming console on one end. That's the connection to the outside. Then, the home network is attached through the Ethernet connections or the USB ports. That's the connection to the inside. The network connects everything to everything.
The home media gateway represents an excellent place to store audio and video content for the entire home. Music, TV and movies are here converted to digital forms. As they do so, they become available for sale and delivery on the Internet. Downloading music and videos to a centralized, networked media-storage system allows it to be accessed by today's PCs and PVRs and by all the digital devices of tomorrow from anywhere in the home. The home media gateway saves time, effort and duplication. In many ways, the home media server becomes the jukebox for the home.
The house itself becomes part of the network when home security and control become involved. A home media gateway provides a centralized location for controlling lighting, energy management, security and more. How about a WebCam? No more doubts as to whether or not you closed the garage door or the bathroom window. With a WebCam attached to the USB ports of the home media gateway game console, you can check it from the family Web page, secured with a password of course.
Games and Gateways - Looking Ahead
This only scratches the surface of what a home media gateway can do for your home. As more and more devices become networked, expect more interesting and unexpected uses to emerge. Imagine telecommuting from a game console.
Using the game console as a gateway for interactive communication enables home technologies and services to interact with each other and the outside world.
Every advance in chip and network technologies makes computers, game consoles and digital devices smarter and more capable. The idea of linking them all together to access information and services from a single device, whether it's in the living room or in the basement, makes more and more sense. Since they're all digital bits anyway, its time to connect them all in a home media gateway running on a game console. Now where did I put that game controller?
Roger B. Wyatt is a content strategist for new media.
[Sidebar: Game Boxes - Under the Hood]
The strongest contenders in the home gateway category are the Sony's PlayStation2 and Microsoft's Xbox. Both have powerful features and both offer additional add-ons to become a complete home media gateway. Let's take a look.
Microsoft Xbox:
CPU: Intel 733MHz processor
Memory: 64MB RAM
Connectivity: 4 USB ports, 10/100 Ethernet
Hard drive: built-in 8GB
Multimedia: TV, home-theater hookups, DVD expansion kit
MSRP: $299
Sony PlayStation2:
CPU: 128-Bit Emotion Engine 300MHz
Memory: 32MB RAM, plus 4MB on the graphics chip
Connectivity: i.LINK (IEEE 1394),USB and 10/100 Ethernet expansion kit
Hard drive: Expansion HDD unit with 40GB
Multimedia: CD and DVD-Video playback, Dolby Digital sound
MSRP: $299
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