DISCover PC Game Console

I give this concept an E for effort.  In theory I can see what they were thinking, but this concept is going to fail.  I just hope some one on the other end of that gravy train figures it out soon enough to pull the plug.

If you are not familiar with the DISC gaming console (which is in theory like an X-Box or Sony Playstation) see the link at the end of this blog for details.  The short take is that this gaming unit will play PC games.  It is designed to plug into your TV and run the games without any of the normal "installation" efforts required when you setup a PC game.  This "magic" will occur by creating a database of information surrounding each game to do "unattended" installations.  (You will need to update this database frequently via the internet or some other means.)  The unit will cost around $400.00 and will be composed of middle to high-end PC components (some of which sound like they are going to be proprietary) with little to no upgradeability.

I can see many reasons why this will never take off, but here are the major league problems:

• The length of time from "turn on" to "game on":  If this is over 30 seconds the product is doomed.
• Only games "supported" for the "unattended" install will work: Anything that is not 100% compatible with Windows software will fail (look at IBM's OS/2 for example).  People want to have 100% compatibility, not "oh, your game is not supported."
• The hardware is doomed to be quickly underpowered: This unit is similar to an X-Box, but it is different because the software manufactures are not programming to the EXACT hardware specifications.  Over time games will not run fast (or at all) on this hardware because PC game companies are always one-upping the ante on the "minimial configuration" settings.  At least if you buy an X-Box game you can be certain it will run fine on your X-Box.  Console users are not hip to looking at the side of the box to see if it will run on their unit (which, by the way cannot be upgraded with more RAM or a new video card if it is found to be underpowered).
• The unit is way too costly: It is DOUBLE the cost of the competing game systems.  How can you compete with this fact?  Especially (as the article below states) against Sony?  Even Microsoft (with the X-Box) is finding Sony difficult competition with competitive pricing.

However, with all of that said (and in order to not sound like a "cup-is-half-full" person, which I am not) I think that PC's are going to make their way into the living room as DLP/Plasma/HDTV televisions with VGA inputs become less expensive.  (Which brings me to another point - how little monitor technology has advanced over the years in proportion to PC the rest of the PC technologies - but I digress.)  This will be quite the boon for young entrepreneurs who can find ways to make it easier to control a PC from your lounge chair (putting a wireless keyboard in your lap is less than adequate; I don't know about you, but my lap isn't perfectly flat).  Speaking of which, does anyone know of good products to do this?  If not, get cracking you ergonomics majors!

From my lounge chair.  Thanks for listening, and good night.