There’s been talk of so-called convergence devices combining the functions of multiple entertainment products in the living room for at least the last 10 years. One box handling broadcast/cable TV, on demand movies, and video games has been the holy grail for a number of companies. I’ve never been a fan of the concept though, preferring to keep some things separate, like my computer gaming for example. And it never looked like it was going to happen in any meaningful fashion, until now.
Things started to change with the arrival of two devices, TiVo, and later the Xbox 360. The TiVo started its life making sure I didn’t miss the shows I liked. But later it started trying to get cozy with my PC, giving me ways to start shows on the much larger PC hard drive and making use of some of its greater CPU power for some functions. But on the whole, it did these things badly. The TiVo hardware is just too underpowered to do much more than its basic functions. And as a person accustomed to high performance personal computers, I was never going to be satisfied with anything less. So I was annoyed with TiVo on this point, but I appreciated what it was trying to do. And unwittingly, TiVo had paved the way for the eventual conquest of my living room by Microsoft.
Microsoft’s Xbox 360 arrived in my living room all ready to embrace my PC in ways the TiVo could only dream of. Playing video from my PC on the Xbox 360 was generally pretty easy and I didn’t have to wait for it the way my TiVo made me. The Xbox 360 couldn’t play everything I had, but updates came relatively fast and soon I no longer needed to burn DVDs to preview my video projects on the living room TV. Now I could render a version in an Xbox friendly codec and in minutes I was watching it from the comfort of my sofa. A beach head had been established. My TiVo still makes sure that I don’t miss shows I like, but that pretty much all I use it for now.
Xbox Live has a lot of videos and games available for download. But with only a 20GB hard drive, I really felt constrained against downloading video. Not only that, I already had a Netflix subscription, so I had little reason to pay for rentals from another provider. So when I heard that Netflix’s instant play internet movie streaming was coming to the Xbox, I knew the final assault on my living room was about to begin. I had used Netflix’s streaming service on my PC, but I hate watching movies on my PC and wanted no part of connecting my PC directly to my TV.
Netflix on Xbox Live came last month with the New Xbox Experience update and while there were some quality and network issues at the beginning, it’s been a real champ the last few weeks. My TiVo box isn’t going anywhere, but the entertainment center of my living room is clearly the Xbox 360 now.