"We're" very interested? You become multiple people or something?
Button Masher
PC gaming experience has always been different from console gaming. One is typically done about 18 inches from a monitor, mostly solo, while the other is designed for display on a TV, often as a shared experience.
krieg: I'd be VERY interested in the HDTV version...
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KnightRT: This will fail, and the games'll do it in.
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Consoles are appliances. Put in the game, and go. PC gaming often include maddening configuration roadblocks, installation headaches and hardware woes – and typically the terror of running Microsoft's Windows operating system, a nightmare all its own.
Many PC games could look good on a TV, once you figure out how to convert the VGA signal to composite or S-Video, and after dealing with all the other PC headaches. But Digital Interactive Services Corp plans to change all that with its new line of DISCover PC Games consoles, and a software only virtual console that it is licensing to PC partners, including Gateway.
The company plans to have two set top box style consoles – which are actually fully functional PCs, available in September. Each will run a headless version of Windows XP – designed to simply let you get to your PC games and run them. The $299 version will be built around a VIA CPU and motherboard platform – low cost, and low performance. But because a television display resolution is also low, it ought to play many PC games with at least acceptable performance. This low cost device will also include a 40GB hard drive, 512megs of Ram. It uses a TV out card from SiS to display game output onto a standard resolution TV using either composite or S-Video.
The higher-end version, retailing for $699, includes at least a 2.4GHz Pentium 4 processor, 120 GB hard drive and 512MB of RAM. The company also expects to offer true HDTV composite out on a more expensive model, due early in 2004, that will also double as a TiVO-like personal video recorder.
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Both models also provide DVD playback and MP3 player capability as well.
In addition to making and selling complete devices, the company has licensed its technology to other partners. Asian CE vendor SVA showed off its prototype, and Hyundai Electronics is also expected to sell a version of the DISCover PC Game Console. A Kinyo Electronics version was also on display.
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For users who want to convert an existing PC into a DISCover console, AITech – a manufacturer of scan converters -- will be selling a conversion kit with the DISC software. And Gateway computers plans on including a virtual version of the DISCover console in its next Media Center PC, adding a GAME menu to the software interface.
Automatically installing, configuring and loading games, without any user input, provides the biggest challenge to this platform. The company claims that its software will automatically detect, install and run games without any user intervention. The unit must be connected to a phone or broadband connection, and each night it connects back to DISC's servers to download new game-installation scripts, along with patches to any games that have already been installed.
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I played around with a few of the units on display, and they seemed to work as advertised – quickly bringing up the PC version of Vice City, for example, along with racing games and more. The game display was adequate on the large TVs used, but obviously not nearly as good as on a high-quality PC monitor. It's an ambitious idea, but I wonder just how useful it will ultimately be. Higher-end PC gamers typically know enough about PC technology to connect their own systems to a TV, and these days dedicated gamers often have both a PC and a console. Plus automatic installation and configuration of games can be a daunting task – as an appliance, the DISCover must work seamlessly. And that will be hard.
Finally, the PC gaming experience often doesn't translate well to the TV. Even if the built in graphics can handle high-end game display, the additional devices, like wheels, joysticks, keyboard and mouse are often difficult to use in a living room environment.
We're very interested in getting the units in, to see just how well they work. We'll let you know when we do. For more information, head to the DISC website.
Too Cool for Top 10 Lists
"We're" very interested? You become multiple people or something?
matthewgood fan
lupin III fan
spring up speed up
Man, I love that black box with the taped on logo, and the Logitech gamepad is class.
I'm starting to understanned the whole "banned" thing...
:-P
HA! HA! I AM USING THE INTERNET!!1
My Backloggery
So much ****ing semen.
i dont think the post is his words but from ziff davis. dont you guys read anything?Originally Posted by Jeremy
Sausage-in-training
Please look forward to it!
you write for ziff-davis omg!????2
seriously though, self-promoting topics are strange. especially when the content is simply lifted from another source.
Sausage-in-training
seriously though, self-promoting topics are strangeI'm going to have to agree with myself on this one. I'm such a great poster.I'm starting to understanned the whole "banned" thing...
:-P
HA! HA! I AM USING THE INTERNET!!1
My Backloggery
Sausage-in-training
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