Unified Entertainment and Communications for the Home
June 22, 2009
(2 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
Loading ...
Don’t underestimate the power of young people to shape our future communications. A few years ago, who would have imagined that texts and tweets would become more popular than phone calls for a huge segment of the population? Nor would we have guessed that Facebook would infringe on the space previously held by email - which itself booted good old fashioned snail mail years ago.
Before last week, I never would have thought that home game systems were anything other than child’s play. And yet, I’m now totally convinced that we are at the threshhold of the next big advance in entertainment, communications and home networking. A sort of Unified Communications (UC) for the residential set brought to us by the Xbox and Playstation.
Here’s how my eyes were suddenly opened. A couple of weeks ago, I was invited by a friend to participate in a game on the Xbox. I’ve been a gamer since the first Pong machine plopped down in my local pizza parlor as a kid. But I haven’t had much time to play games in the last few years and aside from the games on my iPhone, I’ve got to admit that I’m losing my touch. In fact, I don’t even own a modern gaming system. But I was intrigued by the game my friend explained to me, an Xbox interpretation of the television show 1 vs 100. So I headed over to his house to demo the beta version of this new Xbox online game.
I’d seen the TV show which pits 100 people (the mob) against a single contestant (the One). Questions are asked, answering incorrectly eliminates you. At the end of the game, if the contestant defeats all 100 in the mob, he or she wins. If the contestant misses a question, the remaining members of the mob split the prize. Simple trivia fun. Sounds like something I could handle in a video game.
My friend loaned me a headset, handed me a controller, and let me judge for myself. He’d also invited a friend of ours to “Chat.” I was blown away. Not only was I playing a TV show for real prizes, but was able to chat with a friend who was also in the game. Cool.
For two hours, we answered questions, chatted about the game, and life, and how amazing and surprising this technology was. It wasn’t just replicating television, it WAS television on steroids. Real people were playing the game, nearly 100,000 of them. Real people were in the “Mob”, and real people participated as the “One.” Throughout the two hour long game a live announcer kept the action going with stats, playing commercials on a tiny screen in the middle of the action (Sprint among others), calling on players by name, and generally keeping the action fun. And behind the entertainment, real people were watching and communicating with each other, all in real time. And thanks to commercials being built into the game, it was all free (ads which you can’t fast forward through!)
The two hours unraveled in a blur and changed the way I look at not only the Xbox, but residential communications and networking in general. My friends chatted with each other, interacted with others in the game, answered questions, and tried to prove they were at least as smart as “the One”. It was facinating, and utterly transformative. We had just experienced what is no doubt the first steps toward the future of home entertainment/TV/communications.
I’ve got to say that the game itself is not the focus of this article. Yes, the game was fun but the interesting thing for me was the way that this ”game” was able to fill in as a superior substitute for televison, advertising, and communication all at once. It was all handled so seamlessly with voice, interaction, and entertainment all woven together that it was easy for me to imagine what unified home entertainment and communication will look like in the near future.
While it isn’t likely that grandparents everywhere are about to don a headset and begin playing Murder She Wrote LIVEon the Xbox, it is highly probable that a growing number of people are becoming comfortable with non-traditional home entertainment and communications options. Xbox users in particular can now stream a Netflix movie on demand, play their music collection, chat away with friends, engage in games with there friends both at home or online, conduct video conferences, read the news, surf the Internet, and much more.
Just as business communications have begun converging with unified voice, data, and content management, so too have consumer communications and data. The iPhone, Apple TV, Xbox, Playstation 3, media centers, and other devices bring a plethora of communications and entertainment features into a single device. All the pieces are there for systems like the Xbox to continue bluring the lines between entertainment, communications, and what we expect from converged devices in the home.
I may not be a kid any more, but I am installing an Xbox in my media center. Chalk one up to progress.
Comments
One Response to “Unified Entertainment and Communications for the Home”
Got something to say?
Advertisement
If you're interested in advertising on Telecom Monthly and would like to learn more, contact us at ads@telecommonthly.com
[...] and everything. Lots of fun. Here’s a link to a blog posting I made about it on a telecom site: Unified Entertainment and Communications for the Home | Telecom Monthly - Telecom News, VoIP, SIP Tr… __________________ Follow us on Twitter Join MiceChat GOLD! Shop from our Amazon links Wear [...]