Want a pizza that doubles as a phone?
How about a pair of shoes that open up into a book, or a shirt that can be used as an oven mitt? Or are you waiting for the first-ever combination cappuccino maker-cordless drill?
If so, you’re just the sort of consumer Sony is looking for. As Microsoft and Nintendo take aim at the company’s longstanding lead in the game-console business, Sony is making plans to transform its second-generation PlayStation 2 from a simple game box into a full-fledged home entertainment device. Whether this combination would actually be useful to consumers, though, seems beside the point.
When the PlayStation 2 was released last fall, it already had the ability to play DVD movies as well as video games. This seems like a good idea, since it gave consumers who don’t already own DVD players which is to say, most of them a good reason to buy the box. Microsoft’s upcoming Xbox, which will be released Nov. 8, will be able to play DVD movies as well.
But Sony didn’t stop there. During the recent Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles, the company announced it would be teaming with America Online, Macromedia, Real and other Internet companies to turn the PlayStation 2 into a Web-browsing machine. AOL will provide PS2 users with Web access, chat rooms, e-mail and instant messaging clients, while Macromedia and Real will allow them to view Flash animations and streaming audio and video.
You might be wondering how gamers will manage to chat with those game controllers, since most 12-year-old kids don’t know much Morse code. Never fear: Sony will be offering a special PS2 keyboard. It also plans on selling a separate LCD screen, a hard drive, a high-speed modem and anything else that might possibly separate console owners from their cash.
After buying all this stuff, PS2 owners will have built something that looks a lot like a computer. The only thing missing will be anything made by Microsoft a conspicuous absence in a consumer-oriented computer. Sony obviously hopes to skirt Microsoft’s dominance of the PC market by sneaking in through consumers’ living rooms. Do people really want a low-end Web appliance attached to their TVs? Sony sure thinks so, and it isn’t alone. Datamonitor, a New York-based research firm, predicts more people will be using consoles than computers to reach the Net within three years.
That kind of nonsense can only come from people committed to the cult of convergence, which holds that televisions will eventually merge with computers, stereos and other devices to create a single home-entertainment console. It’s a Jetsons-style vision, right up there with flying cars and robot maids. And since Sony doesn’t want to wait for companies like Spacely Sprockets or Cogswell Cogs to produce such a device, it’s hoping the PS2 will push the market in that direction.
But consumers rarely settle for all-in-one devices when they lack the performance of individual components. Those printer/fax/scanner combinations are a nice idea, for example, but they neither print, scan nor fax as well as most stand-alone units. Home stereo buyers know they’ll get better sound from separate disc players, amplifiers and tuners than they will from a single box. And while it makes sense to merge cell phones, pagers and personal digital assistants, the people who want the best of those things end up carrying all three.
The same will be true with consoles. PlayStation 2 may be a good game box, but it’ll make a crummy computer. You won’t be able to do much more than surf the Web, chat and send e-mail, and the only people who really want to do that stuff on a television set are those who haven’t tried it already. Besides, I’m assuming most people who can shell out hundreds of dollars for a PS2 and all the add-ons have a more powerful computer in the house already.
Sony obviously believes the PS2’s Internet capabilities will give it an edge over Microsoft’s Xbox and its game-centric online strategy. (Nintendo hasn’t said much about online plans for its upcoming GameCube.) And who knows? Maybe the company can convince consumers they actually need a game box that surfs the Web, just as the auto industry has sold city-bound drivers on four-wheel-drive SUVs.
But I’m guessing that even PS2 owners will find that surfing the Web is a good reason to turn off the TV.
To contact syndicated columnist Joe Salkowski, you can e-mail him at [email protected] or write to him c/o Tribune Media Services Inc., 435 N. Michigan Ave., Suite 1400, Chicago, IL 60611.
