Game Console + TV + 2nd Screen = The Future
How Consoles are Merging With Devices and Why We Give a Damn
6.4.2012—Every tech journo and gaming news outlet is utterly consumed with today’s E3 video-game conference in Los Angeles. While there are some exciting things in the pipeline (our resident degenerate is especially geeing out over Grand Theft Auto 5), what has captured our attention here at Boxfish is how companies are moving their respective consoles beyond a gaming platform to a household media center.
Microsoft made the biggest splash today, attempting to “own the living-room” with what Xbox will soon have to offer to users. Introducing its “SmartGlass” technology, tablets and smart-phones will soon be incorporated into all things Xbox, from gaming to program viewing. Likewise, Microsoft is moving to cram as many entertainment/media options into the Xbox as possible. The company’s head of marketing/strategy reportedly summed it up at E3 as he took the stage, “We love entertainment, not just games and movies, but music, television and sports.”
While some are billing Microsoft’s Xbox announcements as raising the bar for media/console integration, Nintendo jumped ahead of their E3 showing tomorrow and hit social media with news of their new Wii U touch-screen gamepad. Mimicking the look of a more traditional game controller than the Wii nun-chuck, the Wii U gamepad will be able to access a web browser and double as a remote control for the TV itself. If this is a sign of things to come, we’re anticipating what Sony will do with the PS3, as well as what Apple and Google have planned for their TV platforms.
With Boxfish’s app on the horizon, the incorporation of the second screen into game consoles will fuse the discovery layer of television with the next generation of consoles and media devices. Being able to search every word spoken on TV in real time, watch the channel that has the content you searched for, play a console game and surf the web all at the tip of your fingers greatly expands the possibilities of what everyone from Boxfish to Nintendo can provide the public.
As an office full of nerds (albeit cool nerds), we are definitely looking forward to adding our bricks to building the future of media.
