Interesting article....
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All the world's a console....
Someday, an enterprising graduate student in the history of technology will write a dissertation on great product afterthoughts. All of those electronic devices, systems and programs that were created to fill gaps in the catalog, or as stopgaps to hold off the competition until the next big company product comes along, the Hail Marys of dying divisions, and the cut-rate baby brothers created to hoover up bargain buyers.
It is a shockingly distinguished list -- suggesting that there may be more to desperation, inertia and cynicism in product design than we often give credit.
For example, this list of afterthoughts includes the Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) 8088, a chip with a compromised 8-bit word/16-bit bus architecture that was mostly designed for Intel customers too cheap or too spooked to buy the full-blown 16/16 Intel 8086. However, one of those tightfisted customers was IBM (NYSE: IBM) , which put the bargain chip in the original PC, thus making the lowly 8088 perhaps the most important electronic component in history.
Or consider Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) DOS, the precursor to Windows and the most important software program of all time. It was basically Bill Gates buying a program on the cheap from a little neighbor company in Seattle in order to sneak a quick deal with Big Blue while a competitor, Digital Research, dithered.
Then there's Netscape Navigator, an unexpected replacement product for a company that originally was planning to make computer games . Or the first microprocessor, the 4004, built to make a quick buck off a Japanese calculator company and help subsidize Intel's memory business.
Or the last Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) IIs, which achieved a balance of performance, elegance and manufacturability never again equaled in the computer business, even as the design team had its head on Steve Jobs' chopping block. Or, for that matter, the Macintosh itself, which was a side project operating in the shadow of Apple's vaunted new flagship, the Lisa.
The list goes on and on -- and serves as a vivid warning that the race doesn't always go to the well-planned, the triumphant and the best-hyped.
Not Just Another Upgrade
And that brings me to an interesting news announcement that came, almost unheralded, at the end of last week. Sony (NYSE: SNE) announced that, early next year, it would begin selling a new version of the PlayStation 2 game console, dubbed the PSX by Sony and the PS 2.5 by posters on the Web.
OK, fine, ho-hum. Another upgrade to a kid's computer game player. Who cares? You can see why the announcement didn't get much attention.
But the more you study the announcement, the more apparent it is that Sony is inching its way toward something extraordinary -- maybe even revolutionary.
Look again at the PSX and its specs. Its guts remain the PS2, the world's most popular game player. But around that core, Sony is going to wrap a 120 GB hard drive, a recordable DVD RW/R drive, a TV tuner, an Ethernet port and a Memory Stick slot. It will also feature USB 2.0 support and a slot to plug in Sony's upcoming Gameboy competitor, the PSP portable gaming system.
The price? Speculation ranges from $500 at the high end (the cost of those components today) to $299 at the bottom. I'll bet it's closer to the latter, even if Sony has to lose money on every box for a year or so.
Despite its pedigree, the PSX isn't a game console -- something even Sony admits by calling it an entertainment system -- and it originates not from the company's Computer Entertainment group, but from the mother company. Sony also isn't taking a big risk here -- the PS3 is still slated for late 2004-2005, and the PSX still uses the aging PS2 processor engine. So if the new console fails, the company still retains full deniability.
The End of the PC?
Yet, the more you study the PSX announcement, the more you sense that something important is happening here, all of it camouflaged by the low-key nature of the announcement. Don't worry, folks, just another game player for your kids -- except, of course, once you put it on top of your TV, why do you need a DVD player or a VCR? Or Tivo? Or your PC?
Look at those specs again, and the price. Now tell me again: Why do you need your personal computer?
For the last three years in this column, I've been saying that the personal computer era is essentially over. Now the shape of the new world of home information is at last becoming clear. It looks like this:
The personal computer, now commoditized, retreats to two forms: the laptop/tablet machine you carry around, and the home network server hidden in your attic or closet. The latter is supported by sizable quantities of memory storage.
Processor intelligence embedded throughout the house -- in appliances, home controllers, etc. -- some of it with displays for Web access, all of it linked to the server (via Wi-Fi or the home's existing electrical wiring).
Broadband into the house, probably via cable. Low-cost printers , scanners and other peripherals scattered to various locations as needed.
An entertainment box, attached to the high-definition TV/digital music system for games, video and audio recording, Web access and anything else requiring high-quality media processing.
All of sudden, you see where the prosaic new PSX fits, particularly once it morphs into the PlayStation 3 with a powerful new processor engine. And especially once Microsoft responds with a new-generation Xbox of comparable capabilities and sets off a big price and performance war.
Tentative Sidestep into a New Business
Now, throw into this business equation the fact that there is a new generation of tens of millions of kids out in the United States, Japan and Europe, for whom the PS2, Xbox or Gamecube is even more a fixture of their daily lives than the personal computer, the legions of whom will instantly hector their parents to buy the next-generation platform the instant it appears (the world's greatest sales force), and you have the ultimate electronic Trojan horse into the home market.
"Gee, we bought the new Playstation for Billy, but then we discovered that we can surf the Web and download music and record TV shows and process family photos ... and gosh, it's like we spent all of our time in the living room these days. I hardly ever get back to my desk in the den."
Caught between a fading Vaio product line and a threatening Microsoft, Sony has a made a tentative, but perhaps momentous, sidestep into a whole new business. The PSX could become another soon-forgotten failure, but it may also prove once again that in high tech, desperation is sometimes the mother of great invention.
Of course, none of this could possibly be true. The personal computer industry is a huge, multibillion dollar, mature industry. And this is just another game machine for my kids -- the kind of thing they play Tony Hawk 4 on.
Besides, if it's such a big deal, why didn't Sony make a bigger thing out of the announcement?
