PCs and CES

My PC could very easily replace most of the equipment that occupies the shelf space below my television. But I would be the only person in the house with the ability to operate it, and even then, I don’t have the patience to wait for Windows XP to boot so that I can record the latest episode of Monster Garage. Add to the fray the high likelihood of running into some level of technical difficulty during a recording session, the myriad of steps required to perform even simple tasks, and the speed with which the hardware will become outdated, and you quickly realize that this device is hardly consumer friendly. The idea of using a PC to handle these tasks now makes about as much sense as my refrigerator tracking my milk consumption and alerting me via blue tooth to my PDA when I need to buy some more.

H2 Suspension and audio system

Four-cab pickups can be pimpin' too!

Yellow and fast

There are some excellent examples of hardware that come close to hitting the mark, like ATI’s AIW cards, but the biggest hurdle has to be the basic operating system. I often wonder if Windows has become easier to use over the last 10 years because it has improved, or because I have spent the better part of the last 10 years slogging through its discrepancies. Windows XP may be a pretty good OS, but it’s at least 5 generations away from nearing the simplicity of my DVD player, my amplifier, or the record feature of my VCR.

CES vs. Comdex

Nowhere at CES was there a central location to see what the PC community of manufacturers had to offer. Most in the PC business were in hotel suites dispersed among the myriad of hotels along the 5-mile stretch of the Vegas Strip. For those that did have booths, their message seemed to get lost in the plethora of flat panel displays and portable mp3 players. What about CyberXGaming? Wasn’t this going to help unite the power hungry PC user with the consumer electronics wiz bang products? Apparently the answer is no. You can blame this on the low attendance, or the fact that the venue was 10 minutes from the Las Vegas convention center by cab, or the fact that the event was poorly organized and wrought with technical errors. But the reality is that hardcore gamers didn’t attend CES this year to see the latest in consumer electronics, and the 100,000+ consumer electonicticians did not come to see hardcore gamers compete in CS. There was almost zero convergence between these two groups, and this most certainly must have caused some level of discomfort for the sponsors who funded the $600,000 in cash and prizes.

PS2 in glove box; for passengers only!

Steering wheel display on the Civic

Carbon fiber hoods complete the ricer look

So where do we go from here? I suspect that most PC manufacturers will be still be debating where to promote their products in the US this time next year. Their choices are few, and their need for a good US venue is critical to their business success. Having said this, it’s inevitable that the majority will still attend Comdex in 04, hoping for some miraculous resurrection of its previous success. A select few may also attend CES in 05. But the convergence between the PC and consumer electronics is still a long way away.