Bob Caswell

About a month ago, I ordered an Xbox 360. My reasoning for not having one has revolved around the fact that I have plenty to keep me busy (in a good way) with PC games. But then came the announcement that pushed me to purchase: Netflix would soon be available via the Xbox 360. The irony here, though, is that I haven’t even experienced that combination (coming in the fall) but now wouldn’t give up my Xbox 360 even if the Netflix deal didn’t work out. Here’s why:

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Back in February, I titled a post “Dear Microsoft: Get Netflix on the Xbox 360 and I’ll Buy One.” True to my word, today I ordered an Xbox 360 following the latest announcement. I’m a huge fan of Netflix and have always had an interest in getting an Xbox 360 (even though I’m more of a PC gamer).

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Sony has some big news coming out today: The company will allow “dynamic” ads to be placed in PlayStation 3 games. The Wall Street Journal is calling it “a boost for what could become a significant new revenue source for games companies” while Forbes thinks Sony is “set to ignite the world of advertising in videogames…”

Interesting, since the Xbox 360 has been doing this for nearly two years now. At the time (back in 2006), the gaming industry seemed pretty excited at what looked like a new source of revenue. But not much followed in terms of details of how this was to be a game changer for advertising (lame pun intended).

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An Amazon promotion good through June 9 has over 100 Blu-ray movies in the $14 to $20 range (with many around $14-$15). I thought this would be a good time to revisit getting into Blu-ray. The last time I checked out Blu-ray pricing on Amazon (my quick and dirty benchmark), the Playstation 3 was still the best deal.

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Sony CEO Ryoji Chubachi knows something we don’t. At a press conference a few days ago, he pointed out Sony’s plan to increase Blu-ray market share to 50% by the end of the year. How is this possible you might ask? Well, apparently new Blu-ray devices to be offered by Sony will include a model integrated into an HD LCD TV with Blu-ray recording functionality.

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Last week plenty of rumors were floating around about a potential Microsoft / Netflix partnership. The announcement was supposedly going to happen during the keynote address (by Xbox Live exec John Schappert) at the Game Developer’s Conference in San Francisco last Wednesday. The concept: make it so Netflix’s 7,000 available “Watch Instantly” movies would be viewed easily on your TV via the Xbox 360.

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So Paul’s latest comparison between PC and console gaming has created quite the firestorm. His financial analysis shows that console gaming is, in fact, cheaper even if plenty of commenters take issue with his assumptions.

But an important piece is missing from his analysis, which swings the vote even more so toward the console side: PC gaming is a huge hassle. This can’t easily be measured in dollars (hence the reason it’s left out of a financial analysis), but here’s my latest ridiculous example:

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For anyone keeping score since Blu-ray won the next generation movie battle, HD DVD players are now $99. And that’s with 7 movies included. Considering these players also work well as upconvert DVD players (DVD players that convert and play regular DVDs at a slightly higher picture quality), in some ways, it’s actually the best deal on the market if you’re looking for a good DVD player.

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