All I want from my next console

There’s been a lot of talk in recent days about where the PS3 is, where the PS3 needs to be, and where the PS3 is going. What no one seems to be mentioning anywhere is that the PS2 has been outselling the Xbox 360.. Go thunk on that one for a while.

What’s hindering “nextgen” adoption rates? Price? Content? I don’t care to speculate on what’s holding up the masses, but I know what’s stopping me personally.

All I want from my next console is an upgrade of Xbox Media Center. I’m not talking about the “media center” remote desktop client that’s in the 360, I’m talking about that absolutely-killer plays-anything super-extendable totally-amazing questionably-legal media center application for the original Xbox that I’ve used for more hours than any other game on that system (or any other system I’ve owned) combined. XBMC recently went mainstream when Popular Science posted an article on how to mod your Xbox to run it. The program is so popular it’s making it very difficult to get MS original HD component cables for the Xbox this late in the product’s lifecycle (a recent search on Froogle turned up only knock-offs).

The problem with XBMC is 1) I use it so much I swear it’s killing the lifespan of my Xbox and 2) the Xbox doesn’t have the juice to decode video over ~576 scanlines. Now that I have a 1080 display this is becoming more and more important to me. I want something that has the power to decode at least 720p video. Is it too much to ask that my next console be a replacement for XBMC? I don’t think so!

So, dear console makers, please make me an XBMC-like killer app that can play 720p video in any form (AVC/H.264/MPEG4, DivX, Xvid, etc) and in any container format (AVI, MKV, etc) and I will adopt your console! If you go mainstream with it I’m sure it will effect nextgen adoption rates.