Popular game consoles, such as the Nintendo Wii U and Microsoft Xbox 360, aren’t connected with sophistication or minimalism. They are more correlated with all-night, caffeine-fueled shoot-em-up video games. But game consoles are now extremely versatile, strong, all-purpose computers made expressly for incorporating to living rooms and dens, and they can help you streamline your home computing and entertainment systems. They even offer activities that can fundamentally improve your lifetime.
Plus, there are a number of quite powerful and fun things that just gaming consoles can do.
Nintendo
Nintendo Wii U Deluxe Set – $349.99
Nintendo has announced plans to send its next-generation game program, called the Wii U (pronounced”we, you”) on November 18, 2012.
The Wii U ought to be a great gaming system — and an odd one. Contrary to the recent Wii, which can be operated by some motion-detecting controller which looks like a TV remote, the new Wii U will include a controller using buttons and a touch screen. The handheld touch screen may be used for controlling what’s on the TV. But it may also be utilized rather of this TV display. Therefore the Wii U will be a complete gaming console and a somewhat portable gaming device all in one.
Wii U owners may become members of an upcoming Nintendo Network, whereby Nintendo will maintain an app shop (which Nintendo is calling an eShop) for downloading all kinds of software that will work with the gambling system.
In addition to all the regular stuff you would find in a controller — gyroscope, accelerometer, haptic feedback and so on — the Wii U controller will have an integrated microphone, speakers and camera, as well as electronics that will allow you to use a wireless credit card to make purchases. It will also support stylus input, which means you need to have the ability to sign things and draw images.
It’s this blend of controller capabilities and an eShop which makes the Wii U so full of promise for non-gaming applications. The gambling system will likely enable the constraint of your current TV and videos using the touch screen and buttons on the controller. While watching TV, by way of example, you need to have the ability to move the display to the controller and take it with you all around the house.
You can also expect a lot of internet shopping software, in which you can quickly scan products and purchase by tapping your charge card on top of the controller to make the buy. And finally, it is almost certain that the Wii U will have the ability to replace your telephone, working as a speakerphone for internet calls along with a videoconferencing system at the touch of a button.
Microsoft
Xbox 360 Media Remote – $19.99
Contrary to the brand new Nintendo Wii U, Microsoft’s Xbox 360 platform has existed for decades and is about to go right now with many nongaming capabilities.
An Xbox device, which begins at $199, can play video DVDs on your TV just like a dedicated DVD player can. It may also show you films, TV shows, music videos and Web videos through Netflix, Hulu and Microsoft’s own content assistance, similar to an Apple TV apparatus does. It may play PC films on a home Windows network or through a regular USB flash drive, like a PC. Plus it can get ESPN3 sports content — even letting you watch two games simultaneously — similar to satellite networks do, in case you’ve got a $50 annual Xbox Live Gold subscription.
You’re able to interact with this all round home entertainment system using an Xbox controller if you want, but you likely won’t desire. Alternatively, you can purchase an Xbox-specific remote control, for example Microsoft’s Xbox 360 Media Remote. You can even search for films and other entertainment using search.
Xbox
Xbox can replace an whole music collection. Microsoft this month declared Xbox Music, a new service for downloading digital audio to Xbox consoles and enjoying with them over home music programs.
Xbox Music costs $9.99 per month and enables ad-free music streaming from its own catalog of 30 million tunes and 70,000 music videos. On top of that, it’s a feature that gives you an artist-based radio flow, like Pandora does. So you pick a band or a singer, and Xbox Music will perform not just tunes from the choice, but other artists with a similar style.
If you’ve got old audio CDs in your collection, you can set those from the Xbox and play them as if it was a CD player.
Microsoft
Nike+Kinect Coaching – $49.99
An Xbox can even be a personal trainer. Microsoft intends to launch an Xbox program called Nike+Kinect Training at the end of October 2012. The software utilizes your Xbox, and a Kinect sensor, to get your performance and shape while exercising, and it will even customize your workouts according to your skills and progress.
Microsoft
Kinect for Xbox 360 – $149.99
To be able to use Nike+Kinect, then you’ll require a 149.99 Microsoft add-on called Kinect for Xbox 360, and it is a sensor which uses cameras to track your moves as you use Kinect-supporting games and software.
Microsoft
Xbox 360 Chatpad – $29.99
Xbox can even replace your telephone, giving you communications capabilities right out of the Jetsons.
Whenever you have the Xbox Kinect, then you may use it along with your TV to possess live video chats with friends and family who also have Xboxes. An agency called Video Kinect utilizes one of the cameras in the Kinect addition to broadcast you and your living room to the home of another person on the call.
But Xbox gives you many different means to communicate also. You can chat, which can be like text messaging, and use Twitter and Facebook, with the societal networks appearing on your TV. Communicating on Xbox is a lot like communication on your computer, but you are relaxing on the couch and the communication is taking place on your big TV.
Some of the communication requires a computer keyboard, so it is a good idea to purchase an Xbox 360 Chatpad, a little, wireless keyboard made to be held as you type.