The next gen brought us DVD players. Sony, in a bid to make the Playstation an all in one entertainment device, offered DVD play back and even sold a separate remote if you wanted to impress the ladies and not skip chapters with a controller. I’m still amazed at how many people took advantage of this and made their PS2 their primary DVD player. Sony stuffed the crappiest quality player they could in there to keep cost down. The picture quality had so much artifacting it rivaled Egyptian tombs. I realize that after dropping three hundred on a system, some people might not have the money, but if you didn’t buy the remote, and skipped two years of buying Madden, one could have themselves a much better player.

Microsoft thought it would be a great idea to cram a crappy RCA DVD player into their first foray in gaming and somehow got the idea that it would be a great idea to have people pay thirty dollars to buy a remote to make it work. While you think I’m being sarcastic, I’m not. I really think it was a good idea. The DVD capability is there when your games run off DVD’s, so why not just ship the system as what it’s supposed to be (gaming first mentality wins points with me), and if people really want to use it as a DVD player, give them the option… at a cost.

Now, with next gen systems here, we have the arrival on high def DVD’s. The PS3 is running it’s games off of Blu-Ray disks, so, like the previous gen, why not have it play Blu-Ray DVD’s? No, it’s not Sony trying to force you into buying Blu-Ray, it’s an obvious choice. It’s also a inexpensive alternative to buying an actual Blu-Ray player (yes, I just referred to the PS3 as an inexpensive alternative to anything). Microsoft is taking a similar approach to high def DVD’s as it did with regular DVD’s in the last gen; by offering an add on. A three hundred dollar HD-DVD add on.

So, we now have systems that play video games, CD’s, DVD’s and high def DVD’s. I will again ask why? Are any of the above features, other then the game playing, why we buy systems? Has anyone at any point said to themselves “Well, the PS2 plays DVD’s out of the box while the Xbox has a thirty dollar remote I have to buy to make the DVD player work. I think I’m going with the PS2.” I know I haven’t, and I don’t think any of you have either. I believe that we buy systems because of the games they offer. Nintendo seems to have found a second life on this strategy. I only wish that MS and Sony would catch on too.

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