Thoughts
Many of us don't have the cash to buy another PC that can only be used in the living room, or space there to accommodate one. Consequently, Xbox 360 (or something like it) fed by PCs elsewhere in the house is going to be the more immediate future for much of the population looking to best enjoy their digital media.
But lots of us don't understand the benefits possible from media extenders or even today's media centre PCs, that's a major challenge for the Windows-centred PC industry and one that Microsoft is attempting to address with its Life Squared event.
Personally speaking though, we believe that Microsoft could have found more effective - if less glitzy - ways to inform and educate the media and its key business partners.
Better, we reckon, to have provided in-depth briefings and extended demos by well-informed Microsoft people – with plenty of detailed background material to take away, say on DVD. That way, writes ups such as this one would contain more meat and a lot less offal.
Furthermore, doing things a bit more conventionally would have had one other added benefit. It would have allowed Microsoft's small company of actors (rather good actors it has to be said) to tread the boards of a more natural habitat during this the pantomime season.
