Microsoft's Xbox 360 preview is impressive. Sony's Playstation3 with the state-of-the-art cell-processor & Nintendo's future model are both expected to follow the Xbox (in 2006). Are we ready to welcome digital wired homes?

Star Wars
Like "Star Wars III" (with which the Xbox pre-release has co-incided), the Xbox 360 predicts the future. Since both Sony's future model PlayStation3 as well as Nintendo predict the same future more or less, it seems almost certain that future homes will be controlled by media/communication centres.

Incidentally, with Xbox 360 Microsoft has re-affirmed its commitment to the digital wired home of the future. And its intention to grab a place in the home media/communication centre and the world of gaming!

True Convergence
Xbox 360 like the future PlayStation3, promises to merge gaming within the media/ communication centre. This will end up linking the home network with entertainment centre (DVD, CD, iPod, Radio & TV), telephone and broadband Internet. Creating the digital wired home.

Future homes will have a single server software which will control television, radio, telecom & broadband, along with possibly, home appliances. This is exciting! With all content becoming high quality digital, the common platform will marginalize the differences between live television (including IP TV), downloaded/replayed content, online shopping, and computer games.

True convergence, at last ?

Marketers 'Dream'
With the 'always online' media/communication centre controlling gaming, digital television & telecom, there are exciting possbilities for advertising - all essentially based on targeting the audience of 'one'.

Current technology has already made it easy to upload/download & display video quality graphics. With new technology (riding on an 'always online' box), ads could be served to viewers dynamically - regardless of whether the viewer is watching live television, or replaying downloaded content or even playing a computer game! Add super-fine filtering based on viewer/household profile, content & even time of day - and you have the marketers dream come true!

No wonder some online ad serving networks have started dynamically integrating ads into games.

Cross Media Targeting
Moreover, the new technology helping locate viewers/players, advertisers could effectively target viewers dynamically (like a typical web crawl) based on data mined from user preferences, TV & Internet surfing patterns.

Yielding the first cross-media audience profiling which relies on recent behaviour instead of computer models!