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Keep your Minority Report: Gamers want cheap and future-proof
Posted by niero gonzalez in Gamer PC | Dec. 23, 2008 3:00 PM
I’d first just like to thank everyone that participated in the WePC experiment thus far – from the community members right up through to Asus and Intel. I’m proud to have shared a seat with the various blogosphere authors that participated and am leaving (arguably) less dumb than I came in. Thanks, everyone.
Let me be the first to say that I my initial post of “what gamers wanted” was more than a little short-sighted. Sure, the average gamer wants as many high-end parts as they can afford … but the research leading me up to today’s article suggests they can’t afford any of the stuff that’s already on the shelf, much less a sexy little package. It’s no wonder the PC gaming industry is in such a conundrum. Thankfully, some OEMS are obviously listening.
While not to toot my own community’s horn, but it seems that none other than a Destructoid reader received the most thumbs-up for his proposal: The Future-proof PC. Dtoid_Bez, a self-described gamer, shared this simple and powerful concept:
I would really like to see a pc that is close to future proof. While this idea may be impossible having t replace a laptop every 2-5 years can get quite expensive. I would like to see one that is easily upgradeable for a low or free price tag. Or possibly a program where owners can send in their laptops or pcs and get them upgraded for ~$150. This keeps it lower than buying a brand new pc or laptop and can provide people with the technology they want or need when the future rolls around.
Not to knock the waterproof laptop, but if your notebook’s constantly getting wet the problem is probably between the keyboard and the chair. Actually, I’m just jealous that Eric goes kite surfing and needs such a beast. I just want something cheap that plays Left 4 Dead. That brings me to my next point and this zesty pie chart:
When I asked readers why they haven’t bought a portable gaming system their most frequent answer was price and lack of user-swappable components. Thus, I can’t help but challenge Asus to think of ways to make a modular laptop computer for gamers and worry less about styling, battery life, weight, or integrated peripherals. There’s no practical sense in talking about lust objects inspired by Minority Report when half the people surveyed have such a basic entry barrier to begin with: the economic proposition of a gaming laptop. A modular approach may help bump it’s exclusive luxurious status.
He’s not alone, and he’s also not necessarily speaking just for gamers. I’m sure many graphic designers and tech enthusiasts on a budget also feel the same way. The question is, how do we get there? Dtoid_Bez did not provide any sketches, so I’ll have to complete his wishes with some Photoshop comps surely to put terror into the heart of any engineer!
“Xpandable Gaming Notebook™”
Powered by Intel, made by Asus, dreamed up by some dude, designed by me!
Features:
1. A standard interface for a detachable monitor, where one “leg” provides power and the other leg provides video. These legs are cartridge-like with supporting metal pins that can be unscrewed from the heavy metal braces at the base of the notebook. I use the word heavy here to emphasize that such a feat will surely add bulk to the base of the notebook, but you’ll be able to buy a cheapo screen today (or pay more for a 1080p if you have the cash) and upgrade to a better OLED in 5 years without having to toss your notebook. Makes sense to me. 15-17” seems to be the most popular display size, so you’d be stuck with something like that or your laptop would close funny.
Features, continued:
2. User-swappable motherboard, processor, and video cards
Asking the industry to develop and adopt a new IEEE standard for user-swappable laptop parts would be nice, but let’s start with something more realistic first: A fat-bottomed laptop that let’s you upgrade its core parts by buying “packages”. These would be priced lower than a full notebook since you’re not buying a hard drive, display, DVD drive, keyboard, touchpad, and docking area for the monitor. The sizes of these things would vary in weight and depth due to its components.
Thus, this notebook has a future and frees itself from “built to order” to a more in-demand “built to last”. In an ideal world the “undocked” version of this would also function as a legitimate thin computer, leaving the hard disk and bulky video components behind and run on a tiny flash drive in portable mode, as described in one of my early graffiti concepts – a notebook that sheds its “performance” weight.
Wouldn’t this be something you’d love to find in your stocking next year?
Hi this is Moshe
Pleas look at my post.
Comments will be appreciated.
http://www.wepc.com/vote/view/dream/7362/William_Gibson_Cyberspace_Machine
thanks for the clarification William. Constant tinkerers such as yourself usually find a way around OEM software limitations anyway. I just thought it might be cool to have that user swappable screen (so eloquently depicted here :)) function as a stand-alone tablet or touchscreen netbook. I know the idea won't fly ( with the hassle of a separate battery and hardware for the screen and all that...). Well, it was just a thought.
ddennisdlmd, while I do see your point, the laptop like desktops are usually better sold as general purpose machines. e.g. people would rather have a machine with a full OS on it, so they can install whatever programs that OS may be able to run. That is without worrying if it will install properly because of missing services/features, etc.
Now As I have said already, Windows embedded *can* be configured to work just like the "real" OS can, and you can also trim a lot of unneeded drivers, services, etc, while still saving some space, and to help keep the install cleaner. Problem here is, for a company such as ASUS this can initially be a lot of extra work to get working images of Windows embedded rolling.
Don't get me wrong, being the constant tinkerer, I would actually prefer a cut down version of XPe for several situations, or even multi boot copies for different occasions. That however can get expensive in a hurry for multi licensed copies, and disk real estate. Still, just being the type of person I am, I do like the idea in principle.
Sorry, that faceplate comment is sooooo old-fashioned. I just ran out of ideas for comparison.
Don't get me wrong Niero, I loved the photoshop work. :) I just thought maybe you spliced the image from a hardware catalog hehehe.
@William, I just thought the detachable (stand-alone) screen or tablet could possibly run on an OS with a quick bootup or something like a minimum-fuss, straight-to-net kind of program. We're talking about a detachable laptop screen that can be sold separately right? i hope we're all on the same page here. So the user can choose either a graphics oriented screen that acts like a tablet (for the graphic artist or photographer), a netsurfing screen (something like a PDA with wifi for the netwarrior/ travel junkie), or a high-end gaming screen with an additional GPU inside to complement the one we attached to our modular laptop (for the insatiable gamer). Those are the kinds of choices i'd like to have. It's like buying different faceplates for your phone. You want to go with something that suits you or your personality best.
@ddennisdlmd, lol . . .toilet seat . . . Anyways, not sure if it would make sense for a laptop to have XPe. Well, it could *if* you were hard core, and wanted to make your install as clean/small/specialized as possible. I actually am this type myself, but I am a constant tinkerer : )
lol @ toilet hinge comment -- I'll leave that to the design team. Although some people are into that. I've seen pictures on the internet!
Seriously though, any advances towards user-swappable performance parts would be a move in the right direction. Netbooks have shown us just how affordable entry-level pcs can be. If gamers can buy the equivalent of that and tack on power later they'd be more likely to line up. They've bought uglier things than my sketches!
Oh, but i have to say that there are parts of this concept that i like too for the interim. I know a lot of people will tell you this... but i also had the same idea about the screen. Run it on something like linux or an XPe or a whole new net-tablet OS for simple network computing. Let's keep dreaming.
Hmm. Pardon me, but the locking pins look a bit like a toilet seat's hinge. C'mon guys, there's already a very small PC on the market. It's about the size of a small cereal box. You can put a small lcd monitor on it, have it powered by battery instead of AC and... presto! You have a small portable PC good enough for gaming. But it's still not really suited for upgrading or what Bez called 'future proofing' . You have to think out of the box for this one to work. The architecture of the future proof PC would significantly be different from the components that we have today. Although I agree that we have to be realistic first, that notion that the industry should develop new IEEE standards for user swappable parts would be a bold step which has to be taken soon or at least should be in development right now. One idea i saw in here which has merit to this effect was a single input output connection. There would be a need for something less traumatic when transplanting organs or reattaching limbs to the modular PC. A laptop or portable pc with user swappable parts would be no small feat of engineering design not to mention a nightmare for the 'durability committee'.
http://www.wepc.com/vote/view/dream/5030/Equilibrio
Same idea, but in the different way......
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