In the future will the PC have a place in the average home?

[Harrison]

What do the average home computer family use their home computer for?

Not really all that much in reality.

1. The Internet
2. Email
3. Some gaming
4. Office work (word processing, children's homework)
5. Downloading music
6. Managing music with an MP3 player
7. Simple digital photo editing, printing and saving to disc
8. Single Home camcorder video editing and burning to DVD

And that is probably about it. Can you think of anything else?

The question is, will they actually need a home computer for any of these tasks in the future? I personally don't think so.

In another thread it was stated:

The trouble is, can you really create a home computer to compete against the PC? I don't think you can. Look at the only alternative and how much that struggles to gain market share. Any new machine would never get off the ground. And the home console market is pretty much sewn up with the big three of Sony, MS and Nintendo.

My answer is, no there will not need to be the need to create an alternative competing format against the PC because soon there will not be a need for a PC in most average family homes.

Consider the evolution of consoles and how it will continue into the next generation with PS4 and whatever the next Xbox will be. The current PS3 and Xbox 360, and to a slightly lessor extent the Wii, have moved from just being gaming platforms to becoming full multimedia systems, with their front ends also moving away from just being a control system to manage game saves and other gaming features and adding additions for multimedia video and audio playback as well as streaming, online interaction within their own internet and social network systems.

Much of the future of computing is going to be with these two social and group collaboration features of Web2 and less about single standalone computers in the home.

In addition the consoles are now starting to be able to handle home movie files from camcorders and still photos from digital cameras which removes the need by many users to even need to use a PC for this. If it becomes possible for printers to work off of consoles via USB then that is another part removed from the need for a PC.

With these features starting to be offered by the current consoles (and even more so in the future) and online gaming also becoming a key part of many console releases, the only unique features this leaves the PC as having any kind of role in the average home will be for word processing and other office documents.

You could argue that a proper PC will still always offer far more advanced image editing from digital camera images and true video editing for home movies, plus better control and management for music. But the needs of most home computer users are not that advanced; what they want and need to do with a video, image or audio file is normally quite basic and consoles will give them these features and abilities in a very easy to use way, without the need for a PC. The average home user wants to get a task completed with the minimum of fuss and least number steps required.

For example, plug their MP3 player in, insert a CD in the systems drive, and convert and move the files to the MP3 player on the fly. Or plug the MP3 player in, connect to an online music store and download the music to the player. Once consoles can do this why would they need a PC?

In addition, online office packages such as Google's Docs and Zoho are now starting to gather steam and take off. With consoles offering broadband internet access such services are accessible. The files for these applications are stored on the server rather than locally and again I see this as the future for the majority of home users and even businesses. Why worry about where a file is or if you have it backed up to your pen drive when it is on the online word processor you have been using. You can log in from anywhere you like to access the files, edit them, print them out etc... And with a console and a wireless USB keyboard does the average home user need anything more?

Also consoles running in HD will allow for a practical resolution on the TV for such file editing, unlike the old TV standards with were never that suitable.

I can also see live server document editing becoming a part of school work in the future. At present there are still using relating to IT and files in schools. Steve could probably back this up. You need to work on a document both a school and at home for your homework. If the files were all stored on a central school server with the office applications being web based then each student would not need to carry any form of storage with them to transport files, and any issues with application availability for editing their work would also be made redundant as any console system with internet access could log into the web applications, load their files from the school server, edit them, save them, and then access them the next day from work to continue. This would also give live access to the files from teachers for instant live marking and comments. Have the school system even considered this yet? Not sure. Maybe I should do some digging and if they haven't I could market the idea to them!

For office workers this server side file hosting and live web editing could and should also become part of the future and I believe it eventually will sooner rather than later. These ideas and technologies are in reality part of what the internet truly is about.

I would love to hear everyone else's thoughts on all of my ideas.

[J T]

What do the average home computer family use their home computer for?

Not really all that much in reality.

1. The Internet
2. Email
3. Some gaming
4. Office work (word processing, children's homework)
5. Downloading music
6. Managing music with an MP3 player
7. Simple digital photo editing, printing and saving to disc
8. Single Home camcorder video editing and burning to DVD

And that is probably about it. Can you think of anything else?

- Warez
- Pr0n

Oh, wait, you said average family. I think you are probably right, that the average person will go with whatever is easiest, and the rapid emergence of these sort of convergence devices will really suit the average Joe. So maybe there will be less of the PC (in a traditional sense) in the home as time moves on.

However, do we really want to see consoles go more the way of computers (upgrades, various specs, driver installing, fiddling and tinkering) or do we want to see PCs take on more of a console nature (plug it, it works, little/no scope for messing with the innards or functions)? Personally, I'm not so sure either way. Right now I'm happy to keep things a bit separate - a computer for computery things, and a console for consoley things, etc.

[Demon Cleaner]

a computer for computery things, and a console for consoley things, etc.

That is also my opinion.

I never used consoles until the PSX was very cheap and I discovered RPGs on that platform. Now I prefer playing on consoles and doing all the other stuff on the PC, almost no gaming on PC, which is also due to being more comfortably installed on the couch rather than on a chair to play. I still do like adventures and some other strategy titles which are unplayable (or not released) on consoles, but for the most part, I choose a console.

In the past I never could have imagined to use consoles, as I was a real computer freak using C64 and Amiga most of the time, I never had friends with NES, SNES or other consoles. And I had no money to buy different machines, so I was stuck with the one I had.

[Harrison]

Originally I was exactly the same. I was completely anti console in the 16-bit era and would never even touch a console when an Amiga user, preferring a "real" joystick to the crappy D-Pad console controllers.

That all changed for me with the SNES. Since its launch I wanted one so I could play the games now released on the Amiga. The Megadrive was never of similar interest as most of it's games were poor ports of Amiga games. Since the SNES I've been into console gaming and enjoy playing console games as much, if not more, than PC games.

I also too would prefer to keep the two seperate, with PCs for PC things and consoles for gaming. But we are all in the group of more experienced computer users compared to general home users. I do see the convergence of technology into consoles continuing to increase to a point where the console will be a central entertainment and communication hub and a standalone home computer will not be required in the majority of homes.

This would have one aspect that could be seen as quite harmful to the computer industry, but also of huge benefit to those of us with advanced computer skills. With less true computers in the home less people would have access to the applications and utilities that can be used to edit images, build websites, or code applications and games. It might even put an end to the dire home websites and awful myspace pages created by kids on daddies computer.

[Stephen Coates]

You have all made some very good points there.

I find it unlikely that consoles will completely replace computers in the near future. Because some people don't need computers/consoles at all and some people only want them for basic stuff which the computer they bought in the early 90s still does perfectly. e.g. My Dad's girlfriend only has a computer because one of her friends was getting rid of it (it is an old Pentium system with Win95).

I think having web based office applications can be quite good, but they do have their problems. Personally, I would prefer it if I had full control over what software I use and where my files are. Therefore I would much prefer to just install Office 2000 on my PC and use that as it does everything I want it to (except opening my electronics coursework which I did in Publisher 2002 and forgot to save in Publisher 2000 format). I don't have to worry about the server not working, or the internet connection not working etc.

In schools, Everything is quite central anyway, because all the computer have exactly the same software on them - Microsoft Office and AspexDraw (+ a few other bits and pieces). More specialist software such as PCB Wizard is on the file server and can easily be accessed on any machine in school (although occaisionally when the network is running slowley, you may have to wait several minutes). All our work is saved onto the file server as well so can be accessed anywhere in school, unless we chose to save it onto a floppy or a flash drive instead. This does mean that we can not access work that is on the fileserver at home, but there are several options there. School has provided an email address for everyone which can be used to email work, or you could usea flash drive or a floppy. I think the majority of people have a flash drive, but if you don't have either flash drive or floppy I can't see why the ICT department wouldn't give you a floppy to use.

So really, I don't think web based applications would be that much different in schools.

[Harrison]

This had been true of most larger businesses and academic institutes for quite a few years now as they all tend to use a domain server with centralised shared folders, with each student and teacher given their own access rights and storage space for their personal files and work. We used to have such a setup at university years ago.

But as you say, this is limited to access within the domain servers LAN so these files, resources and applications cannot be used from home or other off site locations. Also currently only select applications or utilities tend to be hosted on the central server and accessed from each PC or terminal, instead requiring most of the actual programs to be installed locally on each PC system.

The idea behind all of the ideas I mentioned above have been in practice for a long time, right back to the first main frames in fact as they used a central main frame linked to from terminals, so all files and applications were on a central system and the terminals just logged into and accessed the resources. This is the core of what is currently being pushed on the internet as Web 2. The browser is the local terminal, and the servers you access on the internet are the central main frame. So in fact we are finally going full circle back to the beginning. Central data and resource storing with remote terminal access. This does work well for the majority of computer based activities when implemented correctly, and so I wouldn't be surprised to see this coming true very soon with many applications being remote browser based applications that we run in our browsers instead of on our desktop.

[Demon Cleaner]

One main aspect of a PC is of course emulation, as you don't need the consoles to play the games, less nostalgic but not less fun.

[Harrison]

This is true, although as consoles continue to increase in power many more emulators do continue to be ported. PCs will always be the best platform for emulation though, but emulation is far from a mainstream area of PC use. I'm always surprised that hardly any average computer users don't even know what emulation is.

[Submeg]

They dont know what it is because they dont even think it would be possible to play such games anymore...

One thing that would be cool would be using the Wii to browse the net.....just pointing the remote at what you wished to select....and you could use one of those roll up keyboards that use USB...

[Stephen Coates]

This is true, although as consoles continue to increase in power many more emulators do continue to be ported. PCs will always be the best platform for emulation though, but emulation is far from a mainstream area of PC use. I'm always surprised that hardly any average computer users don't even know what emulation is.

Maybe they arn't interested in emulation.