[citation][nom]caedenv[/nom]As with many things less is more. In my house I feel far too overrun with technology (and I love tech). I have my desktop, my wife's desktop, 2 netbooks, a laptop, a work laptop, 2 consoles, and my and my wife's dumb phones. I love tech and all, but I want less items to maintain, not more, and I think there are a lot of people who feel the same way.My hope with WP8 is that I will have 2 smartphones, 2 desktops, and then a central server/HTPC used as the 'family computer' (with a user expierience synced across devices via LiveID). That will be moving from the current 10 devices, down to 5. The phones will handle all of the communications (phone, email, text, skype, and social media for both work and personal use, as well as mobile document and web use, and presentation use for work PPT presentations). The PCs will be as they are now for Games, media consumption (music, pictures, movies, internet), and content creation (documents, AV projects). The central computer will store all of our personal files (documents, pics, music, movies) in Raid (removing document storage and HDDs in the PCs), and will be attached to the home TV as the central blue ray/DVD player, game system, and web browser for the kids (likely as a virtual environment so that they cannot affect the server with viruses). Game streaming will make dedicated PC hardware and traditional consoles obsolete shortly after the next gen console release.By the time my kids are ready for their own personal tech (~5-8 years from now depending on their maturity level) I hope to be down to the central home PC/server/thing, and then have each family member have a handheld device which can dock (wirelessly) into a 'dumb box' that houses a better CPU/GPU/keys/mouse/display which will remove the need for traditional PCs in the home (files stored on the server or cloud storage, programs stored on the personal device, and then the docks provide the kick and interface to properly use larger content creation programs, or just to enjoy content on a larger screen). When we get to that point I will finally be happy with tech Less devices are better, and console makers know it. Sony has seen this coming for years, and has tried to replace the traditional PC from the PS2 on. the PS4 take the opposite approach and simply be an x86 PC with their own OS on top of it, and mobile platforms will be replaced by PS certified phones. MS may be attempting something similar, but does not seem to grasp the home server aspect yet, preferring to stick with web streaming services. If either of these devices gets the idea of a central home server with good cross-platform file sharing capabilities then they will get my business, but if I need a server anyways, then I will simply make a server that can also game rather than have both devices.The point is that any Core2Duo or newer desktop can game for $150 in upgrades (GPU and PSU) at equal or better than console quality, and there are tons of cheap PC games available making it truly the cheapest platform available. Next gen consoles either need mass internal storage, or else support for USB3 RAID arrays and file sharing capabilities for the network. Otherwise the only motivation to get a console would be for the kids to play 'safely' in a closed environment.[/citation]
i would love a home server, only if the latency was next to non existant. as in within 10ms of what we currently get with it in front of us.
also preferably a virtual machine. that way i can alocate 5% of the resources to people who watch videos, or want to look at the web, but allow them to access more in certain cases, such as encoding audio or video, or playing a game. currently i cant 100% my cpu with loading chrome, and if a script royally screws up (it happens a week ago, and is the main reason i got adblock on chrome) it can completely 100% your cpu because the thing tanked.