Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and the "battle for the living room"

Xbox One, PlayStation 4 - not really the productivity solutions some may have hoped for

Back in August 2012, all kinds of fanciful notions for the "next generation" of games consoles seemed possible.

Instead of being purely games machines, Computing forecast, they would be designed as all-encompassing "home entertainment centres", providing shopping services and maybe even some productivity applications for every home - all from one connected, all-in-one device.

The winner in this battle would enjoy the kind of global influence and near-monopoly riches that today's entertainment companies can only dream of.

But so far the reality, certainly as far as Sony's PlayStation 4 (PS4) and Microsoft's Xbox One are concerned, has been quite a disappointment alongside the rumours and hints originally peddled by the companies (especially Microsoft).

Instead of providing a major leap into the future, it feels as if they are only inching closer to the kind of goals spelt out by Microsoft founder Bill Gates in his original preview of things to come, The Road Ahead, published in the mid-1990s.

The problem may have come from expecting video game players to lead the revolution. But instead of enthusiastically accept a totally cloud-based, disc-less ecosystem, they rebelled.

The user reactions to Microsoft's summer "reveal" of its Xbox One console were unprecedented in their ferocity. In the same way that Vietnam is often described as the first "media war" - with full colour television news describing the conflict in near-real-time - 2013's E3 conference felt like the first "social media war" for new consumer technology.

Quite simply, gamers didn't buy it. The result was an enormous backlash against Microsoft's digital-first strategy. Microsoft's promises of software only downloadable from its own servers, with saved data backed up in the cloud and even game content streamed directly to increment experiences just turned everyone off.

Within weeks, Microsoft had pledged to scale down its cloud obsession and focus, once again, on the Blu-ray disc medium. Second-hand software sales would carry on as before, and everybody could be happy playing their games.

Sony's message, meanwhile, was entirely focused on the games - the advertising slogan specifically stated: "This is for the gamers". Despite offering interesting Wi-Fi-based connectivity between its home PS4 console and hi-spec handheld, the PS Vita, the PS4 seems even more games-focused than its predecessor.

Early in 2014, it was even revealed that Microsoft's Xbox One, which was finally released in November 2013, along with Sony's PS4, was once destined to be entirely disc-less. Indeed, Microsoft Studios' head, Phil Spencer, even revealed that "there was a real discussion about whether we should have an optical disc drive in Xbox One or if we could get away with a purely disc-less console. But when you start looking at bandwidth and game size, it does create issues".

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Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and the "battle for the living room"

Xbox One, PlayStation 4 - not really the productivity solutions some may have hoped for

Meanwhile, no more has been spoken about the Microsoft console's so-called 'three operating systems', one of which was apparently a fundamentally Windows 8-based OS, and which the more forgiving of us pondered may include seamless access to SkyDrive space, or even the Azure or Office platforms in a perfect world.

Indeed, as recently as July 2013, Xbox marketing vice president Marques Lyons publicly stated that the Xbox One could even be considered an "affordable option for small business owners", although he appeared to draw the line at Skype and SkyDrive access as the only near possibilities. At £429, "affordable" seems an odd statement for such a feature set when a clapped-out desktop PC, or even a mobile phone, could achieve such ends for the same or less.

Maybe it is a wasted opportunity, or maybe the other shoe is still yet to drop with Xbox One, once Microsoft is confident it has recovered its gaming fan base. Both companies claim sales of around two million consoles since their respective worldwide launches, so there doesn't seem to be a winner emerging yet. But the initial bad feeling generated when the masses refused Microsoft's cloud approach is still lingering, and still seems to be obsessing Microsoft strategists.

Television crossover deals - and the much-vaunted features of the three OSs that allow instant switching between television and gaming, with the potential for interaction in between - are being underplayed. None of this feels particularly positive for those of us waiting for the all-ecompassing home cloud office, but it's still early days.

As for the other "combatants" in the battle for the living room, there has been little movement. Valve's so-called "Steam Box" still hasn't appeared, but is looking like a straight gaming experience. "Google TV", meanwhile, is still finding its feet. It is now augmented (in the US only) by the USB-powered Chromecast device, which enables Android tablet computers to transmit the content of certain apps (all passive rather than active experiences, such as YouTube) to a television set. The company's increasing ambitions in network infrastructure also signal its intentions.

Tesco, which we correctly identified as a growing power player, met unexpected success with its Hudl tablet, released late in 2013, which marries the Blinkbox streaming video acquisition with a robust, child-proof 7-inch client. The Android experience is modified to feed into Tesco's online shopping experience, and we wouldn't be surprised if more comes out of its increasing flirtation with digital.

But the ultimate victor in the "battle for the living room" seems no clearer today than it was 18 months ago. With both Microsoft and Sony forced to focus on gaming, not one company can yet stake a claim to provide a complete system that delivers the whole panoply of entertainment into consumers' living rooms in a compelling, "must have" manner. Whether 2014 will see a new player enter the arena, or an existing giant step up to the mark, remains to be seen.