Consoles to dominate digital living rooms

The "digital home of the future" is the sort of term technology fetishists have been throwing around for years. In discussions of that home, the cornerstone is often a Digital Media Adapter, a device that allows users to enjoy shows and music stored on their computers through their TV or stereo systems.

According to a new report from ABI Research, the home of the future is increasingly becoming the home of the present. Analysts with the firm today released a report titled "Digital Video Adapters in the Living Room" that predicts there will be about 184 million such boxes in homes in 2012.

While there's an array of such products on the market today (Windows Media Center, Apple TV), ABI analysts think game consoles with DMA-like features will represent the bulk of the industry. The study predicts that 85 percent of DMAs in 2012 will be embedded in game consoles like the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3, with only 11 percent being stand-alone devices. The remaining percentage would be split between devices that are primarily TV sets, DVD players, and the like.

"The manufacturers are aiming to make their consoles more like 'media center' devices, rather than being just for gaming," said ABI principal analyst Steve Wilson. "The advantage they have is market share: their products ship in large volumes. The big question is whether gamers will actually make use of this added functionality built into their consoles."