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The excitement and hype swirling around the release of Grand Theft Auto 4 (see Gritty GTA4 may help Sony wrest turf from Microsoft), and the likelihood that it will spur game console sales for Sony's PlayStation 3 proves once again that time-worn axiom of video entertainment -- content is king.
Or, as Bill Clinton might have put it back in 1992, "it's about the games, stupid."
Though it might seem obvious that video game consoles are about games, there was a period of time not too long ago when these devices were being heralded as the new center pieces of home entertainment. "Use your game console to play DVDs, to download movies, to do everything you might want on your living room TV," was the spin we were hearing, especially from the Microsoft Xbox camp (Sony by contrast has a bit more of a stake in standalone DVD players and other devices!)
If you believed the hype back then, the set top box was about to become all but extinct, to be replaced by the general-purpose video game console.
But that hasn't come to pass, at least not yet. And so we are left with video game consoles whose main function is to play video games. As it should be.
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