What the Xbox 360 needs – a web browser

It makes no sense to me that the only game console that does not have an internet browser, is the one whose company has the dominant browser on the internet.  Sony has a browser not only on the PS3 but also on the PSP. Nintendo partnered with Opera for one on the Wii.  So why in the next Xbox Experience update are they adding, Twitter, Facebook, etc. and missing the one thing that would complete the Xbox 360’s dominance in the living room.  I don’t understand the reluctance of Microsoft to add a browser when they are even looking to add one to the Zune.

So let us put on our stupid corporate reasoning hats and try to come up with reasons for not doing this.

  • Competition with Xbox video marketplace.  Should they use a version of IE and then get flash support this could be a killer HULU and Youtube machine.  But this would be at the expense of the Xbox video marketplace.  Honestly though I really wonder how many people actually purchase video on the Xbox.  Also you can stream video to it with the Xbox being one of the best extenders out there.
  • Security.  I almost put this down as a joke with Microsoft having security issues in projects all the time.  One would think though that there is less of a reason to target the Xbox platform.  You can’t run a botnet program on it as its PowerPC based, and there is no file storage per say on the device so nothing to harvest.
  • Resources issue.  Microsoft slept on the train wreck that was IE6 for so long and has ramped up the group to get IE 7 and 8 out in rapid succession that they don’t have the time for a rewrite.  I don’t see how difficult it would be to recompile the IE engine to run on the PPC platform.

So now that I’ve wasted brain power trying to come up with possible reasons to not bring browsing to the console, let us explore why I want one.  I really want a lightweight browser that I can use so that while I’m laying down on the couch, I can check the news, look at sports scores, etc.  It also be great to pull up Gmail real quick and check on anything new that’s come in.  Its convenience people, and it be nice to not have to keep the laptop around in the living room.  Please Microsoft, give us the browser!

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