Chris Lanier picks up my complaint about the high price of an Xbox 360 for non-gamers and adds:
At this point, Microsoft needs to be pushing OEM’s to get sub $200 standalone v2 Extenders out. I don’t want to buy an Xbox 360 for every room in the house! I want a single Xbox 360, and then 3-4 standalone Extenders! The perfect price point for standalone Extenders is just around $150, and I think it’s very possible with existing technology to provide the product at the right price.
Exactly.
And for $150, it doesn’t even have to be hi-def in my opinion. I would do one for the kids, one in the kitchen, one in the garage, etc. Just anyplace I wanted a tv, but didn’t feel like running a coax connection. This is the true beauty of MCE and something that has been overlooked.
Street price on D-Link’s DM320 802.11g is about $150. It’s not an “official” Extender, but it is PlaysForSure Audio compliant and supports WM Connect. The newer DM520 is PlaysForSure Video compliant. The advantage of not being an extender in this case is support for non-standard Windows Media codecs like XviD and MPEG-4.