No matter how many features you can add to a product, it’s always price that sells it.  This is always been a problem with the Media Center platform, and with Vista has become even more of an issue.

Media Center PCs just cost too much for many people to consider.  For many people the deciding factor of getting a Media Center PC depends on whether or not they can justify upgrading their current PCs.

CableCARD support in Vista is huge, almost as huge as the prices of the machines shipping in a few weeks.  It’s understandable from a technology standpoint that these systems need to be pretty beefy.  They need the horsepower for decoding, decrypting, and transcoding all of this new HD content from Cable, HD DVD, and Blu-ray.  However, at $2,000+ it’s really limiting the market.  Sure, this will change as hardware prices go down over the next few months, but it’s discouraging to launch such a needed feature at such high prices.

Without the addition of HD support the product will die, plain and simple.  For general acceptance of Media Center it had to come.  Now, let’s get OEMs to tackle the newest old problem ever, getting the cost down.

We need a few different price points as Vista gets here.

• $800-$900 – Cable Ready PCs.  These PCs need to include OCUR-enabled BIOS’, HDMI-HDCP video cards, 1GB of RAM, and at least 250GB of storage.  They will not ship with Digital Cable Tuners (OCUR), but will allow users to purchase them online at a later point and connect them via external or internal USB.
• $1000-$1400 – These PCs need to include everything from above with the addition of a single Digital Cable Tuner.  A second Digital Cable Tuner should be able to be purchased online.  They should also include at least 350GB of storage.
• $1500 and up – These PCs need to include everything from above with an additional Digital Cable Tuner (total of two).  They should also include 2GB+ of RAM, 500GB+ of storage, and HD DVD or Blu-ray drive.

I see little reason that these price points can not be met within the next month or two.  Just to make sure, I did a few customizations of standard shipping Dell and HP PCs today.  Here is what I came up with.

Dell XPS 410

• Intel Core2 Duo Processor E6300 (1.86GHz)
• Windows XP Media Center Edition w/ Vista Express Update
• 1GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz
• 250GB Serial ATA 3Gb/s (7200RPM)
• 16X DVD+/-RW Burner
• 256MB nVidia GeForce 7900 GS
• Integrated 7.1 Channel Audio

Total: $989

HP m7690y

• Intel Core 2 Duo Processor E6300 (1.86GHz)
• Windows XP Media Center Edition w/ Vista Express Update
• 1GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz
• 250GB Serial ATA 3Gb/s (7200RPM)
• 16X DVD+/-RW Burner
• Single NTSC TV tuner with PVR, FM Tuner, Remote
• 256MB NVIDIA GeForce 7500LE
• Integrated 7.1 Channel Audio

Total: $949

These systems are not far from my figures, and had I bumped up the Digital Cable Ready PC to $1000 it would work fine.  However, I believe that once you hit $1000, the Digital Cable Tuner better be included.  It’s just one of those things that make the average consumer that they can afford it (eg. $99 is great, but $101 is too much).

It’s really sad when you compare these systems to what have been announced by Sony and Dell so far (HP has yet to make an announcement).  The Dell, which is currently part of an extremely large package features the same XPS 410 with Core 2 Duo (speed not given), 2GB of RAM, and 1TB hard drive space.  While I’m all for those specs, I think the market would benefit from lower spec machines unless there are major performance reasons to go with 2GB of RAM (which, knowing Vista there very well could be).  Hard drive upgrades can be done by the user, external USB 2.0 hard drive are everywhere today.

It’s been noted by several people from CES, that Dell plans to offer the Digital Cable Tuner as an upgrade to their machines.  Hopefully, we will be able to get the XPS 410 from above ($989) paired with the Digital Cable Tuner bring the price to around $1300.

The Sony is not much better, quoting a Core 2 Duo (speed not given), NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GTL, 2GB of RAM, and 500GB hard drive.  You do get a Blu-ray drive and Digital Cable Tuner in this package, with the price of $3,300 which would put it with my third option above but still about $1,000 more than I would like to see it at (BD drive is a big reason for that).

Price is really the only feature that matters.  OEMs need to drive their prices down and start pushing out Digital Cable Ready PCs just like they push out Windows XP Media Center Edition PCs today.