Introducing the 'Slingbox Of Games' Spawn HD-720 lets you play games over the internet, away from your gaming console

I wonder if the Spawn people really knew what they were getting into
when they decided to make the Spawn HD-720. The box will connect your
console to a remote PC, and will allow you to play games on the
consoles, via your computer. The applications are limitless, for example
, for those business trip nights spent in a hotel room, orย possiblyย if
the wife kicks you off the HDTV with the Xbox.
The Spawn HD-720 works by sending the console's video and audio through
the tubes to your computer, and by sending your gamepad commands from
your computer back to the console. This basically enables you to play
your console games from anywhere you can get an internet connection, in
theory.
Sling Media's Slingbox is a similar device for TV programming, where it
lets you stream TV media from home to your hotel room, the upstairs
bedroom, grandma's house, wherever. But, video games are a different
thing, entirely. If your internet latency hits a spike and your episode
of 'My Name Is Earl' gets a bit laggy, you simply watch the unit buffer
your video. However, if you hit a ping spike while playing a cutthroat
game of Halo 3, it'll seriously hamper your enjoyment of the game, and
send you cursing at the Spawn box.
Well, Spawn Labs has an answer to that – sort of. If you play on a
LAN, the Spawn HD-720 is able to broadcast the video and audio in full
720p quality at 30 frames per second. If you're somewhere else across
the internet? Well, theย qualityย depends on the internet bandwidth at
both ends, but the Spawn will automatically downgrade the
videoย qualityย as it tries to keep the lag low.
It's not really an ideal situation, but then again, you are playing your
games away from home. If it ends up delivering what Spawn Labs is
promising, then it could really be a killer gadget for the traveling
types who need their console fix.
No details yet on the pricing. Spawn Labs hopes to release the boxes
next year. Gaming blog Joystiq got their hands on the units and wrote a
full write-up on their experiences.