Wind 2.0: Blow me, AmBx

Have you ever wondered what it’d be like to feel a slight gust of wind wisp across your face in tune to the whistling gales gently rolling over the plains of some polygonal city? Well, now you can! The Phillips AmBx not only offers that, but some slight mood lighting focused just outside of your frame of vision for when you enter a cave or some such nonsense. All for a mere $299 to $399!

Some devilishly expensive speakers, packed gingerly with some unnecessary extras, are apparently on the “cutting edge” of the gaming industry. And by “cutting edge,” I mean probably going to be stuck on the clearance shelves of a Best Buy for a few months.

These speakers likely sound pretty good, especially compared to the generic CD-Player/stereo that I’ve had plugged into my system since I was 18, but all the extras just instill in me a greater hatred towards the rampant capitalism associated with the gaming industry. Part of the enjoyment of gaming is the separation of reality and fiction, so do we really need to have fans blowing at our faces? Perhaps after an 18-hour+ WoW session, while you’ve lived on nothing but Cheetos and Mt. Dew, in order to forget the fact that you haven’t showered for over a day. Or the mood lighting might help give a splash of romance to the dancing wood elves that you’ve decided to watch for a couple of hours instead of calling a girl.

Perhaps in AmBx 2.0, they’ll stick in a device that lets your smell the brimstone or squalor of a dilapidated dystopian town as you try desperately to ignore the mood lighting and shoot a monster. Or perhaps a bean-bag gun to help simulate getting shot in the torso. Buying something like this only secures the market for more ridiculous “innovation” in the future. And you know what? It isn’t even 7.1, so how can it be considered revolutionary?