El Camino syndrome?

JUST BEFORE THANKSGIVING, Microsoft released its new game console, the Xbox 360, which is far more advanced than the original Xbox, introduced four years ago. The company hopes to sell 3 million Xbox 360s within 90 days, months ahead of the introduction next year of Sony's PlayStation 3.

But perhaps being first to market isn't the major challenge for the Xbox. Research has shown that serious gamers may be concerned about the ''extra features" that Microsoft has built into its new machine. In an apparent bid to persuade mom and dad to go ahead and drop $400 on a toy, the company is calling Xbox 360 a ''digital amplifier." That means it will play DVDs and CDs, it will connect to the Internet, and it will even scroll through the photo galleries on your PC. But by broadening the appeal of the Xbox, Microsoft may alienate hard-core game players who fear a do-it-all machine that their parents approve of may not be up-to-snuff among their gaming peers.

When it comes to home electronics, people have been saying for years that we were moving toward a single ''information appliance" in the house. Yet even though we can now play CDs and DVDs and even watch TV and listen to the radio on our computers, we still prefer devices that do all those things individually. We make room on the shelf for one more specialized component, never bothering to network existing devices, or eliminate redundant ones. Indeed, the whole thrust of modern consumerism suggests that we are happier buying more gizmos, not fewer.

So the Xbox 360 is the latest new product to raise the question: Can our aversion to the multifunctional gadget be overcome by savvy marketers? Or is this a sort of late-emerging facet of human nature-and therefore intractable?

. . .

There is a long history of ingenious multifunction products that never quite took off the way they should have-the combination washer-dryer unit and ill-fated Web-TV come to mind. This may seem irrational, but it's the equivalent of knowing that you can

not have a car that is both a pickup and a roadster without it being a perversion like the Chevrolet El Camino. (Which may have had its charms, but had none of the virtues of either a sports car or a truck.)

These days, digital devices in particular seem to come with dozens of additional and combined capabilities: While cellphones with cameras may have succeeded against the odds, television tuners for PCs, cable radio, combination printer-copiers, and home MP3 players have not. Behavioral economists call extra features on complicated products ''shrouded attributes." These capabilities hide behind strange symbols and inscrutable buttons. They frustrate and irritate consumers, who don't want to spend the time or energy to figure out whether they're any use.

''Extra features that you won't use might deter you from buying something that you would have bought, at the same price, without the extra features," says Alvin Roth, an economist at Harvard. There are two theories about why this is so, according to Roth. For one thing, ''you can be confused-for example, the gadget comes with a cellphone capability, but I already have a cellphone-by extraneous add-ons," he explained in an interview. ''Or you are deterred from buying the gadget with lots of add-ons because you figure that the price reflects all the capabilities, and you are reluctant to pay for those you don't need, preferring perhaps to wait for a more stripped-down version."

These problems can presumably be addressed by smart marketing campaigns, which today more than ever are focused first on early adapters, ''cool seekers," and mavens. But consumer behavior isn't always a matter of knee-jerk responses. Serious cyclists have no truck with hybrid bicycles, for example, not because they are confused or feel ripped off: It's because hybrids don't cut the mustard for serious road riding or mountain biking.

In an interview, David Lewis, a psychologist and coauthor of ''The Soul of the New Consumer," said that no true geek would be confused by all those extra jacks on the back of the new Xbox. The real problem, he believes, is that the diehard gamers who would go to the mall at midnight on a Tuesday to have first crack at Xbox 360 ''would feel that any addition is a frippery, and not something which would enable them to take their games seriously. A continued series of add-ons would be something they would not want to see."

The heart of the matter, though, is not whether those extras are good or bad, or whether they invisibly add to the price, or whether they somehow discredit the machine. As Lewis and others argue, our whole economic paradigm has shifted from a scarcity of goods and revenue to a scarcity of time and attention.

All of which resonates with my own experience. In the long run, I might save a lot of time and shelf-space by throwing out my stereo and DVD player when my Xbox 360 arrives. But it could take days for me to figure out what cords go where. And I know from trying to install training wheels on my son's bike that nothing is ever as simple, straightforward, or painless as it appears to be on the box.

Economists call this ''opportunity cost." Taking the time to figure out how to edit with my new video camera, for example, takes time away from actually filming my kids on the first night of Hanukkah. And while I could sit down and figure out precisely how to watch a DVD on my Xbox, that's time I could be dedicating to the mastery of the killer urban driving game ''Need For Speed." So the more I think about all those doodads and what-you-may-call-its, the more I begin to resent the companies that build them.

Better not to think about the extras, then, and few of us do. We're used to ignoring most of the features on our cellphones and TVs and even the dashboards of our cars. The truth is, I use maybe 10 percent of my computer's applications and features.

Funny, that's what they say about my brain, too.

Hans Eisenbeis is editor of The Rake, a Minneapolis-based monthly magazine.