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, or possibly 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, the quality depends on the internet bandwidth at both ends, but the Spawn will automatically downgrade the video quality 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.