Dedicated Theater Must-Haves: Game Ports

If you’re building a dedicated home theater, do yourself a favor and plan on adding a game port or two. What’s that, you’re not a gamer? Take my advice and add them away. Video game consoles are revolutionizing the home theater market and many of the recent converts are folks that would have never described themselves as “gamers”.

The purpose of game-ports is two-fold, first so that the console can easily be transported from room to room and secondly for easier access to settings, controllers, and loading media. I like to place my game ports flush mounted to the face of risers and or at the front of the room in a wall-box.

A game port cabling should consist of a HDMI cable, component cables (for Wii’s and older X-Box’s), a RG-59 for digital audio, and a CAT-6 for future proofing. Don’t worry about the RG-59 being limited to coaxial digital audio only; RadioShack, Amazon, and eBay sell cheap optical to coaxial converters that allow you take an optical digital out and convert it to coaxial.

Whatever type of system or interface you go with, I hope that you’ll at least allow for the possibility of a game system in your home theater. Keep an open mind and you’ll be surprised at how much fun big-screen gaming can be, even for non-gamers.

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