PC vendor Acer have this wild notion that they can take on the Nintendo Wii, the Sony PS3 and the Xbox 360 from Microsoft with a new open standard gaming console. The wild plan apparently emerged at an Acer press conference to discuss notebooks.

Still at a concept stage the device being discussed is open source PC-based games machine to rival the Wii, Playstation 3, and Xbox 360.

The rumour came about at an Acer press conference when Acer's senior vice president, James T. Wong, was interviewed by BetaNews, where he dropped the nugget:

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"The company has a game machine in mind, and it will be based on open standards." he said. "If you look at most of the other game machines that are out there right now — Nintendo's, the Xbox — they are ‘closed' and proprietary systems."he is reported to have said.

So does this stand a chance of ever happening? And if it does, what are it's chances of success?

Blorge.Com doubt very much whether this idea will ever get off the ideas table and on to shop shelves.

They saiy that If the company looked at what they are up against, they will surely baulk at the idea of spending time and money on a piece of hardware which has absolutely no chance of overcoming the opposition, or even selling in large enough quantities to make any profit.

That's not to say the idea of an open standard games machine is a bad one, it would just be almost impossible to achieve.

Add to that the fact that Acer would need to make money on the hardware, as they wouldn't be making any money on the games, and we hit another problem.

Nice idea Acer, and one which has got you some good publicity over the last 24 hours, but I can't see this machine ever coming to fruition. It would just be a waste of yours and our time and energy.