If Jay Gatsby had been a technophile, Cedia Expo would be his Mecca. For the super wealthy who want to show off their riches but are not particularly interested in expensive cars or works of art, this year’s Cedia event had all of the ridiculously expensive electronics that you could possibly need.

Want your own 4k ultra HD laser projector for your personal movie theater? Sony showed of a liquid cooled version at Cedia with a bargain price of only around $60,000. Need a high end sound system that looks more like avant garde modern sculptures than actual speakers? Also covered. You can even find some unassuming pieces of furniture that transform into a poker table with crystal liquor decanters at the touch of a button.

Spectacle seemed to be the key word at Cedia this year, with around a dozen exhibits all focused on making sure your multi-thousand dollar home entertainment electronics are introduced to guests by rising out of the ground, dropping from the ceiling, or appearing through a two-way mirror.

There was even at least one example of a panel that hid not only a 4k television, but also storage space for a handful of firearms. You know, to protect all that expensive hardware just in case someone actually made it into your home past all of your wi-fi smart locks and 360 degree surveillance cameras, which were also showcased at Cedia this year.

4k video – still the future more than the present

Aside from the transformer poker tables, camouflaged speakers, and hideaway television screens, the biggest trend at Cedia this year was without a doubt 4k video, whether it was high-end digital projectors or jumbo-sized televisions.

But while 4k screens might be gaining popularity with the big-spending home theater crowd, the format still has a long way to go in terms of content, and at least at the moment, consumers who shell out the cash for 4k-capable equipment will have little to actually watch on it.

For an event that was all about showing off amazing home entertainment hardware, there was one product that was conspicuously absent from the event: video games. While there were no fewer than three golf simulators and at least one digital shooting range at Cedia, there was not a single game console to be seen anywhere, and even at Sony Corp’s exhibit there was not a PlayStation in sight.

And there is a good reason for this: None of the current-gen game consoles support 4k game content.

There had been rumors earlier this year that 4k-capable consoles were on the horizon, but so far neither Sony nor Microsoft have made so much as a peep about it. Considering the fact that only high-end gaming PCs are even capable of smoothly running modern games at 4k right now, it seems unlikely that we will see a 4k PlayStation 4 or Xbox One any time soon, and even if we did, few games would likely support it.

As more content creators adopt 4k video, that will slowly change, but right now 4k devices appear to be more about conspicuous consumption than actual functionality.

Photo by Eric David | SiliconANGLE