Although the Spotify software itself doesn’t support streaming to other devices, it’s perfectly possible to do so with the third-party software, Jamcast. What’s more, the Jamcast software is completely free of charge and (unlike the iPhone/Android software) you don’t need a premium Spotify account to take advantage.

I set this up on my Xbox 360 over the weekend and the process could barely be easier:

1. Download the Jamcast software and install it on your PC.

2. Open Jamcast, click the devices tab and check that your Xbox, PlayStation or digital radio/receiver appears in the list. If not, click Find and it should appear.

3. Fire up Spotify. Jamcast essentially broadcasts the output from your PC’s sound card to other devices on the home network, so check you’ve got no applications such as email clients running in the background, or be prepared to have your listening interrupted by “you’ve got new mail” jingles.

4. Turn on your Xbox and choose Music from the My Xbox section. Select Jamcast from the list of networked devices, then select Playlists and Virtual Soundcard. Click play, and after a few seconds delay, you should hear Spotify streaming through your console’s speakers. (Note that the instructions may vary slightly for other consoles/devices).

JAMCAST CAVEATS

Jamcast is beta software and the streaming experience isn’t perfect. The stream suffered from the odd audio wibble and drop out during our tests. A post on the Jamcast support forums claims this is down to the PC struggling to sample the Spotify audio quickly enough, which could be a particular problem on low-powered laptops and netbooks.

There’s also a five to ten second delay between the sound emanating from your PC and the sound coming out of your console/digital radio, so don’t panic if it doesn’t kick in immediately.

We also struggled to get Jamcast running on our test digital radio (the Revo Pico RadioStation), which recognised the Jamcast Virtual Soundcard playlist, but flatly refused to play it. Others have had more success with digital radios, judging by the forums.

MAC STREAMING

And what about those of you in Apple land, who are unable to install Jamcast? Several online forums suggest it’s possible to stream Spotify using a combination of the $25 Airfoil software and Apple’s Airport Express devices. Note – I haven’t tested this, so proceed at your own risk.

Let me know on comments below if you’ve found any alternative/better ways to stream Spotify to non-PC devices.

The era of the low-budget game pretty much died with the Commodore 64, Spectrum and Amstrad era. Before long the Amiga and the Atari ST had raised the budget bar to £9.99 – not so much an impulse purchase, as a couple of weeks pocket money at the very least.

Yet, that was nothing compared to the inflation of the console era. New PlayStation titles routinely cost £30. Today, a brand new Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 title can set you back £50. I sympathise with the parents I see dragging their disappointed offspring away from the game aisles in Tesco, explaining they simply can’t afford the latest releases. For my mum it was a couple quid on top of her copy of the Daily Mail and Woman’s Weekly; for today’s mums it’s almost as much as the weekly shopping bill.

However, one recent breakthrough has renewed hope of a return to the “golden age of gaming” – and it comes in the unlikely form of the iPhone. The iPhone Apps store is selling low-budget games by the bucketload, many of them far cheaper than the £2.99 bargains I was plucking out of Smiths in 1985. The Guardian’s superb games reviewer Nick Gillett picked his top 10 iPhone games at the weekend, and no fewer than four of them cost only 59p. The most expensive on his list is Beatmaker at £11.99, but that’s the only one more expensive than £2.99.

I don’t own an iPhone, but my brother-in-law does. Every time we see him, my four-year-old daughter sidles up to him and asks if she can have a go on Flight Control, a ridiculously addictive game where you take on the role of an air-traffic controller, bringing planes in to land and sending them on their merry way again. It’s about a million times better than I make it sound.

Yes, I know the iPhone hardware’s expensive, but so was the Commodore 64 (my dad paid £399 for ours).  And given the choice of forking out 59p to keep my daughter entertained with a new game every week, instead of £40 or £50 on the Wii or Xbox 360, I know which one I’ll be going for.

Today’s launch (and review) of Nvidia’s latest enthusiast cards staggered me. The GeForce GTX 280 is fast, blisteringly so; but it’s also mind-bendingly, incomprehensibly, ball-achingly expensive. It’s certainly not the first – every new launch seems to have such prices attached – and it won’t be the last. But £430 for a graphics card?

Let me set my stall out right from the outset: I once spent in excess of £300 on a Radeon 9800 Pro with a fancy blue cooler just to play Far Cry in all its glory. Being a student, I had no money and even less sense, but it just seemed like something I had to do – how else would I experience something so beautiful?

A launch like the GTX 280 should be like technological Viagra to me, then, shouldn’t it?

In a word, no. Times have changed; I’ve changed; gaming has changed. And it’s all down to the current generation of consoles. (Praise be to Sony. Amen.)

My gaming sessions go a little like this: I buy a game; put the disc in my Blu-ray drive (an added bonus); I press a button; I wait a few seconds; I enjoy high definition gaming of the highest quality on a 40in television from the comfort of my sofa. Cold beer optional.

Contrast this with the Labs: I install the game; load Crysis; can’t run Crysis; install the latest graphics drivers; load Crysis; can’t run Crysis; install the latest Crysis patch; load Crysis; can’t run Crysis; fiddle with graphics settings; daydream about sofa and PS3; check no one can see me, then cry a little; load Crysis; can’t run Crysis.

Have a break; spend it breathing deeply and thinking of dolphins and flowers and swaying forests of calmness (on my big TV).

Get back to work; lower resolution to a level I last used in 1998 on my 15in CRT; lower settings to Medium, thus defeating the whole point of Crysis; daydream about cold beer; finally get Crysis running; realise Crysis at these settings looks like Far Cry; sob into hands; spend £430 or smash up £1,000 review PC.

Is it any wonder the PC games industry is in decline when a single graphics card can hit the market (to much fanfare and positive reviews) with a price higher than that of an entire PlayStation 3? And the fact that it exists at all means games get more and more demanding and your PC is left playing catch-up.

The only PC game I’ve bought in as long as I can remember is Football Manager. And I think it’s safe to say I don’t need to spend £430 on a graphics card to play that.