Using a laptop as the monitor for a console

I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask this but here goes:

How can you use the laptop monitor as the visuals for a console? I only have a Wii to test it with. I'm not very good with hardware so any step by step instructions would be greatly appreciated (if it's hard to set up).

I've never seen a laptop with native video input support (and I used to work for a major laptop manufacturer, so I've seen quite a few). They generally have video output ports which are typically VGA and/or HDMI for output to an external monitor or projector.

You'll probably have to add a video capture card or device to your laptop in order to make this work. Many USB devices exist, so search your favorite electronics vendor for "video capture usb" or something similar. Prices seem to vary wildly - I saw multiple options under $20, although quality may be a concern.

Most of the ones I've seen are only Composite (single yellow RCA video jack) in, which would probably be OK for a Wii or other standard definition console, but not so great for a PS3 or Xbox 360, or a BluRay player, for example. You'll want to make sure that your device supports composite out if you go this route. Most devices do, but you may have to buy a different video output cable than the one it came with.

With one of these devices, you simply plug the device into your laptop's USB port, and then plug the Wii's video and audio output jacks into the device. It should come with software that allows you to view the output on your screen and record it to your laptop's hard drive if you so choose.

I found this youtube video of someone using one of these USB devices to hook his Xbox 360 to his laptop, which should walk you through the basic steps.

There's no good way to do this. As Agent86 notes, you can get a video capture device, but the quality can be lousy, and more importantly, the latency introduced by a USB connection and the various encoding & decoding that takes place before the video shows up on your screen makes this a poor choice for gaming.

Could you hook up your Cable Box to your computer? Sure.

Could you hook your 360 up to your computer and play a turn based game with no timing elements? Yeah, I suspect that'd work. But the nature of the Wii's motion controls, and the fact that, quite frankly, most games involve some element of precision timing (for variable definitions of precision) make this a bad idea.

Take the 100 bucks a decent capture device would cost you and buy a 20" LCD monitor on Black Friday next week. You'll be much happier with the results.