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Microsoft's Family Room Change
michael_cain writes "Siliconvalley.com is reporting that Microsoft is shutting down its Ultimate TV project. The service itself will continue to be offered. The set top box hardware developers are moving to the XBox organization. With the sales of the XBox already larger than either Ultimate TV or its predecessor, WebTV, it looks like Microsoft is adopting the game console as their method-of-choice for getting a platform to run their software into the family room." I found the decision to more or less put UltimateTV on life support and discontinue active work on it interesting - that leaves TiVo and ReplayTV as the main standing competitors.
With XBox in more living rooms them Tivo, this means that Microsoft has a huge platform to launch from if they extend UltimateTV to the XBox.
Ultimate TV, Bob and 640k of memory
Perhaps Microsoft will be strengthened technicaly as linux matures the same way AMD has forced Intel to operate more efficiently with competition.
If voting were effective, it would be illegal by now.
Despite their previous advantage over TiVo of being able to record 2 shows at once, Ultimate TV never made any headway in the market. It had the following problems from the start...
- It's Microsoft. Despite what they would tell you, I think there's a real stigma with having Microsoft's name attached to something at this point. Despite the reality, to the average Joe it means this thing is going to crash often and not work the way I want it to.
- It's DirecTV only. TiVo has a "standalone" box and that means ANYONE can have TiVo.
It probably doesn't mean anything to TiVo and/or ReplayTV anyway since Ultimate TV never really gave them any competition.
-S
--- What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
So the only player with enough money/power to really challenge the network and broadcast interests is gone. TiVo's strategy of just kiss as and remove any feature the broacasters don't like (30 second skip for instance) has always offended me. Replay just doesn't look strong enough financially to hold on. Say what you will about BillCo but I don't think a further reduction in the choice of new media is anything to rejoice about.
loses one tentacle in MV, and retreats to it's lair. But, like play-doh, it will ooze forth in another direction. So much for M$ reaching outside Redmond to embrace the Valley. Embrace and extend? No, retreat and regroup.
Web/Ultimate TV was dead in the water anyway. Dunno why they didn't do this ages ago. TiVo and Replay may have the field to themselves for now, but they better make the most of it while they can. Game consoles were the holiday gift of 2001, but DVR's better be the gift of 2002, or they will sink under the wave of the Beast's next tentacular oozing.
Sig?
Sigue Sigue Sputnik!!!
They took their first crack at the technology, and will use what they learned to incorporate it into the next generation of the X-Box/Homestation. In 5 years I can see a single box that combines Xbox/Tivo/Moxi capabilities into one effective package.
It appears to me rather that Microsoft is focusing on the product that they think will make money and more quickly give them an advantage for competing with TiVo. XBox has the components it needs to compete with TiVo: good graphics, hard drive, video in/out, and a remote interface to control it.
end of line
Doesn't this fit right into the vapourware called HomeStation?
XBox (or call it a cheap PC) has a small harddrive, DVD decoding hw, TV out, remote, dsl/cable, lan. Stuff it with a mpeg2 encoding chip, increase the hd to TiVo size, give it a bit more ram. Don't you get a TiVo+game+browsing+DVD all-in-one box? Plus MS is kind enough to subsidise a couple of hundred dollars for each box. I don't even have to think about getting a small PC case with mini-atx mobo and half-apg size vid card with video out for my living room! Regardless how I don't like MS, that could be one hell of a box that I might just buy it so that MS effectively subsidise me!
humps
As per this previous Slashdot story, XBox will attempt to compete in the PVR market AND DVD player market.
It also appears that the WebTV functionality will (or maybe it has been already?) be incorporated into the XBox.
This is an excellent strategy on the part of M$. They have been desperately trying to invade the living room for decades. Perhaps one of the competing game consoles will pair up with a PVR provider to provide some realistic competition?
Moxi still seems like a "too good to be true" kind of thing. It supports everything under the rainbow and is slated to cost less than a full featured DirecTiVo. Until that puppy is available at one of the big chains, I'm not convinced.
If it ain't a Model M, it's a piece of crap.
Many folks commented that the Xbox itself is a loss leader, MS needs revenue streams associated ... the initail comments were that that would be the games ... but if the infrastructure in the current XB or an upgraded version makes it a real competitor to TiVo with a subscription model attractive to the whole household (meaning mom and dad, not just the gamer kids) it becomes a success for MS
"It almost certainly means this functionality will be lumped into the Xbox's successor, which is fully in line with everything we've heard about that box so far."
Then they have a problem. XBox has only been on the market now for what, two months? If Xbox 2 hits stores less than a year after the release of the original, then it's going to fall flat on its face. One of the big reasons many have stayed away from Xbox is that they don't want to get on the vicious cycle of upgrades Microsoft is famous for, and releasing a new system less than a year after the old would just justify those fears. At the very least, they'll have many Xbox owners who see the new Xbox 2 come out, and decide to not spend their money and wait for Xbox 4 or 5 to come out before upgrading.
It's too early in the game for Microsoft to even think about competing with themselves in the console market. If they think the same rules for running their OS monopoly can be applied to today's three-way power struggle...
If Microsoft is smart (and regardless of what you may think of their policies or products, they are smart) they will keep the architecture the same across all boxes. Put in better/faster/more renderers each year, a bigger harddrive each year, but keep everything standardized. Then you can upgrade, and all your old games keep working.
Just like the real pc world. The computer I had 5 computers ago will play quake3, counterstrike, and everything else that comes out. It may play like crap, but it plays it.
And my current computer plays doom!
Microsoft knows the backwards/forwards compatability thing. In fact, they sometimes keep compatability at the expense of feature improvement (himem386.sys anyone?)
My question is, will Sony beat them to it? They don't own an Internet service (as far as I know), but they have everything else, and a lot more consumer electronics experience than Microsoft.
is not such a bad idea - a lot of their stuff actually works. most linux zealots would tell you otherwise, but look at microsoft making money and look at linux companies closing down left and right...