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Microsoft Reportedly Working On TV Service For Xbox 360
tekgoblin writes "It seems that Microsoft may be in talks with media companies to license TV shows and movies for a new streaming service. With the addition of ESPN to the Xbox 360 over Xbox Live, Microsoft may be in a position to do the same for different content providers and charge a subscription fee for them separately. The idea is to better personalize content and only pay for what you want to watch instead of paying cable companies for all the channels you don't watch. Microsoft is looking into duplicating what they have done with ESPN to include channels such as Showtime or HBO and possibly Disney."
Will they offer MSNBC?
This is likely to piss off AT&T that they're work on the really horrible U-Verse service with. I would like to assume the XBox 360 would be more reliabe/work better than the U-Verse garbage, but the idea of red-ringing over a TV show does come to mind.
That being said - I think this is a very good and cool idea. It's convergence and the ousting of old tech that needs to go. Modern cable companies are getting too invasive and control/power hungry over what you watch. I'm not saying Microsoft wont be that way, but at least with them you can reap the benefits of paying less, whereas the cable companies just charge more, invade more, and progressively provide less.
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I'm happy for you guys but for us, Europeans, I mean the ones with the Live Gold account, we'll (probably) see none of this.
Sigh. How I'd love to watch the MLB live here
Just remembering the recent Netflix case..the "last mile cable" laying tough guys might have something to say about the matter.
Googled related story here:
http://www.businessinsider.com/netflix-needs-to-worry-about-comcast-not-youtube-2009-4
Just team up with the BBC and offer iplayer, Free in UK the rest of the world can pay say £15/$20 month - then we can have full length seasons of Dr Who - whats not to like :-)
GoogleTV provides this with HBO. I think its a great idea but its too expensive at $30 a month. I love the idea of paying only for the TV programming I want. But the prices are going to have to fall significantly to make it worth while. Thankfully ESPN is free, for now :)
I've always said English was my second language. Had Romeo and Juliet been written in C, I might have understood it.
I used to use my Xbox 360 for Netflix. Too damn noisy. Way too noisy. The fan noise is not noticeable when playing games but for TV it's a show-stopper. Netflix is a better experience with an Apple TV anyway.
If I didn't have absolutely NOTHING to do, I wouldn't be here.
As we have recently seen, the practices we most feared have started coming to pass in the case where a residential cable internet provider got paid by a media streaming service to be able to provide paid service to customers. I'm too lazy to link to the slashdot reference to it, but this will undoubtedly be fresh on people's minds and will undoubtedly become a key example of why net neutrality is needed.
Microsoft will not be interested in paying every ISP endpoint for the privilege of providing content services to its customers. I believe they are more likely to take the issue to court and to the lobby to ensure a net neutral future.
Microsoft probably have a good chance of making this work on the basis that Windows Media Center is actually a very capable DVR and they have several customers of their MediaRoom solution. I've been running Windows 7 Media Center in my home for several months now and it's extremely slick and does the job reasonably well. It's UI is light years ahead of all the others - although that is probably helped by the fact that the hardware I'm using is significantly more powerful than your usual set top box.
My only real complaints are:
Compared to my old Topfield (which was considered one of the better DVR's here in the UK yet couldn't handle daylight saving and botched up all your recording timers, had a ghastly UI, put the wrong metadata in your recordings if you padded the start time, had a completely broken series link and would only work reliably if you flashed it with custom firmware) 7MC is a work of art.
Desire the issues, once you've worked around these and installed a couple of other (free) applications then you have a very capable DVR which can not only record and playback live TV, but access your DVD rips from multiple locations around the house (with the correct meta-data and cover art), view, schedule and play back recorded shows via your mobile or desktop web browser and play back streamed video from a number of online sources.
Yes, Boxee or XBMC would be a better choice if you just want to play video - but the GF wants to watch and record live TV which means that WMC is a good option.
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Disney? Who watches that? Why does Disney even have a tv channel?
The official way to change channels would be by throwing punches.
Never trust a spiritual leader who cannot dance -- Mr. Miyagi
MS started doing Sky TV on the Xbox 360 some time in the last year or so in the UK, so Microsoft's certainly prepared to offer streaming TV. I figure its absence from the US has more to do with licencing and contracts than any technical hurdle.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
And now my TV can BSOD too!
They don't do a deal with Comcast to have your XBox be your cable box. (I mean besides the fact the video would have to come through the ethernet and therefore you'd have to have comcast as your internet company.) I mean they could charge a premium to turn it on and give it some slick name. (You know, like "Get Xfinity 360, only $20 extra a month.")
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
Why is innovation and technology today all about video games, tablets and streaming movies? I know they are profitable, but very limited in terms of providing something NEW.
Aren't there other technologies and forms of entertainment we can spend our time and money on?
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Just give us a web browser on our 360s, MS. I'll shag clicker.com something fierce and you'll make your money off the hardware and Live subscription fee. Could it be any easer?
As someone who has not purchased a current generation console, I find this to be a big driving factor that may convince me to buy an Xbox360. If the options to get youtube, hulu, local media, and netflix all work seemlessly, this might also be the final nail in the coffin of expensive cable or satellite services for my house.
Is Sony paying any attention? This is their cue to do something smart.
$20 for the basic package (which is quite basic), and $15 each for additional sets of channels like sport, movies, Showtime, and "entertainment" (random channels that didn't get into the basic package ;-).
This is not perfect. For example, Fox Sports will black out AFL and NRL games that they would normally show on cable, because they don't have Internet broadcast rights for those games. But it seems to be a fair start at giving people tired of paying hundreds of dollars for hundreds of channels, when they may only watch 7 or 8 channels that just happen to be spread across a few different packages, an alternative to cable TV. Completely unbundled pricing -- subscribe on a channel by channel basis -- would be ideal, and this isn't there yet, but maybe it'll help push things in that direction.
Whatever agreements are necessary for the full ESPN on XBox Live are not available in my area, so for me ESPN on XBox is a raging joke. If they're TV service is anything like it, it'll be a complete non-event, like most other "big" media online announcements of late. Yes, I'm giving you the evil eye Google TV.
My ISP won't allow me to consume that way. After all, It's direct competition with them. My ISP has instituted a cap so I don't consume from sources other than them. *cough* COMCAST!
They're using their grammar skills there.
One thing I can all but guarantee, it won't be cheaper than cable/satellite. The a la carte television service is not a new idea. The same people that fucked it up when it was explored back in the early cable days and who fucked it up for Netflix, Hulu, and every other streaming service will be there for this one. And no, it won't be Comcast or AT&T or any of the people that actually bill you. They WANT to provide people the most flexible service they could, that would draw more customers.
No, this will be reinvented to death by the content providers.
You will see $10 monthly subscriptions for each media producing company's channel packages, tiers of packages for the big ones like Turner or Disney, and my guess is you'll end up with a la carte that costs just as much as your bundled cable TV does if not more. You will likely be able to buy comparable "bundles" at the same cost per month as traditional subscription television. But if you truly want a la carte programming, you'll end up paying as much or more for fewer overall channels.
The carriers (Comcast, ATT, etc) are not going to give you a choice of ignoring the providers' experimental networks and shows, they're locked into paying for them just as you are by contracts printed in the 80's and they already oversell their ad space with the channels they have. They would start a riot with their advertisers over the suddenly very narrow marketing window if they didn't force you to accept some channels you don't want. If they did, new channels would never get off the ground and niche channels would die out from lack of funding.
Well, why do I need a channel anyway, you might ask. Let me just watch the shows I want and stuff the channels.
That is the reason why Netflix and Hulu are getting the push back on providing streaming content that they are. The entire business system is based on a model that presumes upon timeslot-based content to promote and target prime advertising and shows. The technology to provide the media has changed, but the business model behind it never had to. Now it is suddenly bucking hard against what they see as the iTunes to their RIAA, coming to slay the lumbering beast of their outmoded business plan. There are simply too many people who ALL have to be on board for it to work.
I'm not saying it will never work, but I'm saying don't get too excited about this announcement. Microsoft will play ball with content providers, it won't try to leverage them into the 21st century (like Google or Apple). You might see it change down the road for the better as studios and networks start to realize that they cannot dictate how we watch their programming anymore. If they want to join the rest of us in the World of Tomorrow, some big sweeping changes to their business has to take place first. And that will be slow and painful for them, and for us in the meantime.
"Not all who wander are lost" -- JRR Tolkien
It may be up to comcast soon as they may own nbc and may try to make it cable only.
be like Canada with theme packs and being able to buy the box with no mirroring or outlet fees.
But why can't you just get limited basic + HBO?
OR just pay for ESPN + your RSN and other sports channels?
I don't want to pay for disney channel but want ESPN.
You can buy stuff like NHL gamecenter that is just on line why can't they have low cost local team only pack?
My cable company is the only ISP in my area that offers a decent broadband speed. So how exactly is this supposed to help me circumvent my cable company again?
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Look: I play video games because watching TV bores me to the point of violence. I do not want to watch TV on my console; I want to play games on my console.
I write sci-fi for metalheads
I change the channel and Clippy appears to announce that I have to watch a 1 minute ad sponsored by a Microsoft partner before watching that channel. After the ad is done I get a 502 error which after a google search I find out is caused because the channel 'might' show something with DRM.
Sony doesn't need to pay attention, the PS3 is already there.
- Local media: The PS3 can do local media (video/audio/pictures on the HD, or a USB drive).
- Remote Media: The PS3 can act as a DLNA client
- CD/DVD/Blu-Ray: The PS3 has it built in.
- Netflix: Since the last update, the Netflix client is now built into the console.
- Hulu+: The Hulu+ client is available as a free download from the PSN Store (you DO need to have a Hulu+ account with Hulu though). Also, Hulu is still working on expanding the content available on Hulu+ devices versus Hulu, so some things are still missing.
- Vudu: They just added a Vudu client for "Same day as DVD release" Video on Demand.
- Sports: both "MBA.tv" and "NHL Gamecenter LIVE" have Clients (great if you're a sports nut, or married to one)
- VoD: Sony has been working to build out their VoD service. rent/buy TV/Movies (including next day availability of Cable TV shows, and making shows available by Channel to make things easier to find including HBO, Showtime, SyFy, etc.)
Coupled with the increased quality of Over The Air signals since the Digital Switchover, and the need for cable is less and less (depending on how you consume). In a busy city I get at least 10 stations (plus substations), with HD quality reception.
Personally I ditched cable and went with a PS3 and a TiVo.
The TiVo adds an easy to use DVR with a Dual Tuner (record up to two shows at once, while watching a third pre-recorded), includes a Netflix client, is supposed to get a Hulu+ client (according to both Hulu and TiVo), and also includes:
- YouTube client
- Blockbuster Video Client
- Amazon Video On Demand Client
- Pandora Radio Client
- and a few others (I'm getting too tired to list).
=========
For me the cost breakdown was as follows:
Cost:
- Top of the line TiVo with a lifetime subscription runs $500 + $13/month recurring. (gives capacity for ~150 Hours of HD quality recording or >1000 of SD level quality)
- Low end PlayStation 3 runs $300.
- Hulu+ runs $8/month
- Netflix runs $8/month (for streaming only, +$2 to include DVD shipping also)
Total cost:
Initial cost (minus tax, cables, antenna): $800
Recurring month cost: $30
Cable used to run me $130/month (for Cable+Internet), I switched to DSL (~$30/month) and what I listed above, and it dropped my monthly bills by $100 a month (though it takes 8-9 months before the savings kicks in since you're purchasing your own equpiment).
That allows me to get the occasional VoD Movie from Amazon VoD, or purchase a season of a Cable only show or two, and still come out ahead overall (plus I can budget myself and decide if I have the money for it, instead of being hit the cost every month, like it or not, wether I use it or not).
=========
As an added bonus, the PS3 also play games, and the TiVo records other shows constantly once it know what you like, so there is usually SOMETHING you might find interesting, even if it is a rerun of a different show.
You could also throw in a cheaper/cheap DVR if you don't care/want the dual tuners, or NO DVR if its just not feature you're interested in, which drops both the initial cost and the recurring cost quite a bit.
Cable's days (as we know it) are numbered, depending entirely on the Nets ability to absorb the extra use and the Cable Co's willingness to break Net Neutrality.
This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
The idea is to better personalize content and only pay for what you want to watch instead of paying cable companies for all the channels you don't watch.
But the reality is that their service currently requires you to have an existing contract with a cable company for the channels you want to watch on your 360. You can't just pay for ESPN and watch that on your 360 and not pay the cable company, and the cable companies certainly won't make it easy for such a scenario to happen. Besides, you still have to pay Microsoft for the Live! subscription, so access fees aren't going anywhere in general.
Twinstiq, game news
Currently, I can watch Netflix on my TV using my 360. I'm assuming that capability will strangely disappear soon.
I have a bad feeling about this...
Well, I for one love it. We ditched Uverse over a year ago and have subsisted on Hulu and Blockbuster by mail (no comment Netflix users, I'm grandfathered in with unlimited in store exchanges and a free game a month). The one thing we've been sorely lacking has been sports coverage. I have antennae hooked up to each tv, but that only helps if games are broadcast locally. It comes to a head each year when we host Thanksgiving. Half the family roots for A&M, the other half for the University of Texas, but they all want to watch the game. Due to licensing, the game is not shown over the air but exclusively through ESPN. So this year I went to my computer to pull up ESPN.com to try and find a way to view it. I was pleasantly surprised to see a "Watch it on your XBox 360" button. I turned on the box, and sure enough my home screen showed a picture saying "Watch the UT/A&M game". Less than a minute later the ESPN app was installed and I was watching the game, all for no additional cost to the $40 a year I pay for my already used Xbox Live Gold account. It will still be worth it when the price goes to $60 next year.
If it comes to it, rather than paying monthly for cable or satellite it is well worth it to me to pay per event. No monthly fees, no ridiculous box rental charge. Bring it on.
So what?
I am pretty sure that in the US this already exist from Microsoft (I mean technology wise - and M$ is from there). Up here in Canada, with Telus IPTV (Optik TV), I have a Microsoft set top box and it works great. Telus even has an XBox 360 promo with the service. All they are doing is re-applying the same technology in a different way.
The default for IPTV is to have the software form Microsoft and the hardware from Cisco and for your XBOX 360 you can download the software to make it into a turner too:
http://www.telus.com/content/tv/optik/why.jsp
The best part is you can use your web browser to admin all your recording in all aspects.
Still the best feature rich system was Bell Satallite/Echo star (Dish Network) - just the hardware is finicky
I am a Ps3 guy anyway.