[opendtv] News: Microsoft Angling for Xbox TV Strategy
- From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: OpenDTV Mail List <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2010 13:35:12 -0500
http://www.thestreet.com/story/10932994/1/microsoft-angling-for-xbox-tv-strategy.html?puc=tscmarketwatch&cm_ven=tscmarketwatch
Microsoft Angling for Xbox TV Strategy
By Scott Moritz
11/29/10 - 12:48 PM EST
Looking to join tech leaders Apple and Google, Microsoft is exploring
a pay-TV deal with media companies to deliver programming to Xbox
users, according to a Reuters report Monday.
While the service could take as long as a year to put together, the
final product will no doubt be seen as yet another attack on the
cable industry and the big-ticket TV programming packages. The Xbox
game console makes for an easy entry for Microsoft since the device
is already connected to the Internet and the TV.
Microsoft is the latest tech shop to start discussions with Hollywood
and the TV industry over terms of show sales, rentals and
distribution.
Apple has high hopes that people will rent programs and movies
through iTunes on its Apple TV box. And Google, with partners
including Logitech and Sony, launched Google TV, a system that
combines the Internet with the home TV.
The studios have not exactly rushed into these deals. Outfits like
Hulu, which is jointly owned by NBC Universal, News Corp and Disney,
have blocked programs to Google TV, with an eye toward offering its
own video package.
Add together choices of streaming TV shows to a selection of online
movies from Netflix and Amazon, and suddenly consumers can act as
their own TV programmer and bypass the cable company.
At least that's the threat Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Cablevision
face, but the promise of Net TV has been a long-running
disappointment.
Microsoft knows this rerun well. As the provider of early and failed
Web TV effort, Microsoft helped usher in the era of high expectation
for so-called Internet and TV convergence. But past failures have not
discouraged Apple, Google and even Microsoft from giving it another
try.
--Written by Scott Moritz in New York.
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