last100 » XBox Live

XBox 360 to support Twitter and Facebook. Who’s the biggest social network on TV now?

Steve O'Hear — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 14:56:12 +0000

Facebook on XBox 360

For a long time now, Microsoft has made the rather lofty claim that the company’s XBox 360 was the biggest social network on TV. For the most part that was in reference to XBox Live – the games console’s online service – and its integration with Windows Live Messenger, Microsoft’s cross platform Instant Messaging service (Windows, Mac and mobile). Yesterday, however, Microsoft announced at E3 that the XBox 360 will soon be adding support for two competing social networks – Twitter and Facebook – making the XBox 360 undoubtedly the most socially networked set-top box, but not necessarily a Microsoft-owned social network the biggest one on the television. I’m not sure how Windows Live Messenger user numbers and Facebook’s compare in terms of cross-over with XBox Live membership but it’s nonetheless significant that Microsoft has chosen to embrace two competitors.

Interestingly, the Facebook integration won’t be one way. Not only will XBox 360 users be able to access a Facebook application providing the usual functionality (status updates, view friends’ news feeds, photos etc), but XBox Live will also incorporate Facebook Connect so that various activities can be posted back to Facebook e.g. in-game screen shots and footage. The User Interface for the Facebook app could do with some improvement, reports Gizmodo, which isn’t surprising considering that the social network’s feature set is fairly extensive and is rooted firmly in the PC, making designing the perfect “ten foot” UI challenging.

In comparison, Twitter’s minimum core functionality looks much better suited to the TV (see screen shot) and, accompanied by the XBox 360 gamepad’s thum-board QWERTY add-on, could work quite well. Both services to be supported through a software update “this fall”.

Twitter on XBox 360

Other XBox 360 announcements yesterday of interest to last100 readers included improved Netflix functionality with full on-screen access to the service’s movie and TV show catolog, support for music streaming service Last.fm, and 1080p High Def content (download and streaming) through XBox Live’s newly branded video store now called “Zune”.

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Rupert Murdoch’s Sky bringing interactive TV to XBox 360

Steve O'Hear — Fri, 29 May 2009 14:08:41 +0000

Image credit: CNet UK

Microsoft has long talked up its Internet TV prowess (they’ve been in the space for a very, very long time), with a combination of its consumer led set-top box a.k.a. the XBox 360 and its telco IPTV solution dubbed Mediaroom.

One of the advantages of the company’s connected vision was supposed to be the advent of interactive television based on what the Internet could bring to the table. Think: live instant messaging through the TV with friends while watching the same channel or accessing additional information pulled in from the web, for example. With yesterday’s announcement that satellite broadcaster BSkyB’s broadband TV service ‘Sky Player’ is coming to XBox 360 users in the UK and Ireland, that vision is now a lot more tangible.

From the press release:

In offering Sky Player, participating Xbox owners in the UK and Ireland will also be able to access a wide variety of pay TV content as well as a range of interactive services uniquely delivered by the Xbox LIVE platform. For Sky Sports, for example, this will mean that live coverage will be supported by range of interactive applications to enhance the viewing experience. As well as fans being able to communicate with one another in real time via their broadband connections, they will also be able to check news and access fixtures, league tables and other on-demand information. Interactive applications will also be developed across other programmes genres.

In addition to live pay TV channels, Sky Player on XBox 360 will offer an “on-demand library of thousands of programmes spanning entertainment, movies, documentaries, kids, culture, news and sport.”

Nate Lanxon over at CNet UK got an early hands-on of the service and is positive about the UI and image quality. “The interface is lush, painted with buckets of blue of various shades, and it navigates exactly like the rest of Xbox Live. And in our demo, image quality of streamed video was excellent considering the service’s largest caveat: all content is in standard definition.”

Sky Player on XBox 360 will be free to existing ‘multi-room’ Sky satellite subscribers or a separate paid-for monthly subscription for others. The service should be available this autumn.

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The numbers say it all: why Netflix went exclusive with XBox 360

Steve O'Hear — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 10:11:33 +0000

In a joint announcement, Microsoft and Netflix have put out some numbers on the success of Netflix’s ‘Watch Instantly’ Internet TV service on Microsoft’s XBox 360 games console. 1.5 billion minutes of Netflix content has been streamed, with a total of one million Xbox Live Gold Members activating Netflix on their accounts. Considering that Netflix on XBox only went live three months or so ago, that’s pretty impressive by anybody’s measure.

To put things into context, however, Streaming Media’s Dan Rayburn has done some interesting back of the envelope math:

Based on Netflix’s own published technical details, Rayburn says that its Content Delivery Network (CDN) partners Limelight Networks and Level 3 combined have delivered nearly 25 million GB of data.
While 1.5 billion minutes of streaming content is “a huge number”, it still pales into insignificance compared to traditional DVD rentals. “If we use the numbers Netflix has on their website, they ship around 730 million DVDs a year. If we use an average of 120 minutes per DVD, Netflix ships roughly 88 billion minutes of video in the mail”, writes Rayburn.
And in terms of 1 million XBox Live Netflix activations, Rayburn offers up a caveat. “Keep in mind that does not mean one million unique consoles since every Xbox Live account can contain multiple profiles or members.”

Nonetheless, these numbers demonstrate that the XBox 360 is by the far the most important set-top box or other Internet-connected device for Netflix’s Internet TV strategy (aside from the humble laptop, perhaps).

“That really comes as no surprise considering that to date, Microsoft has sold nearly 14 million XBOX 360 consoles in the U.S., which is far more than the Roku, TiVo, Blu-ray players and broadband enabled TVs combined”, says Rayburn.

It also explains why ‘Watch Instantly’ on XBox 360 remains a games console exclusive for Microsoft. So don’t expect Netflix to team up with Sony’s PlayStation 3 or Ninendo’s Wii anytime soon.

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Review: XBox Live Video Store – where’s all the content?

Steve O'Hear — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 18:01:33 +0000

Although the UK version of Microsoft’s Video Store for its XBox 360 console launched last December, it wasn’t until just over a month ago that I got to try out the service for myself. Microsoft’s PR team kindly loaned me a top of the line model – the HDMI equipped 120GB “Elite” version – to hook up to my High Definition TV to download and watch a few shows and movies purchased from XBox Live. However, while the service is dead easy to use and worked as intended, for a number of reasons I came away disappointed.

Purchasing

In order to purchase and download content you need to sign up to the free component of XBox Live. Thankfully, most of the sign up process can be down online through your PC’s web browser (unlike the PlayStation Network which drove me mad entering all of my data via a PS3 controller). From then on in the XBox Live Video Store’s User Interface is very straightforward and browsing content was quick and easy. However, to pay for content you’re required to purchase a bundle of ‘Microsoft Points’, the company’s virtual currency — see Microsoft Points – what’s next for the company’s virtual currency?

It works on a pre-pay system whereby you purchase say 1000 points, which then acts as credit against any content you want to download. The problem is that the price to rent an HD (380 pts) movie means that you’re always left with change from the pre-pay bundles of points you’re able to purchase. Thus ensuring that Microsoft is always looking after some of your money.

Lack of content, especially HD

It could well be a UK thing, but I was surprised by the lack of content choices. The range of movies available seems sporadic and very random, neither focusing on back catalog classics or new releases. For example, as of publication there are less than ten movies available that were released this year, and the same goes for films made last year. Not surprisingly, HD content, which I was particularly eager to try, is even more sparse. In the end I purchased two movies, one Standard Definition (SD) and one HD. Neither of which I really wanted to see, but with very little choice, they were at least titles I hadn’t previously watched elsewhere.

Picture quality

This one really surprised me. Picture quality on SD content, albeit played on a 1080p HD television, was poor, definitely not comparable to DVD. Although HD content fared a lot better, as you’d expect.

Rental windows – 14 days and 24 hours

All movie download rental services impose some kind of rental window whereby you must begin watching a movie within a number of days, and once you press play you have a set number of hours to complete your viewing. XBox Live offers 14 days standby, and a 24 hour viewing window. The limit to 24 hours is a real pain if you don’t complete a movie in one sitting, and made me nervous navigating around my media library in case I accidentally pressed play! Unbelievably, I also got caught out by the 14 day standby limit, and one movie I purchased had expired before I got round to watching. Us bloggers lead busy lives :-)

Fan noise

It’s true what they say. The XBox 360 is a little on the noisy side, noticeably so during quiet peroids of a movie.

Verdict

The XBox 360 is a great games console (yes, I “tested” some games) but as a competitor to your cable TV’s video on-demand film library or even online services such as iTunes or Amazon UnBox/On Demand, it doesn’t really compete — although I am comparing the UK version which is certainly inferior to XBox Live Video Store U.S. Which explains why Microsoft has partnered with Netflix to incorporate the latter’s video streaming service into XBox 360. It also demonstrates how early we are in the HD wars. If you thought the range of content available on Blu-ray was bad, take a look at XBox Live’s Video Store.

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