Microsoft Partner With Sky To Bring Video to European 360s
As a resident of the British Isles I have been wistfully glancing across the pond ever since Microsoft announced their partnership with Netflix last year. Xbox 360 owners over in the US can enjoy a wide range of streamed film and TV, all for the low cost of $8.99. Perhaps, I hoped, Microsoft would partner with Lovefilm over in the UK to offer a similar service?
Well, with the announcement that Sky are bringing their services to the 360, I can’t see a Lovefilm partnership happening any time soon.
Eurogamer have an in-depth article on the new service. Prices are unclear at the moment, but comparisons are being drawn with Sky’s existing Sky Player service. For £15 a month you get Sky News, Sky Sports News, the Disney Channel, Eurosport, National Geographic, MTV and Nickelodeon. Add £11 on top of that for a single sports channel, and another tenner for a total of £34 for the full Sky Sports package.
At just over $50 a month, we’re certainly talking a bit more than Netflix. You’d hope to be getting an even better service then, right? Wrong. Sky say they will be offering just 500 movies, compared to the 10,000 that Netflix have.
The only area that Sky win out is live broadcasting, specifically sports. You’ll be able to watch live football matches and other events, whilst chatting in an Xbox Live party. There is even a stupid virtual stadium, as the image above shows.
Whilst I’m sure footy fans are sticking their shirts over their heads in anticipation, I couldn’t care less about sport. Take that out of the equation and you’re still paying £15 a month for crap channels that you probably already get on your existing TV package. Netflix streaming offers something really unique to the 360. The same cannot be said about Sky.
I think I’ll stick with my free iPlayer and free YouTube on my other two consoles.
*Ugh* I want to live in world where the BBC or ITV can show televised football again. I hate Sky.
Hate to play devil’s advocate, but I don’t really see the problem with this. Firstly, you don’t have to use the service. A lot of people in the UK have Sky and the fact that they can use this to stream channels on their 360 is pretty cool. Secondly, this hopefully means that we’re going to get alot of the TV episodes for purchase that Americans can already get with their marketplace. Now I can see why you’d rather have Lovefilm and I would too but it makes better business sense for Microsoft just because Sky is so well known. It’s not the best thing in the world but I’m certainly not going to condemn it. But you know, to each their own, at least you’ve put your argument across.