http://thenextweb.com/media/2013/06/28/microsoft-partners-with-time-warner-to-launch-an-xbox-360-app-with-300-live-tv-channels-this-summer/
In rough summary, anyone who has a subscription to Time Warner Cable, and an Xbox Live Gold account, will be able to stream over three hundred channels through their Xbox360 and, according to a few articles floating around (all of them have fewer or more details, making it hard to pin down what's true) may have Kinect voice command similar to what's been planned for the Xbox One.
What's confusing about this is that, let's face it, a big ol' chunk of MS's reveal was devoted to all these cool TV-related things that the Xbox One would be capable of, and indeed, it's become a bit of a running gag how often television was mentioned. Still, fine, if they want to use it as a selling point, then fair enough... but to suddenly add the functionality to the older console seems like a move that could only hurt the Xbox One's potential install base; after all, if new consumers see they can use voice control and all that fancy stuff on a cheaper system, they might be less inclined to invest in the X1. For that matter, 360 owners who were looking forward to voice-controlled televisions might think twice about upgrading.
Did I mention this TV capability comes out in the summer, long before the X1 launch?
Worse, the fact that the 360's television features (rather unsurprisingly) require a Gold subscription don't leave much hope that the X1's fantasy football and other perks won't similarly be locked behind that paywall. Considering MS locks the Internet Browser on the 360 behind the paywall, odds are actually pretty good. If five years down the line, you decide to stop paying for Gold, then is that going to make all of the One's television features worthless? Would that effect a consumer's choice to buy it in the first place?
In rough summary, anyone who has a subscription to Time Warner Cable, and an Xbox Live Gold account, will be able to stream over three hundred channels through their Xbox360 and, according to a few articles floating around (all of them have fewer or more details, making it hard to pin down what's true) may have Kinect voice command similar to what's been planned for the Xbox One.
What's confusing about this is that, let's face it, a big ol' chunk of MS's reveal was devoted to all these cool TV-related things that the Xbox One would be capable of, and indeed, it's become a bit of a running gag how often television was mentioned. Still, fine, if they want to use it as a selling point, then fair enough... but to suddenly add the functionality to the older console seems like a move that could only hurt the Xbox One's potential install base; after all, if new consumers see they can use voice control and all that fancy stuff on a cheaper system, they might be less inclined to invest in the X1. For that matter, 360 owners who were looking forward to voice-controlled televisions might think twice about upgrading.
Did I mention this TV capability comes out in the summer, long before the X1 launch?
Worse, the fact that the 360's television features (rather unsurprisingly) require a Gold subscription don't leave much hope that the X1's fantasy football and other perks won't similarly be locked behind that paywall. Considering MS locks the Internet Browser on the 360 behind the paywall, odds are actually pretty good. If five years down the line, you decide to stop paying for Gold, then is that going to make all of the One's television features worthless? Would that effect a consumer's choice to buy it in the first place?
