Home Entertainment Hub: XBox 360 and Steve Ballmer’s TV Content Deals

The XBox 360 new home entertainment TV content deals were announced at 2012 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES). Microsoft already has deals in place to deliver movies and TV programs to XBox Live subscribers via NetFlix and Blockbuster. Now News Corp, Comcast’s Xfinity On Demand, and Verizon FiOS are being added to their list of content providers.

For those that don’t know:

The International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is a major technology-related trade show held each January in the Las Vegas Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada, United States. Not open to the public, the Consumer Electronics Association-sponsored show typically hosts previews of products and new product announcements.

More specifics on the XBox 360 new TV content announcement:

The company said Monday that it has an agreement with News Corp which will provide apps this year to funnel content from Fox Broadcasting, Fox News, and The Wall Street Journal to customers of the XBox Live service — with security to ensure that only pay TV customers see the cable programming. In addition, Microsoft has an arrangement to offer video from Comcast’s Xfinity On Demand, and a deal with Verizon FiOS to create a program guide app. The announcements were part of Microsoft chief Steve Ballmer’s keynote presentation to the 2012 International CES — supposedly his last annual infomercial address to the consumer electronics gathering. With help from American Idol’s Ryan Seacrest, he used the occasion to lay out his vision of a home where people make voice commands to the Xbox to find and call up TV programs, and use its Kinect motion control sensor to interact with TV characters.

Sounds cool to me. The more content, the more well-rounded the viewing possibilities for Microsoft customers are. Hopefully its quality over quantity though. Some see other benefits in the new deals recently struck.

The one benefit I could see from having on demand on Xbox Live is a better interface. The cable on demand GUI is just downright awful. It’s monochromatic and sluggish. At the very least and Xbox Live GUI could be more responsive.

What do you think of the new content deals? Do you have an Xbox360 and subscribe to XBox Live?

Source: Deadline, Wikipedia