While Apple's iTV is still several months away from seeing the light of day, Microsoft has continued their assault on the living room and the media center market with the launch of their Xbox 360 movie download service, Xbox Live Video Marketplace -- which officially launches on November 22 and boasts the first ever HD video content for a games console.Effectively, this gives Microsoft a place on the living room couch which Apple can only dream about getting their mitts on, by plugging straight into a device already connected to over seven million home TVs: the Xbox.
As Rob Enderle of Tom's Hardware observes, Microsoft's aggressive marketing campaign for the Xbox will see them reach close to 17million Xbox users by the end of the year, and the Xbox Live Video Marketplace will offer downloadable HD content viewable directly from the games console itself.
Worse still for Apple, the Xbox will be a full $100 cheaper than the proposed price of iTV -- and gets you something you can play great games on to boot -- and no amount of syndicated YouTube content will persuade sensible customers to part with an extra $100, only to discover that they're probably going to end up locked down to iTunes anyway.
And as for HD content on the iTV -- well, Steve Jobs will probably get back to you on that one.
As Rob says, if you're thinking of picking up a games console this year for Christmas, you might want to think about the Xbox, as you'll get much more than you bargained for.
1. Not every 360 user has a hard drive(core systems)which IS required(only a piddly 20gb overpriced drive is available at this time).Also While the movies and tv shows available for Itunes are for keeps, only the tv shows on Live market place are permanent.Content is locked on both platforms.
I own botha 360 and a Mac (as well as several windows machines)and my 360 hard drive is already full with game demos, game saves, and other Xbox markeplace content. Even if Microsoft should come out with and 80gb hd as rumored why should I pay $100-150 when I can get 200-300gb for the same price for my Mac? Also, when downloading shows or movies you cannot use any of the other online functions without interrupting your download. I am pretty sure I can download multiple items on my computer, while surfing the web, and working on something else.
Posted at 2:52PM on Nov 10th 2006 by Ian