Xbox 360 Live Video Service Confirmed

Engadget was able to confirm that Microsoft will be launching Xbox 360 Live Video on November 22nd.

The service is called Xbox Live Video, and the fall update enables customers to spend their Microsoft points on standard and HD television from CBS, MTV, Comedy Central, VH1, Turner, and UFC, as well as HD movies from Warner Bros., Paramount, and so on. We're still a little in shock, ourselves, that Microsoft was able to in one fell swoop hit TiVo, Apple, Netflix, and a handful of others, but looking at Live over the last year, the move isn't that massively surprising. Of course, not even the vision of on-demand HD movies and TV downloads in six million homes at the flick of a switch could be without its variety of niggling concerns; being that we all know the devil's in the details, click on to get the particulars of the service.

There are approximately 6 million Xbox 360's sold, and about 100 million DVD players, so Netflix still has the advantage for now. In January we'll finally see how Netflix plans to compete in the increasingly crowded movie download market.

I think I'm going to finally have to buy an Xbox 360 for "review purposes."

More coverage of the story on Engadget, Thomas Hawk, Davis Freeberg, San Francisco Chronicle, and Zatz Not Funny.

Thanks to John A. for sending this in.

Comments

[gir]

Funny. They say pricing isn't available, but I heard on CNBC (I think yesterday, but it might have been this morning) that movies would be $3.95. Don't remember what they said for TV shows, but it was more. Not very compelling pricing in any case.

And you should to wait for a larger hard drive to become available. The 20GB drive would be barely usable.

[~Angel~]

@gir - According to the video on the Xbox site, it looks like the TV shows will be around $3.00 and the movies will be $5-$6. If you thought the movies were $3.95, I'm not understanding how you don't feel that's "compelling" pricing. $3.95 for a HD movie download would be less than what one would pay for a new release at Blockbuster and in some household's cases, less than Netflix. It's quicker than Netflix and quite possibly less hassle than Blockbuster.

[type-cast]

20GB would hold 3-5 movies with DVD quality. Probably more with modern codecs. Since you won't be allowed to DO much with them, they won't be worth it even with 2TB hard drives. No chance of burning DVDs that will play in normal machines. Time-limited, crippled with DRM. Cost is the only strength over the naff offerings from Unbox and iTunes. I find the value proposition of Total Access or Netflix more appealing. They cost less and are more convenient than all these download services.

[Arc]

I was under the impression that originally the idea was similar to Netflix, i.e. a flat rate for unlimited use over a period of time. If you're like me, looking to either rewatch or catch up on TV shows while occasionally tossing in a movie, paying individually costs far too much. If there's not a reasonable flat rate offered, I'll stick with OnDemand from my cable provider.