Surprise, surprise, it's November 22nd (happy birthday
Xbox 360!), and Microsoft has taken its new
Xbox Live Video Marketplace live. The biggest mystery at this point was price, which turns out to be $2 for SD TV shows, $3 for HD, while movie rentals will run you $3 for SD and $6 for HD. This is all converted from the various, confusing MS Points involved in each purchase (80 Points = $1), which we're sure we'll all be well sick of after a couple months of using the Marketplace -- if not already. The current word on selection is 48 movies and 50 TV shows available for download, and we're sure that'll be growing -- though
V for Vendetta is already available as a HD rental... what more could you want?
[Thanks, TexRob]
UPDATE: Joystiq has some
more info and pics galore of the service. They clarified the pricing scheme as well: movies are divided into "New" and "Classic" releases, and priced at $6/$4 for the former, $4.50/$3 for the latter.
posted November 22nd 2006 10:07AM
Microsoft should have just bought Netflix. They could have put "Buy a 360 Now!" ads on all of the Netflix mailers for free, and had an instant revenue stream to use while the downloading service got off the ground.
Then, to drive the VOD service, they could have pulled a standard Microsoft tactic and gradually increased the Netflix plan prices over 12-18 months until it became cheaper to use the Live service, and then slowly choked off the physical media side of the business. Or at least choked off Blu-Ray in favor of HD-DVD.
Much easier transition, much better customer satisfaction levels, a lot less confusion and grief, and still standard Microsoft strong-arm style.
Worse. Idea. Ever.
ppl why are you comparing this service to netflix, you gotta understand this is a service on xbox live which is a service on a GAME CONSOLE, its just another feature it's not the "holy grail" of movie service. Microsoft does not want to replace your current service, its just another feature of xbl.
PLEAAAASE Send this to the UK!!
Hey Bill!
Hows about letting us Brits join in on the fun?
I think people are probably blaming MS a little too much. I think it probably goes something like this:
MS develops DRM for video content
studio sends a mp4 of a new/old movie
MS encodes and compresses the movie
MS places the movie on the MS servers
MS pays for the BW to download movie to user
MS manages the accounting
MS pays studio 5 bucks.
I think you're pricing issue is NOT with MS, but with the other player at the party.
I can't say this enough. The only way to lower prices on music/movies is to reduce the length of a copyright to something reasonable (at least something less than into perpetuity). The greatest inventions in the world get 20 years of exclusivity and cost 20k or so to get. Copyrights last forever, and cost nothing to get.
*cavet: I know that copyrights aren't supposed to last into perpetuity. That doesn't change reality however. When Mickey Mouse was about to expire, Disney wrote up Soni Bono and had the term extended 20 years. Life of the author plus 70 years? That's perpetuity folks.
This is really great and I can understand how MS became so dominant. Most odf the fight here is about buying a HD-DVD drive or renting. And either way its MS product which will benefit. When you steer a conversation toward product A or product B of your company and not competitors then I guess you are on to some thing.
Personally I think its a great new choice. I am sure it will work for a lot of people. Others can just buy the HD-DVD drive.
Once this is integrated with Vista and Zune then we are talking something exceptional here. Watch on2007 will be very interesting.
Rohit
Microsoft is close to getting it right. I think this service is aimed squarely at the casual movie watcher (once or twice a month). Anything more than that and you definitely are into Netflix. For me, often times with Netflix, I'd get a movie and then sit on it for a month, making it the more expensive option. With this service, if they can get the download times down, on-demand becomes very enticing. But to be successful, I think they need to either drop the prices or extend the viewing period to the full 14 days (If I start a movie, I have to complete it in 24 hours...huh?) It's not costing MS or the studios anything to allow me to watch a movie over a 2 week period... this is just a silly policy. Do they really think I plan on having all of my friends over to watch the movie I rented over the 14 day period? I am excited about this and really see this as a nice alternative to the VOD of comcast.
I think you are all blaming andy too much:
He submitted the story 3 times, but who's there to tell him not to click on the three email links he get's afterwards.
if you delete something you bought from itunes and you don't have a backup, you are SOL. you will have to buy it again. responding to the person who stated otherwise.
doesn't look like this is available in Canada ... yet >8(
ib.
TV shows should be free. Especially SD. Just throw in the commercials and make them non fast-forwardable. Then it'll really take off.
nice on demand for those people who comcast has not gobbled up there local cable company yet.