CES: Vongo video-on-demand takes demands from Xbox 360
In addition to announcing their video on demand offering as the "premier" movie download service for Windows Vista -- as well as rolling out a snazzy new interface for Vista with Media Center -- Vongo has announced that their services will be compatible with the Xbox 360. Of course, Microsoft has their own video on demand service on Xbox Live Marketplace, but Vongo provides a subscription-based ($10/month) service that may be palatable to some US-based gamers as well as a library of over 1,000 movies and 2,500 "video selections." More interesting is the fact that they've circumvented the difficulty of sharing DRMd content across the two platforms. In our chat with Bill Gates, he specifically mentioned that the Xbox 360 will enjoy a larger content base because of the secure nature of the hardware. Vongo's presser states, "The Xbox 360 will automatically check to see which Windows XP or Vista-based devices are registered on the network and ask the user whether they want to access content, such as their Vongo movies, from that PC." Consider this an opportunity to bypass the 360's anemic hard drive and Marketplace' non-subscription based pricing but still get video on demand movies on your big screen.
