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Xbox Originals TV to fill the gaps between game launches
Xbox has a place for original television, wedged somewhere between major game releases. Of course, we can't get away with just calling it television - Xbox Entertainment Studios is making "premium television experiences," said president Nancy Tellem, who joined Microsoft in 2012 after heading up CBS. It's the kind of "network that probably none of you watch," she told a group of journalists in San Francisco earlier this month. We must have had the scent of cable cutting about us. We also heard from Jordan Levin, the studio vice president and former CEO of WB Network, where he shepherded shows like "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Gilmore Girls." Levin sounded cautious about the first-year slate of Xbox Originals, which will bring a considered mix of original documentaries, reality shows and episodic fiction to Xbox 360 and Xbox One starting in 2014. "We're both not delusional about how tough it's going to be, and how long it's going to take," he said, framing Xbox Originals within the domain of premium cable. "We aspire not to talk down to this audience." Both are certainly sold on the numbers available to them through Xbox: 85 million consoles, 48 million Xbox Live subscribers, hours and hours and hours of Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Instant Video consumed, and "all the assets of Microsoft at out disposal," Tellem said. These numbers and the "gamer" audience tied to them are the most concrete directive I could discern from this early Xbox Originals showcase. The consumer-facing end of it – the cost, the quality, the distribution – is in progress or just plain wishy-washy. And what's a "premium television experience" anyway?
