Microsoft at E3: Forget Games -- Hey, Here's Live TV on Your XBox!
UPDATE: Sony at E3: Its New Vita Handheld May Make Nintendo Cry
Microsoft (MSFT) is showing plenty of XBox 360 games at this week's Electronic Entertainment Expo, including an HD revamp of Halo and the newest Modern Warfare. But its main aim is clearly elsewhere: Beating Google (GOOG) to the TV punch.
Microsoft is really pushing the black box theory founder Bill Gates discussed years ago: The idea that one machine in your living room could control all your media. The Kinect, Bing, and TV integration coming this fall could spell doom for Google TV, Roku, and others.
First, the Kinect is getting better voice integration. Most of the hubbub last year was on the Wii-like motion controls, but by this fall your voice will control nearly everything else the XBox as to offer, too. My biggest issue with the original Kinect motion-control software was that you still needed to use the controller half the time. At E3, Microsoft demonstrated how you could organize music, video, and other multimedia by voice alone.
Second, the Bing search engine is coming to the XBox 360. It will be completely voice controlled, too, a la, ahem, Google Voice. Today's demonstration showed a spokesperson saying "XBox Bing: X-Men" and everything X-Men related appearing on the screen. Bringing Bing to the XBox feels like a branding effort, but it does lay the groundwork for the XBox 360 becoming your multimedia hub.
Live TV coming soon
The ultimate twist, however, was when Microsoft announced "Live TV coming soon to the XBox 360". It then quickly mentioned DVR options and moved on to talking about games. Huh?
To give some background, E3 is a video game conference and the XBox 360 is arguably the most popular video game console -- yet Microsoft spent about 20 minutes of its 90-minute keynote talking about TV. Why?
Console game companies are starting to realize that, one, they have a huge userbase and, two, the average gamer, a 30-something male, is part of the all-important 18-to-34-year old TV watching demographic. Together with Sony (SNE) and Nintendo (NYTDO), Microsoft has the opportunity to make the ultimate idiot's box. My BNET colleague Constantine von Hoffman explained it recently:
Consumers like me are tired of having so many different boxes and having to swap things in and out depending on what we want to watch or play. The first company to provide a solution to all that will be the winner.
In short, this fall Microsoft is planning on delivering everything Google TV was supposed to be:
- Live TV
- Live multimedia search
- DVR options
- Optional keyboard controls
Why it can beat the competition
Assuming Microsoft is still negotiating with content providers, will it be more successful at getting actual content than Google and other deliverers? Most definitely. Microsoft already has a great userbase with more than 50 million XBox 360s -- and more than 10 million Kinect controllers sold in less than a year. And, unlike Roku, Boxee, and others, It doesn't have to convince users to buy a new product nor networks to give content to an unproven platform.
In reality, the XBox is less black box and more Trojan horse -- and, for the first time since its arrival, the XBox 360 may become more of a media than a game machine when the updates come this fall.
Photo courtesy of Creative Tools // CC 2.0
Related:
- E3: Do or Die for Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft
- Game Consoles with TV Shows vs. TVs with Games - Something Has to Give
- Google Postpones TV Because of Weak Reception
- What Microsoft Really Needs to Learn From Kinect
Disclaimer: The copyright of this article belongs to the original author. Reposting this article is solely for the purpose of information dissemination and does not constitute any investment advice. If there is any infringement, please contact us immediately. We will make corrections or deletions as necessary. Thank you.
