Sunday Thoughts: Openness
Multiple uses.
Published: 17:00, 26/06/2011 by Kris [Halbpro].
6About a month and a half ago I came home with a rather large amount of Mexican food in my possession. It was a Saturday night and I wanted to watch Doctor Who on iPlayer, having missed the episode when it was broadcast. The BBC really are remarkably quick at getting some shows onto iPlayer, and even though it was only an hour or so after the broadcast it was already waiting for me. I glanced at my TV and the Xbox 360 sitting beneath it ruefully, knowing that it was not to be. If I wanted to watch anything on iPlayer it would be on my much smaller laptop screen and its tiny speakers. Although it seems Microsoft and the BBC have come tantalizingly close to a deal that would see iPlayer on their console in the past, Microsoft’s closed off approach meant it was not to be.
In fact Microsoft is so closed that it was actually a minor cause for celebration when, during their E3 press conference, Microsoft finally, gloriously, announced that YouTube would actually be making its way onto the Xbox 360. Given that Microsoft have long wanted their little box to be the be all and end all of living room entertainment it’s kind of ridiculous that access to YouTube, surely the largest provider of video content in the world, is only coming now. And that’s just YouTube, I can’t go watch anything that happens to be on Vimeo or any of the other hundreds of video providers out there.
It'd be lovely if I could access iPlayer on my 360.
It’s even more frustrating to know that if I had a PS3 I could quite happily be watching whatever I want via the browser that Sony thoughtfully decided to include in their console. Their open approach really does make a lot more sense in the modern era. Giving users access to anything they want, even through a poorly received browser, seems a lot more consumer friendly than locking users down to only the applications that you’ve decided to let into the ecosystem, á la Microsoft.
Of course there is one minor upside to Microsoft’s approach, the entire system is presented as one consistent experience. From the Zune store to Last.fm to Sky Player, the UI is consistent and feels unified. You always feel like you’re accessing this content through your Xbox, rather than using any old device to stream music or TV into your front room. It’s not much of an upside, but given that most websites aren’t designed with the appropriate layout to be displayed on your TV (although media sites like iPlayer and YouTube are already on board with large screen version) it does make everything easier to use.
Ideally a mix between the two approaches is required. If Microsoft gave me a web browser I could use on my 360, or if Sony decided to turn certain services into fully fledged apps that used the XMB interface, then that does seem to be the best option. There’s no reason why taking one approach precludes the other, except in terms of urgency. Obviously if you can access content via a web browser there’s much less of a push to actually make content available by built in system applications.
Looking beyond just media applications, Microsoft’s approach is starting to hurt them in terms of games. We’re only just starting to see this now with Dust 514 and with the lack of Xbox 360 SteamWorks support for Portal 2. In both cases CCP and Valve praised Sony for their more open approach, with CCP saying it would be “tricky” to do what they wanted to do with the Xbox Live infrastructure and Microsoft culture in general. Hopefully these proclamations from developers will be just the kick that Microsoft needs to start rethinking their approach to online, but it’s unlikely.
By building their very tightly walled garden Microsoft make it so much easier to charge for their service. If they opened up everything they’d have a much harder time showing that Xbox Live Gold is good value for money. Right now you’re getting a lot more than just online gaming if you chose to pay for a Gold subscription, something that simply wouldn’t be possible if they removed the barriers and let you access whatever you wanted. Yes, they could still build applications for YouTube or Last.fm, but it would be very hard to keep them locked behind the gates of a Gold subscription if you could just hop onto a browser and get at the content that way.
In an ideal world, driving more openness into consoles, or at least their online services, seems to be a good thing to me. Letting your users access whatever they want just seems to be good from a customer perspective, even if it doesn’t make sense from a business perspective. Those are always two sides of any industry that can be tough to balance, and with the internet still really in its infancy, we’re seeing the whole web trying to find that balance; it’s not something that’s limited to consoles. I honestly don’t know what we’re going to see in the next generation, only that in all likelyhood it will be radically different to anything we have available to us now.
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26/06/2011 at 17:05
Member since: May 2009
Get a PS3, Kris :D
26/06/2011 at 17:08
Member since: Oct 2010
Yes! iPlayer, 4OD, ITV Player, SteamWorks, and PS3-Vita connectivity. It only does everything. :)
No, seriously, I agree with you. Sony’s approach is far better for the consumer.
26/06/2011 at 17:05
Member since: Feb 2009
Get a PS3 Kris!
26/06/2011 at 17:09
Member since: Nov 2008
Kris, get a PS3.
26/06/2011 at 17:18
Member since: Oct 2008
ps3, get a kris.
26/06/2011 at 17:25
Member since: May 2009
Ahaha :D
26/06/2011 at 20:38
Member since: Jul 2009
Get a Kris, PS3!
26/06/2011 at 17:21
Member since: May 2009
Get 3 PS1′s, and tie them together with elastic bands and ethernet cables.
26/06/2011 at 17:45
Member since: May 2010
That won’t work. But getting 3 bikes,2 cats,a big mac,an original xbox,a subway and a PS2 and tie them all together will work.
26/06/2011 at 17:23
Member since: Nov 2009
Buy a PS3 now!
26/06/2011 at 21:28
Member since: Feb 2010
NOW!!!!
26/06/2011 at 17:26
Member since: Mar 2011
Kris, wait for the PS4. Its going to include a microwave so you can re-heat all that mexican food that went cold waiting for Xbox to do iPlayer ;)
26/06/2011 at 17:28
Member since: Feb 2009
I hate watching tv on my laptop, its just uncomfortable. Then I remember I have a ps3 connected to my tv, so I can watch tv in/on bed as normal. It’s so convenient.
26/06/2011 at 17:31
Member since: May 2010
Excellent article Kris. Also get a PC.:p
MS need to allow everyone to access some services and not restrict it to Gold members. Iplayer would have been an excellent additon to the xbox 360 as it is very easy to lose track of time and you would need to do would be just boot up Iplayer.
26/06/2011 at 17:41
Member since: Oct 2008
That’s a rather large sub-heading…. ; )