Sky have been confirmed as the partner channel for Xbox One in the UK so that means you probably need to fork out for a subscription for TV on your Xbox One.
Microsoft Studios boss Phil Spencer told Edge – are you ready for this? Really? Sitting down? Whisky in hand? – “We have partnerships with Sky, with Canal+ in France, and we’ll continue to grow our international expansion.”
“We’ll put a worldwide face on the platform because Europe, in particular, is especially important to us this generation,” Phil continued.
NFL. ESPN. Basketball. American Football. All especially important to Europe. Did you even watch your own presentation Phil?
You’d think he would stop there, perhaps realising the European sized facepalm he had just made, but no. Fill up that Whisky glass because the next comment is a doozy.
“We want the world to watch television through this box,” he added.
Phil. Dear Phil. Lovely, lovely Phil.
EVERYONE ALREADY HAS A TELEVISION WHICH WORKS AS ‘A BOX TO WATCH TELEVISION‘ ON.
I think I need a lie down, this is making me ill.
Source: Edge
ModernJunk
I’m pretty sure now the only way for Microsoft is up, it has to be surely ?
They’ve got all this shit out of the way early and have got something (fuck knows what) lined up to blow minds at E3, right ?
quinkill
Yeh most people won’t want to support scum like the Murdock dynasty, who support illegal activities for profit (hacking phones etc), media monopolies around the world and massive tax evasion. Hey Microsoft you chose one hell of a company to partner with, like two peas in a pod what with your flagrant tax evasion and history of monopolistic business practices.
Kris Lipscombe
Sky seem to doing pretty well despite people hating the Murdoch’s.
hazelam
well, i use Virgin Media.
ABlokeCalledDaz
Same here, not going to give up my 120MB connection just to be able to shout at my Telly either, though not ruling out an X1 yet just want to see some/any games.
I shall now be putting my fingers in my ears and shouting laa-laa I can’t here you when they talk about TV stuff.
double-o-dave
I wonder whether Sony would consider doing something similar with Virgin or someone similar or is that a stupid thought? I’m not up on all this TV rights stuff etc.
ABlokeCalledDaz
Virgin do an OK remote media App (watch live streams and recorded shows) but I think it’s Ipad/iphone only so it’d have to be developed and Virgin don’t do anything quickly.
rht992
Is MS actually adding anything “new” to this next generation?
Kris Lipscombe
The snap multitasking stuff?
double-o-dave
Yes, the ability to know whats happening behind closed doors.
Burkatron
Why are they even bothering to pull all their eggs in the live tv basket when everyone else is heading in the catchup tv direction? People want to watch what they want when its most convenient for them, Also from what I understand the X1 isn’t even a PVR device. Strange choice indeed.
Jones81
Ok this madness is actually making me angry now, can someone please please explain how such a giant corporation can be so staggeringly stupid??!… Anybody??
is somebody in microsoft trying to sabotage the company or what??
Temascos
I bet Phil Harrison is secretly working for Sony still and all of this has been a clever plan by Sony for corporate sabotage. Seriously, the whole damn set up of what we have seen from Xbox One is insane!
Its fair enough that the conference mostly intended to focus on the system and its capabilities rather than just games, but even then so little was explained about the console itself and the graphic prowess. Its so baffling that they went from TV-Sports-EA-TV-Call Of Duty sort of rotation, stubbornly refusing to move onto other content, giving me Wonderbook flashbacks.
Oh, and doesn’t the PS4 have a lot of multimedia capabilities too? (Rhetorical question, of course they do!) They’ll be able to pull of the Netflix, BBC and all of that; nothing’s stopping them from doing Fantasy Football stats too unless Microsoft have a patent on it (Seriously, THAT’S meant to sell a console?!).
Tuffcub
Oh dear lord. Achievements. For watching TV.
Kill me now.
Scythegpd
Fantastic, this is brilliant news.
So, after paying for my Sky subscription and paying for my Sky broadband I now get to pay a couble hundred quid to buy the Xbox then pay a few more quid for Gold so that I have the joy of shouting at my TV and waving my hands like a traffic controller on drugs?
Which, incidentally, is a lot more effort than the 3 button presses it takes for me to change from my gaming channel (calibrated for games) to my TV channel (calibrated for TV) … and did I mention each of those channels are specifically calibrated to get the best visual performance from TV input and game input, which is different? It’s amazing what you can do with tellys nowadays, it’s almost like they’re smart or something, fortunately the Xbox has noticed and filled this massive gap in the market!
However it does allow me to:
– Record something on my XBox while recording something on Sky (which is fortunate as Sky never ever ever has any repeats, or on demand, so if I miss something it’s gone forever)
– Save a HDMI slot on my telly
So where do I sign up?