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
cam the man
No surprise there as it’s already on the 360.
Sillyseason
Meh, I can already get Satellite TV on the PS3, if you know how… It’s not hard. Youtube is your friend.
Watching F1 Qualifying on PS3 now…
cc_star
Awesome, pay the Live the sub so you can watch the subscription you were already able too
Considering Xbox One can’t manage or view what’s on your PVR, or On-demand/Catchup features this is pretty big fail.
Also Sky’s interface is pretty good, especially the way everything is available through one search – broadcast/recorded/on-demand… Xbox One will hinder this.
*slow hand clap*
Paranoimia
Twice the reason not to buy for a lot of people.
ModernJunk
“We’ll put a worldwide face on the platform because Europe, in particular, is especially important to us this generation,”
Guess he’s been reading a lot of articles since the reveal then because Europe was non existent to him on Tuesday and he lost my vote then.
Peter Chapman
Sky has around 11 million TV customers in the UK. Xbox 360 sold around 8 million UK consoles in the UK. I wonder what that customer crossover Venn diagram looks like?
Although, Xbox One + Live Gold subscription + Sky TV subscription = HOW MUCH?! I wonder if they’ll do partnership bundles with Sky so that you sign up for 2 years to Sky for TV and broadband and get a cheap Xbox One?
Seems odd that they partner their overlay stuff with the only TV provider in the UK that actually has a decent guide and overlay, too. The whole TV side of this looks really odd to me – it’s a dying system and so fragmented, globally, that it seems like it can only possibly be tremendously complicated for customers.
Bilbo_bobbins
spot on sir, couldn’t say it any better. What on earth are Microsoft thinking over there.
YOURMUMANDME
Not to mention the fee it costs to have Sky on more than 2 other devices, £5 per device I’m sure.
cc_star
That’s not how Xbox One does TV
The HDMI-Out from the Sky box (or other provider’s boxes around the world) will plug into the Xbox, which in turn plugs into your TV… You then use the Xbox to control the Sky box, most likely via an awkward ‘IR Blaster’ or smartphone app and of course Kinect voice commands & arm waving bullshit.
Whilst Xbox’s UI will no doubt be good and pulls TV from other streaming services too, it can’t recognise recorded programming on your Sky_ box, nor can it recognise Sky’s excellent on-demand and catchup features which are all neatly pulled into one interface in Sky’s pretty good EPG.
This is awkward, at best & is providing a solution nobody wanted, or even needs.
samiro05
@cc: Surely you can’t say that for a fact yet? If sky do partner themselves with xbox one for this tv thing then I imagine that it will be specifically programmed with sky in mind. So like using sky go in a broader way. Sky go does on demand and live tv n I can’t imagine it would be terribly hard to get the sky tv guide and recorded programs to work if sky are in on the act. If it was a general tv showing option then that’s just like pressing the source button or even just the sky button to switch to sky with no real sky involvement. In which case it is pointless and exactly what you are saying but with sky connected through the xbox one then there should be a more personal and user friendly relationship between xbox one and the showing of sky.
cc_star
You can say that. This is exactly what the Xbox One’s TV ‘solution’ is, it overlays its own EPG on top of your provider’s, it gains a feed via your provider’s box via HDMI-Out, so instead of plugging it in the TV, you plug it in the Xbox One, which is plugged into your TV.
The only hope for the UK & Sky, is that Microsoft & Sky don’t adopt what’s been announced for the US, which is the above half baked solution & instead they just stick SkyGo directly on the Xbox rather than this daisy chain bullshit and use a streaming solution.
samiro05
Fair enough. We’ll just have to see how well it works when it’s released or previewed. I imagined it would have been an xbox flavored sky go or whatever other services which get used – remember sky go can’t show every channel.
bazrat
I think the “HDMI IN” is the best solution. Not everyone has a brilliant ADSL connection, so streaming is not necessarily going to be the best option for everyone (especially for me in the country side). Using the “HDMI IN” they don’t need to worry about it.
I think they are probably (with Sky on board) probably going to use a similar system to the Sky+ app. If both the Sky Box and XBOX One are both attached to the router then all the commands can be sent over the LAN the same as the Sky+ app. I can already….. see the full Sky Guide, See all my recorded programs, start them playing, rewind etc….. surely this is how they are going to control the Sky+ box from the XBOX One rather than IR Blasters (old school!!).
Balberyth
So much speculation and none of it based on what Sky even currently offer. As someone else said, the Sky+ app, available on Android, iThings etc, already pulls in all the on demand content, shows your planner, can control your box fully, see everything. So why would the Xbox One not be able to?
Even if it couldn’t do it over the HDMI connection, both devices can be on your home network (and for most people would be), so in addition to passing video over HDMI, they can pass data over your network. *If* Sky choose to fully embrace and support it, then it could be a very slick, powerful and easy solution.
As for saying HDMI passthrough is rubbish and everything should be streamed via SkyGo instead – have you actually seen the quality difference? HDMI passthrough all the way, a much better solution. Added to which, if your Sky box is already getting the HD broadcast data, why would you want to additionally stream it over your broadband? There’s time and place for SkyGo, but streaming video to a box which is sat next to your Sky+ box isn’t it.
All pie in the sky at the moment though, as Sky don’t seem to want to tell us if they will or they won’t.
duke
The guide is about the only decent thing on Sky.
double-o-dave
Phil Spencer… More like Frank Spencer!
& to be frank Phil (?), sounds like you should bin off the Games Console & just build a bloody Television Set!
As if I want my lounge dominated by SKY and Microsoft.
Wardy-77-
Ooo Betty Phil’s done a woopsie on the carpet!
Wardy-77-
Or should that be Phil’s done an Xbox One on the carpet! :D
JR.
How did no one think of this before?
bmg_123
I CANNOT get over this PR DISASTER. They had several months in which they allowed Sony to soak up the good PR, then responded with this trail of CRAP. Something is seriously wrong with this new Microsoft and I don’t see how it’s gonna change.
Tuffcub
It’s like someone at Microsoft has gone “Hey.. I have this brand new idea.. its called “THE WHEEL”.. now I know that it has been invented before but ours it better. It’s square”
Staggeringly stupid.
Klart
Love this comment.
double-o-dave
You’re probably closer to the truth than you realize.
Bodachi
Another reason not to buy an Xbox One.
double-o-dave
Indeed. I told Sky where to go years ago when they tried to rip me off by slowly increasing my monthly subscription prices even though I had signed a 2 year contract at a fixed price. Now I wouldn’t even consider getting an Xbox out of spite.