Take the money! Open the (X-)Box!
Mar. 1st, 2010 10:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kingandyI am totally thinking about selling up my XBox and jumping ship to the PS3 boat, partly for the Blue Ray but mostly because Microsoft refuse to even consider the notion of a free BBC iPlayer.
It's not so much that I am desperate for a BBC player (I can get it on my computer and even on my iPod touch), though it would be nice to get it on the TV. No, it's more the way that allowing their users to get any sort of functionality out of their console without turning it into a revenue stream is just so completely outside their business model. It gives you some real insight into how they think of their customers.
Fair enough for in-game DCL, I guess, but when you realise they want you pay to download game-based themes - which is, essentially, the privilege of plastering advertising all over the brief interstitial screen between turning your console on and actually doing whatever it is you want to do with it - it's just sad.
It's not so much that I am desperate for a BBC player (I can get it on my computer and even on my iPod touch), though it would be nice to get it on the TV. No, it's more the way that allowing their users to get any sort of functionality out of their console without turning it into a revenue stream is just so completely outside their business model. It gives you some real insight into how they think of their customers.
Fair enough for in-game DCL, I guess, but when you realise they want you pay to download game-based themes - which is, essentially, the privilege of plastering advertising all over the brief interstitial screen between turning your console on and actually doing whatever it is you want to do with it - it's just sad.
no subject
Date: 2010-03-01 11:48 am (UTC)The funniest thing is the Sky partnership[1] - you can watch Sky TV on your XBox if you have a Sky account, but unless you're paying for Gold membership as well you only get some kind of basic level of access. So clearly there's some kind of Sky remuneration going on, but not enough to cover the whole service. That or they just can't resist the chance to add revenue.
It's like they don't understand that if you add value while increasing the cost, you're not really adding value at all.
[1] Which I totally see is another reason they wouldn't want to offer BBC content for free