Left to Their Own Devices
Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Wii
The game consoles have a natural head start in bringing online content to people’s televisions since they’re already connected to millions of sets. In an August StreamingMedia.com column, Dan Rayburn said that Microsoft had sold 15.1 million Xbox 360 consoles in North America, and customers had downloaded entertainment content more than 42 million times since the Xbox LIVE Video Marketplace launched in November 2006. That same day, Microsoft rolled out an Xbox 360 upgrade that offered new Netflix functionality, including Party Watch, which lets up to eight people with Gold LIVE memberships simultaneously watch Netflix movies in different locations, as well as the ability to find new movies through the Xbox. The announcement boasted that the Xbox 360 would be the only console to offer Netflix streaming.
That exclusive lasted 2 months, until PlayStation announced that it too was getting Netflix streaming. The last thing Netflix wants, it seems, is an exclusive. When the PLAYSTATION3 (PS3) has a userbase of nearly 9 million, who can blame them? Oddly, instant streaming required using a Blu-ray Disc that PS3 owners could request for free. Later that month, rumor mills were buzzing that the Wii would be getting Netflix streaming in the near future, perhaps as part of the next Wii console release.
TiVo
Let’s make this quick, because there’s no point in piling it on. TiVo didn’t have a great year. No, you could call it a disaster. Once the shining star of TV tech, TiVo’s subscriber numbers continued their free fall through all four quarters, to about 2.7 million members. You know the reason: People just don’t think a fully featured DVR is worth the extra expense, not when they can get a free one that does all the important things from their cable or satellite company.
That left TiVo in the uncomfortable position of having to reinvent itself. In November, it announced a deal with Google, where it would supply second-by-second viewing data from 1.6 million of its DVRs. Google would learn when people were skipping ads and exactly what programs they were watching. TiVo also made deals with cable and satellite companies to become a branded service—a Google for TV programming. It landed a deal with Virgin Media in November to develop a converged television and broadband interface for Virgin’s next generation of set-top boxes. Sounds good, but is it enough? And will TiVo still be around for us to talk about a year from now?
VUDU
In 2009, VUDU went beyond the box. At the start of the year, VUDU was a connected device that brought a library of movie content to the American living room. But perhaps company execs thought that was a little too niche in a world that would soon offer easy TV access to a variety of streamed content. Whatever the reason, VUDU also became an embedded service in July with the announcement that select LG LCD and Plasma HDTVs would soon come with VUDU access built in. The included sets ranged in size from 42" to 60". That was quickly followed by an announcement in September that VUDU service would be available on the LG BD390 networked Blu-ray Disc player.
The move looks like a smart one. Now the challenge is to get on as many connected devices as possible, build brand awareness of the still-struggling movie service, and convince buyers that VUDU with its instant-on playback, large HD library, 1080p video, and Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 surround sound is a better choice than Netflix. Making the move from selling only connected devices to adding an embedded movie service was a solid one, but VUDU still has several obstacles to overcome in 2010.
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