Tag Archives: BT Vision

Why didn’t Microsoft win the Premiership rights for the new Xbox?

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Microsoft Xbox One
The Microsoft Xbox One. Lovely console. Silly name.

The new Microsoft Xbox console looks like it will be an amazing piece of kit, with voice activation and what looks to be (no pun intended) some impressive image recognition too.

Microsoft is firmly focussing on the TV market. The current Xbox allows users to watch video on demand, but the new one will support live TV as well, with a fully integrated EPG (Electronic Programme Guide).

Many people have questioned whether the world needs another generation of games consoles, and many people have been suggesting Apple will release an Apple television or a decent version of their Apple TV product, which is currently too ring fenced to appeal to a mass market. Microsoft has answer both questions admirably, by providing a cutting edge games machine as well as a highly interactive STB (Set Top Box).

There had also been rumours that the new Xbox might not have an optical drive at all, that all games will be downloaded in a similar model to iOS devices. Microsoft has answered both end users who want a second hand games market, and the games developers’ business models by not making the console backwards compatible. So if you enjoy playing a specific game, you’ll need to either keep your existing Xbox console for that game, or buy a new version when it’s released for the new console.

Microsoft also announced a $400 million deal with the NFL to provide interactive TV experiences during matches. I question whether users want this level of interactivity during sport, but Microsoft (and the NFL) clearly believe many users do want it.

The surprise is that Microsoft didn’t win the rights from the Premiership football rights during the recent bidding with BT. BT want the Premiership to boost their BT Vision product. Winning the Premiership would have similarly boosted the adoption rates for the new Xbox. Perhaps Microsoft doesn’t want to go head to head with broadcasters, but this is probably inevitable (and underway) by supplying the de facto platform for Netflix.

The craziest part of the new Xbox is the name. During the announcement I saw a friend’s tweet which asked “Why is it called the Xbox one when it’s the third one? – asked by my son who’s seven year’s old” And apparently the Xbox one is what eBay sellers refer to the original Xbox in listings!

This week’s news: BT, Sir Alex, Waze and Shazam

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BT SportIt’s been a really busy week at work, so here are my favourite links and stories of the week.

BT is offering free Premiership games on BT Sport channels to existing broadband customers. The Premiership rights cost BT £246m per season (and this excludes the production and marketing costs), so it’s a brave move by BT to bundle them for ‘free’.

This article from Harvard was my favourite article regarding Sir Alex Ferguson retiring.

A huge congratulations to my friends at Waze, which I’ve mentioned on this blog before. Facebook (and maybe Apple) appear to be in talks to buy Waze, one of the first crowd-sourced mapping applications, for a mere $1bn.

And while we’re talking about $1 billion, Shazam’s new Chief Executive has announced he wants Shazam to float for a billion. Last year Shazam had revenues of £21.8m and has never made a profit.

Bubble? What bubble?

How we’ll buy TV channels in the future

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I’ve had Sky TV at home for six months now, so Sky sent me a questionnaire asking for some feedback.

I said that the ordering and installation process was superb. Flawless. Within a month I had all the services installed, working perfectly.

Originally we bought Sky because we want to watch more sport, specifically football, on the telly, and it was getting frustrating not being able to watch it live without Sky. We’d used BT Vision for a few years, but to ‘upgrade’ to just being able to watch Sky Sports was a ridiculous process of upgrading (and paying to upgrade) our set top box.

Over the Christmas holidays I got a free trial to Netflix. My wife and I haven’t watched some of the more popular TV shows such as 24, so for a small monthly subscription, it seemed good value.

We now watch mainly Netflix during the week, with sport on weekends.

It’s amazing to see how far TV has changed from being limited to a handful of channels ten years ago, to multiple subscriptions and hundreds of channels now. And this is on top of our Spotify and Xbox Gold subscription!

I can’t see this model being sustainable. I think the future will see a standardisation across platforms and consumers won’t be forced into multiple subscriptions. A little like you can currently buy various additional channels through Sky.

Maybe we’ll do it through an Xbox style device, maybe through the TV itself (once Smart TVs become smarter).

Broken motorbikes, Sky TV and Office 2013

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Now that the extended holiday season has finally finished, I thought I’d update everyone on what’s been going on recently, or more accurately, what I’ve been up to.

For one thing, I haven’t been cycling a lot recently. After our family summer holiday and really poor weather when we returned, I ended up not cycling for 4 weeks. I then got back on the bike and was shocked how much fitness I’d lost. Fortunately the fitness returned relatively, although my Strava times are still low. 

On the subject of cycling, last summer I read Lance Armstrong’s autobiography and loved every page. It was a truly inspirational book especially for anyone with cancer. I am torn between trying to understand that he allegedly cheated, and respecting him for the inspirational he has given so many cancer patients.

I’ve now installed Office 2013 on my work laptop and both home PCs. I’ve only encountered one major problem which was caused during an upgrade process where I clicked on a ‘Next’ button to begin installation. I clicked a couple more times and ended up installing Office three times on the same PC! Not only would none of the Office apps run any longer, I couldn’t uninstall the thing either. After some perseverance I managed to uninstall and reinstall Office again as I described in the Office 2013 forums.

This week I’ve been asked to review a social media report, which I’ll try to do on the weekend and post here. If there’s anything else you need me to review or want my opinion, please contact me, preferably by Twitter.

I had to be home quite early a couple of weeks ago, so I rode to work on my motorbike. I left home extra early and after filling up with petrol the battery had gone and I couldn’t restart the bike. The Green Flag motorcycle breakdown truck arrived in less than an hour and kept me regularly updated by text message – I thoroughly recommend them as a breakdown service.

A couple of days later they sent me a questionnaire to complete and return to them. I can’t remember the last time I completed a paper feedback form, and I don’t understand why they didn’t use an online tool to save costs – and I’d probably have filled it in by now rather than put it on the desk in the ‘to do’ piling tray.

And finally, last but by no means least, the Howard family have finally moved to Sky. It started when I contacted BT Vision, which I’ve defended and promoted to everyone who would listen over the last few years. The tipping point though was calling them to ask for the Sky Sports channels. The increased cost put the service on a par with Sky, which I didn’t mind, but I had to pay to upgrade my BT Vision box to the latest version to accept the Sky Sports channels. I didn’t even mind this, but I was annoyed that even the latest version of BT Vision doesn’t support HD channels. So I compared Sky, Virgin and BT packages. Virgin was about £30 a month more expensive than Sky for what we all wanted. Sky was £10 more than BT Vision if I included the HD channels, which we have gone for.

The most impressive thing about moving from BT Vision to Sky has been the speed and communication. It took three days from ordering online to an engineer coming to the house and installing Sky. The phone line and broadband are due to be switched over on Monday, ten working days after I’d ordered Sky. I keep receiving text messages of the latest status, and it’s all very impressive. Sky even contacted BT to let them know I was leaving. 

I’ll let you know how the phone and broadband transition goes – I already have the router waiting to be plugged in on Monday.

 

Early thoughts on Christmas and football

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This Sunday, that’s the 9th October, don’t go to Oxford Street because the road will be shut. It will be shut because the Christmas lights are going to be hung up. It feels strange that last week in London the temperature was over 30 degrees and next weekend Christmas lights are being hung up.

Fifteen years ago, even five years ago, the Western world was buying discs and tapes of films, music and computer games.

At least the retailers on Oxford Street could sell something because yes you can still buy a physical DVD or BluRay, but it’s now easier to download an ‘on demand’ movie via Sky, cable or BT Vision.

Music CDs? In our house we use Spotify (Premium – so that we can use the iPhone app in the car) to listen to music. I haven’t bought a music CD for years.

The one physical format that has stood the test of time is computer console games. Although you can download demos for the Wii, PS3 and XBox, most consumers still need to buy a physical disk for the latest releases. 

Perhaps the main reason for still needing a physical disk is the price point. A music ‘album’ (how much longer before no one understands what that word means?) costs under £10 on Amazon. Watching a film on BT Vision and Sky is under £5. Compare those costs to the latest football game, FIFA 12, which is £43 on the PS3 and Xbox. Perhaps buying a product for over forty quid is too much for a virtual object.

There’s also a school of thought that because most games are bought as presents, you need to be able to wrap and hand it over. I don’t necessarily agree with this because a console such as an Xbox has a much higher age group and the gift element doesn’t apply so much. And personally I’d welcome downloadable full games because my kids wouldn’t be able to scratch the disks without any possibility of exchanging the useless £45 circular plastic.

Back to FIFA 12 for a moment… at the time of writing this post:

·         Xbox and PS3 versions both cost £42.89

·         Wii version costs £32.99

·         PC version costs £27.51.

(All those prices are from Amazon).

Now hop over to the iTunes store to buy FIFA 12 on an iPad. It’s £5.99. Why such a huge price difference? I wonder if the iPad version cannibalises the other formats, or whether it helps market the other formats (i.e. iPad users try the iPad version and think it’s so good that they want it on their Xbox).

At least if you do visit Oxford Street this weekend, you can download FIFA 12 to play on your iOS device while the lights are being put up.

Photo courtesy of dark delicious on Flickr

 

BT Vision and Sky Sports

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I know everyone likes to complain about BT, however…

Last Friday I received a text from a good friend to say that Arsenal will be on Sky and ESPN 6 times over the next month. I don’t have Sky Sports, mainly because I have four kids and a number of hobbies, all of which keep me away from the TV, and secondly it’s pretty expensive for watching only a couple of matches a month. However I do try to follow Arsenal as much as I can.

We have BT Vision at home, which I’ve always found excellent value. In fact because it’s free, and provides one of the best PVRs (think “a-more-stable-Sky+”) on the market, it’s unbeatable value.

So I went on to the BT Vision website on Friday lunchtime and ordered Sky Sports for the month. Yes – you can order it for the month, and when you order Sky Sports, you get virtually everything else thrown in as well – ESPN, kids channels, movies, etc., all for under £30. By Monday BT had updated my subscription and I watched Arsenal thrash Leyton Orient on ESPN on Tuesday.

As a consumer, the experience of using the web to upgrade my package through to using my BT Vision box could not have been simpler. I know everyone likes to complain about BT, however when they get it right, it really is as smooth as clockwork.

Back from holiday and thanks to Sky

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Apologies for no posts over the last couple of weeks – I took a much-overdue holiday over the Easter break.

Once I arrived back to the office, I had the almost standard 500 emails-whilst-on-holiday. Why is Outlook so rubbish at collating emails properly by conversation? I hoped that Google Wave would make Microsoft wake up and try to improve Outlook for the first time in 10 years, and judging by the marketing fluff on the Outlook 2010 page, it might become a reality.

Back to home life, and at Maison Howard we have BT Vision rather than Sky TV. So when the Barcelona v Arsenal game was only shown on Sky TV, we watched the game via the legal live stream.

How much do you think it costs to watch a pay per view game on the Internet? Bear in mind that the game was the quarter final of the Champions League, and I’m not a Sky subscriber, I thought that £3 was excellent value.

We have a laptop permanently hooked up to the TV, and watched the game in reasonable quality. I would have been willing to pay an extra couple of quid for a higher quality version. BT Vision doesn’t cost any monthly fee, the Vision box is excellent (pretty much identical to Sky Plus) and we watch a few pay per view movies each month, plus a couple of pay per view streams from Sky over the Internet, and our TV bill comes to less than £15 a month.

Of course, nothing could change the result of the match and so I won’t be paying for any more Champions League this season.