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Jan 8 / Ozymandias

CES News for 360: IPTV, 10M+ units sold, 5M Live Subs

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Lots of links, here's one from the local Seattle Times.

Ten million units sold wasn't a surprise, the holiday bump does wonders. It'll be interesting to see what sort of momentum that gives the system into next holiday. Holiday 2007 is where the great "war" will really be decided. That's when all the systems will be easy to find at retail, and the second to third generation of games (depending on system) will be showing off what they're capable of. It may come down to system exclusives, and those are getting rarer and rarer to find this generation.

I'm really looking forward to more details on the IPTV functionality being announced so we can have a real conversation about it. For now, just the potential of set top boxes being replaced by 360s that can both play games and act as a PVR has me salivating. I'm a tech geek, yes, but I'm not thrilled by the preponderence of boxes in my A/V stack. Would love to have a single box to tune digital TV, watch DVD/HD-DVD, and of course, play games. It's also interesting to think about what affect having a set top box that plays 360 games might have on traditional non-gamers. One can hope the box might act as a gateway – perhaps through Arcade – and allow people to try games who might not have otherwise. 

And five million Live subscribers? What's to say? Over half of 360s are connected and online, compared to around 10% for the original Xbox. Whether or not you're a fan of online gaming, the ability to stay connected to the community and friends is huge in my book. And as you learn more about Live Anywhere, all of those connected people will become all the more valuable to you. It's going to be a fun year!

Related posts:

  1. Xbox 360: 28M Sold WW | Xbox LIVE: 17M Subscribers, Majority Gold
  2. Where does the Future of Live Anywhere Matchmaking Lie?
  3. Live Anywhere (But Even There?)
  4. Thanks for your Live Thoughts!
  5. Xbox Live Problems

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  • Lawrence

    Thats great news for the 360 and with IPTV on the way and hopefully in the U.K also some day I will be happy.

  • http://www.dglover.co.uk Masked Dave

    You might be interested to know that my dad got an Xbox 360 for Christmas this year because he wanted it as a Media Centre Extender. I can’t think of many people who buy a games console to watch the TV program they’ve recorded on the PC in the kitchen, but still…

    Anyway, my dad is not a non-gamer, but he mainly plays flight sims and strategy or management games on the PC. Lets just say it took him absolutely forever to get used to a joypad in Call of Duty 3, he just didn’t get what was going on.

    But I’d also taken my Wii home for Christmas and he just picked that up and was playing tennis or golf or whatever. I hadn’t realised quite how massive the leap was for non-gamers before and what a severe shift the Wii represents.

  • Anonymous

    Re: "But I’d also taken my Wii home for Christmas and he just picked that up and was playing tennis or golf or whatever. I hadn’t realised quite how massive the leap was for non-gamers before and what a severe shift the Wii represents."

    Yep – that’s one thing the Wii has nailed. It’s very easy to pick up and play, and super-accessible to non-gamers. I have a few friends and family who enjoyed the Wii this holiday and just didn’t care for either the 360 or PS3 – the controller was too much of a stumbling block for them. Hopefully something we can all learn from.

  • Joseph

    Yeah it would be really cool if the home theatre stack could be adjusted down to 1 component. Right now it looks like the tide is turning towards MS  except for a few things.

    The Xbox 360 in it’s current form can not be a DVR. IPTV is not the same as tivo.

    HD is diffcult to send even over 100 baseT much less stream down a cable modem. An uncompressed digital movie is in the 2-3 tb range a highly compressed version is in the 2-300 Gb range. A hd shrunk high quality Tv show will be in the 2-5 gb range or so. If compression was good enough for that to look good then HD content would have been delivered on Dvd’s.

    The XBOX interface is not good as a home theatre interface. Unless it gets a very different interface  with the new functionality it doesn’t appeal to be as something I want to use all the time. Not that I’ve only been able to use units for a short time.

    MS refuses to fully support HD DVD. The XBOX 360 was built as a game system. Uncertanity about what format will win is all fine when you say that HD content is  second teir to game playing. When you are making a push to be a cross media platform it is not. If MS doesn’t believe that HD-DVD will win they should not  sell an add on for it. If they are not willing to bet the farm on HD-DVD then they should stay out of it all together. "Kind of" supporting a format is "kind of" supporting your customers.

    Honestly is MS ready to pay royalities on every XBOX360 to Sony? It seems with the half hearted public support for HD-DVD that MS only supported HD-DVD to confuse the market, dilute the mind share of Blue-ray for Sony and avoid paying royalities to Sony while having a HD media format. All very good business moves but not so great for the consumer.

    Studios refuse to fully support HD-DVD. Honestly with out any company driving to push HD-DVD in to consumer hands I can understand why.

    The hard drive on the Xbox360 is to small.

    100 GB is just to small to be a DVR media center. When I was taking care of things in SD format on my PC I found that without compressing the bejesus out of video 80gb wasn’t enough space for a week of tv watching. I  did record in higher quality because I didn’t want to know that I was using a computer to watch TV. MS currently uses a non-stanard USb implementation that makes using external USB drives more difficult. That coupled with the firmware level content protection on the internal harddrives means it is difficult to add storage to your machine. The problems are multiplied if you want good quality HD content.

    The lack of HDCP content protection. If at sometime in the future content providers turn on content protection all of the existing XBOX360s will be locked out of it. It is poor form to sell the HD-DVD add on to current users only to have to be rendered crippled later on.

    Changing the hardware configuration to fix all of these issues will make the 360 more expensive. It would be true that the microtransactions and subscriptions will make it recover cash in the long run all of the current users will be alienated from the new features. Infact the 360 would start to look ALOT like the PS3 and would have to cost similar.

  • http://technowledgy.spaces.live.com BackScatter

    Re: “Would love to have a single box to tune digital TV, watch DVD/HD-DVD, and of course, play games.”

    Couldn’t agree more!  DVR functionality was actually one of those strange wish list items for the 360 long before I knew its name. Very exciting development there – I’ll look forward to checking it out when it launches.

    I’m also stoked about the Media Center features in Windows Vista.  I really need to start thinking about new hardware at home…

  • Aedrin

    "An uncompressed digital movie is in the 2-3 tb range a highly compressed version is in the 2-300 Gb range"

    I thought it was more like 30 GB. Isn’t that what HD-DVD/Blu-ray stores?

  • nopants727

    A 90 – 120 minute movie compressed with VC1 is about 5 – 8 Gb.  I’m not too sure about MPEG2 but VC1 supposedly has a 10:1 compression ratio over MPEG2.  Somebody correct me if I’m wrong.

    Whoever said 100 base T isn’t fast enough for HD, I think you are right.  You would need to go to Gigabit to achieve streaming 720 or 1080p.  But, for watching 640 x 480 formatted shows, the 360 would be great and probably cheaper than a digital cable subscription.

  • logikil

    So I have to ask Ozy: Why has MS not made any more sweeping comments regarding the Zephyr board? I think everyone expected it for CES, but there wasn’t a peep about it.

    This IPTV revelation does go to prove one thing, there will absolutely be some upgrade in HDD size for the 360. Whether it be opening up the USB ports (would be very nice), selling an empty drive shell that we can fill ourselves (also very nice), or a proprietary addon (which will cost way more than it should and suck to no end), MS will need to up the size of the existing hard drive just to accomplish what they are planning.

    Anyway, good form on the 10.4 million shipped (i really wish all platform holders would stop the shipped/sold game), and when might we be expecting word on any new MS first/second party games that we don’t already know about?

  • Joseph

    Logikil-

    MS won’t announce any details on the Zypeher board until  it is almost in stores or at least finalized. Companies don’t announce hardware long in advance of release so they do not hurt the sales of current units.

    ALSO to not repeat a Sony. They may be waiting until all the specs fall into place before they announce. Just imagine if they quoted a 100GB hd but on release they can only ship an 80gb drive at the price quoted.

    Aedrin-

    Sorry about that. I was thinking of a different video format. Your number of 30 gb for a typical home HD content is correct. Even 1/10th of that would still be a beast to send over a cable model without a big quality drop.

  • Question!

    So is it 10.4million units sold to

    retailers

    or

    consumers???

  • also…

    5m subscribers??? all of them gold subscribers you mean ozymandias???

  • Lawrence

    Ozymandias or anyone else could you please expain to me what the true advantages of having IPTV on your 360

    would be. ??? Other than what Ozy mentioned please help explain this better to me all comments would be appreciated thanks.

  • Anonymous

    well, during last month I’ve been considering what console to pick. Wii had the advantage due, among other things, gamecube compatibility to be used with mainly Virtua Striker 3 (hell, I just love virtua striker series). My group of friends was a real hardcore Playstation fan but sudenly one of them purchased a x360 out of the blue so I might still go that option… hell, I wish my salary was higher for a wii360 combo!

  • Philly Rampage

    "The XBOX interface is not good as a home theatre interface. Unless it gets a very different interface  with the new functionality it doesn’t appeal to be as something I want to use all the time"

    I’m not too sure what home theater interface you’re reffering to, but I have the Comcast HD-DVR box and the Xbox IPTV interface is leaps & beyond better than that.

    "MS refuses to fully support HD DVD. "

    They sell an HD-DVD add-on because at the time (2005), HD-DVD wasn’t ready. They can sell the 360 cheaper than PS3 right now because they don’t have the HD-DVD drive built in and they’re in a position right now to be always ahead of Sony because of that. Besides, most people doesn’t care or doesn’t want to choose their format right now and they don’t have to with the 360.

    "The hard drive on the Xbox360 is to small."

    Agree. But I’m sure they’ll announce something soon.

  • Joseph

    also…

    It doesn’t really matter if they are gold or not. 5 million is an impressive number.

    Philly Rampage-

    I’ll have to take a closer look at 360IPTV interface. Where is it in the dashboard? I also don’t like the comcast products. I did like the interfaces on eyeTV ,a mac product, and iTunes.

    The lack of built in High Def may have helped MS be the first to market but it is not good from a home entertainment view. If you are an early adopter you really want you format to be fully supported by at least someone.

    There is no doubt that Sony is ball to the wall supporting blu-ray. If BD does poorly Sony will still support it to the point of being inane. Until the PS3 stops production there will always be new blu-ray  players. The same will be said for BD-movies. There is no wait and see attitude.

    If you have any doubts just look at umd. They still support and make new content for it even though they admit it is a dead format.

  • Philly Rampage

    "I’ll have to take a closer look at 360IPTV interface. Where is it in the dashboard?"

    Here are some pictures

    http://www.engadget.com/photos/xbox-360-iptv-interface-gallery/

    Check out the vid

    http://on10.net/Blogs/tina/you-heard-it-people-carbon-is-real/

  • http://www.klio.org/marks/ Mike Kozlowski

    Joseph:  A lot of the media stuff you’re talking about (like DVR) is intended to be done from a Media Center PC, and streamed to the 360 using the Media Center Extender UI.  This works very well today, and will work better with Vista (when you’ll be able to buy a CableCard-using DCT to get HD DVR capabilities on the PC).

  • Joseph

    Mike:

    Well then that isn’t impressive if I also need a PC. While it’s nice I could schedule shows over the internet already. I was really hoping for a solution that would eliminate the PC all together.

    It makes sense though. How could you record a show while plaing a game without a seperate machine.

    Philly Rampage:

    The IPTV inerface is totally different from the rest of the Xbox inreface. It’s very similar to the eyeTV inerface I used to like so much. It looks good. I could grow to like that.

    When that goes live I’m going to regert not having $400 for a toy even more.

  • Andy

    Hi

    Microsoft have announced what they call the Home Server, which might throw a light on the issue of storage. This means buying (yet another) box but it can be hidden away somewhere, and used as a media storage space for multiple PC’s and Xbox’s around the home.

    At first glance it would seem a good solution, especially with regard to adding new drives of different sizes, but the real issue of unsupported codecs on the 360 still prevents me from using it as a media center extender. If MS will not support AVI files then it remains the runner-up, as I am sure the PS3 will support it, due to its more open nature.

    And guys, don’t Microsoft get a royalty on some of the software on HD-DVD? I am sure I read somewhere about either the interactivity stuff or a particular codec or other.

  • http://wasyz@hotmail.com Hans

    do we need any additional hardware for IPTV feature(special router for example)?

  • John-Paul

    I don’t think it was mentioned here… but about the rumors that Microsoft will release Xbox360 version 2.0, with bigger hard drive and HDMI cable…….

    WTF MS.  Way to go, alienate everyone who has supported the system so far by releasing a superior version.

    This kinda pisses me off, I NEED to be able to use HDMI on my 360 and there is NO WAY IN HELL I’m going to buy another 360 just for that.  Is it really just to much to ask for an HDMI cord and not an entire new system?! (BTW I only NEED HDMI cause I bought the HD DVD add on which is severely crippled without)

    As mentioned bigger hard drives are already available for the 360.

  • vittala

    "but the real issue of unsupported codecs on the 360 still prevents me from using it as a media center extender."

    Yea, I find this pretty stupid. I can play AVI files via CD/DVD on my $200 Cheepo Samsung home theater in a box system but not my $400 Xbox 360… I just dont understand this.

  • J.Goodwin

    5 Million live accounts today is a very good start toward the 6 Million that Peter Moore predicted by E3 2006.  It should be pretty much impossible to miss that number at this rate, even before accounting for E3 being pushed back and transmogrified.

  • J.Goodwin

    HD content was delivered on DVDs for a while.  Don’t you remember WMV-HD discs?

    That’s the same format being used to deliver content over Live Video Marketplace as well.  HD films are clocking in consistently in the 9 Gig range.  At 720p on VM, of course.

  • J.Goodwin

    100Base-T is 100 megabits per second, far and away more than you need to transfer HD video compressed with VC-1.  Transferring a 9 gigabyte file over 100Base-T should take under 20 minutes, even accounting for other traffic on the network.

  • imaginedbug

    "Would love to have a single box to tune digital TV, watch DVD/HD-DVD, and of course, play games."

    I wouldn’t. It’s like having one of those "old fashioned" TV/DVD player combination which means if the DVD player breaks you’ll be stuck without a TV for weeks on end.

    That’s why I still buy new stand-alone DVD players every two years (they break fast when used several days a week) rather than that I’d use my 360 to watch DVDs and pray it’ll keep working.

  • http://www.slashcry.com dozens

    What I’d like to know is how many of the 5 million are Gold members.

  • Joseph

    It sounds cool at first but IPTV requires a bitching internet connection if you want to have more that 1 tv at home, use voip, or use a computer at the same time you watch TV.

    Also the idea of paying $400 to have an XBOX per tv then having to pay for a bigger internet connection and a subscription service doesn’t appeal to me.