Holton on NXE Update Page 2

10 Aug 2009 at 18:26:51 by

The deal that we've signed with Sky – obviously we announced it just before E3 – coming in this Autumn time frame, you'll now have the ability to watch Sky content on your Xbox 360 over Xbox LIVE. Depending on whether you're an existing Sky subscriber, or yes or no, or you can just sign up to Sky Player on its own, there'll be something for you from Sky that you can watch on your console. For me it's a case of a great catalogue of VoD – video on demand – content linked to my Sky subscription, or I think... probably more exciting is watching live Sky Sports, at home, in another room, not clogging up the household on a Sunday afternoon watching my live Premier League football. Coupled with that, exclusively on Xbox 360 will be the functionality for your Avatar Parties. This is where you'll be able to watch your content together in your Avatar Party, the concept that we launched with NXE. So you can sit-

It's a virtual cinema, almost?

Yeah. You and eight of your friends can be in your Xbox LIVE Party watching your Sky experience whether that's a Premier League football game or a TV show, and interacting and chatting together over headset. Or you can have the view where your Avatars are actually sitting in front of you and you can gesture to each other all the time when you're talking. You can either do that and watch the content with the Avatars sitting in front of you, or you can just at the flick of a stick zoom in and you can just be watching it full screen, but all the time you'll still be connected to each other. Xbox LIVE really pioneered the idea of being able to play together when you're not together and I think this takes that one step further from an entertainment proposition, of being able to watch together when you're not together.

Let's talk facts then, James. I think this is one of the big concerns. People are already paying a Gold membership fee, and presumably this'll be available to Gold membership subscribers. However, what's the subscription? Are we looking to be paying another subscription on top for Sky? What's the situation with Last.fm? How do the licensings work, and what will we be allowed to see for free?

I think from a Last.fm perspective we've already been quite clear with that, that Silver users will get a small amount of trial opportunity, and then Gold subscribers will be able to interact with Last.fm as part of their Gold subscription. With Sky, we haven't made any announcements on exactly what you will need and what packages, but ultimately there will be a number of scenarios if you are an existing Sky subscriber and a LIVE subscriber who's accessing kind of like VoD content as opposed to live TV, that kind of stuff...

It's complicated. Let's face it, I have BT at home, I have BT Vision on demand, I have all of that stuff, but I also have Xbox. Now I don't have the sports channels, I don't have Setanta or whatever it is. But I think the biggest issue is here – and I'll be honest with you – people aren't paying for the PlayStation Network stuff. That's all free. There's not Gold subscribers or Silver subscribers on that. You introduce another payment method, albeit Sky or something, you're gonna have to look at the model -

I think for us it's about putting more value behind the Gold subscription, so things like the Facebook functionality, the Last.fm, the 1 vs 100 are to make sure that the subscription that people are paying for is more than just the multiplayer gaming. That's obviously a key facet to it, but it's about delivering more experiences to that Gold consumer beyond just gaming.

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