Sky Player on Xbox 360 – Fail!

Regardless of the title this post actually has nothing to do with the “technical issues” that caused Sky Player to get pulled from the Xbox dashboard today

It’s to do with the way it’s been priced

There are two ways to get Sky Player on your Xbox

As an existing Sky customer

If you are a Sky customer and have multi-room (or Sky broadband unlimited) you already get access to the existing Sky Player service on the Sky website and now you also get access to Sky Player on the Xbox at no extra charge

If you don’t have multi room you can add this on or buy an online multi-room option (between £5 and £10 a month extra)

As a non Sky customer

You basically have to take out a subscription (you also need to be an Xbox Gold member)

These subscriptions work in a similar way to a standard Sky subscription in that they start at £15 for the base “Entertainment Pack” and then if you want sports and movies you have to add these on at extra cost

So why do i see this as a massive fail?

I don’t see the point – if you already subscribe to Sky then all you are actually gaining is another platform to consume Sky content on

If you aren’t a Sky customer then what really is the point? If you wanted to sign up and pay a monthly figure then surely you would just get a Sky dish?

Just signing up for Xbox package you got no HD capability and no Sky+ option

As far as I see it people who have an Xbox are in one of two camps

Kids or Adults

Kids wont be paying for the Sky subscription so they get no say in this (you can’t pay with MS points)

If the parents are already paying for a Sky subscription it’s an easy way to put Sky content into their children’s room

For Adults who would be paying a Sky subscription then as I said above if i wanted Sky on a full time I’d sign up for it through a dish. My Xbox is on my main TV so even if I did have a Sky subscription I wouldn’t be gaining anything at all

Also looking at some of the options the Xbox only option works out more expensive and if you spent that sort of money Sky would throw in a phone line and broadband connection! So where is the incentive?

There really should have been some sort of pay-per-view option

I’d quite happily use my MS Points to grab a football match, watch Lost or the Simpsons or anything that took my fancy on a casual basis. This would also mean you could grab the teenage market if they could watch content on a casual basis using MS Points. Currently they have spending power at all for this!

I was really exciting when the it was first announced the service was on the way. It added to Microsoft’s vision of the Xbox being the entertainment hub of the home.

I’m just feeling massively disappointed

From a couple of Xbox blogs and forums I’ve seen already I don’t think I’m alone with my opinion

Also before I really get started I haven’t even looked to see if the content is subtitled. Video marketplace has a distinct lack of digital accessibility but I’ve ranted about that plenty of times before!

It would be good if a pay-per-view option were to become available in the future but I wont hold my breath

I’d love to hear your opinion

Other Links

http://www.xbox360achievements.org/news/news-3766-Microsoft-and-Sky-s-Official-Xbox-Sky-Player-Price-Plan-&-Channel-Listing-Announced.html (read the comments!)

http://www.techradar.com/news/television/sky-on-xbox-all-your-questions-answered-603561

Xbox Live Arcade Games – Faith Somewhat Restored

In principle I think Xbox Live Arcade Games are a great idea

Games that you can download quickly and easily and get playing with the minimum of fuss. Decent demos so you can try before you buy at a “reasonable” price point

The thing is recently I’ve found some of them to be a bit….crap

Maybe crap is a bit of a strong word but the point is I haven’t really gotten all that excited an upcoming XBLA game in the same way I would about a regular game

On the few occasions that I did it didn’t always live up to the expectations I’d had

A couple of examples

Sensible Word of Soccer, Speedball 2, Worms

There is a slight pattern with these examples. They are all “classics”. Games I’ve played to death in my youth on varying other formats

When I found out they were coming to my XBox i eagerly downloaded them and fired up the demo. I had 10 minutes of fun but wasn’t all that eager to hand over my cash

Don’t get me wrong they are still amazing games and even with the updated graphics they still stand up in their own right but I’d seen it all before

It was the same when i downloaded Prince of Persia. I actually paid for this one. I enjoyed it for a couple of days. Marvelled over how pretty it looked and I haven’t been back to it since.

Then there were some that I refused to even download the demo for. Frogger being a prime example – do i really want to spend 800 points on that? A classic game in it’s time but it’s still just trying to get a frog across the road – i can play flash based versions online for free. Taking an old game and jazzing the graphics up doesn’t always vastly improve the game. A lot of the classics relied on great game play because they couldn’t do anything about the graphics

While I understand my argument above is a little weak (as you’ll see in a second!) I’ve I had stopped looking at new arcade games whereas in the past I used to check out every new game that became available

However, my faith has been restored a little lately by three games

Trials HD

Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition

Shadow Complex

While none of these three games are exactly original (especially Monkey Island!) they all have that “just 5 more minutes” factor. I was playing Trails HD till 1am on the day I downloaded it

I’ve handed over my cash for Trials and Monkey Island and Shadow Complex will follow in the next couple of days (my birthday is coming up and I always get ordered to not buy anything – fingers crossed for some Microsoft Points!)

Hopefully games like Shadow Complex and Trails will set the bar for forthcoming releases

Now if you’ll excuse me I’m off to queue up Turtles in Time Re-shelled

Interview with a legend

I’ve just read an interview on GamaSutra with the legend that is Jeff Minter, the creator of some of the craziest games i’ve ever played including one of my favourites “Revenge Of The Mutant Camels”

He was also the creator of one of the only decent games for the Atari Jaguar, Tempest 2000

I didn’t realise he was still around but he did the visualisation work for the music player on the XBox 360 (you know, those funky psychedelic lights) and has an XBox Live Arcade title due out (Space Giraffe)

It’s an interesting read. Also check out his website which has loads of information including a download section for some of those classics

PS3 Available In The UK Today

Finally if you have £425 of loose change you too can own a PS3 today! (plus whatever you need to spend on cables, games, controllers)

This article on the BBC News site talks about how police are concerned that muggings may be occur while people are trying to get their brand new kit at midnight!

******Disclaimer ******

I’m not looking to get into a fanboy war. I owned a PS One and a PS2 in the past (Resident Evil anyone?) and thought they were amazing machines. I was impressed with how quickly they stole a march on Nintendo and Sega to establish themselves as the top dog.

**********************

I wont be parting with my cash. I love my XBox 360 (If i had limitless funds i’d buy both!) and have been very impressed with the way Microsoft have put their system together. Xbox Live & marketplace is genius, i love the Media Center connectivity and if they can sort out video marketplace for the UK (and the rest of the world) I’ll be like when I was a kid getting all excited about the release of Super Street Figher II!

Since i’m the resident geek to my friends and family i always get asked my opinion on Microsoft vs Sony vs Nintendo (etc)

My current opinion is that while the PS3 is an amazing piece of hardware (it is! Take a look) Sony can’t write software as well as Microsoft.

There. I’ve said it now!

You may have your opinon on how bad Internet Explorer is or how Linux is better than Windows but Microsoft software is everywhere. They have been doing it for years.

Anyway a couple posts from a blog (Ozymandias) i’ve started reading sort of back me up

First one here and second one here

Now i know two blogs post from one person dont really make an entire argument but I wont say anything else…draw your own conclusions! It’s all about your own opinion anyway

Homebrew Games

Something i’ve been watching with interest is Microsoft XNA

I’m (just!) old enough to remember when games didn’t have huge budgets, teams of developers, HD graphics and orchestra like soundtracks and that anyone could write one in their own bedroom. When i first started to learn BASIC all i wanted to do was write games and was delighted when i finally managed to create a character that was really just a couple of coloured pixels that i could move on screen with my arrow keys. I don’t remember being that thrilled when I first created an ADO database connection (ok maybe it was different kind of thrilled <blush>)

Surely all young geeks think this way?

Who grows up dreaming of developing the best productivity suite the world has seen?

So when i heard Microsoft were trying to spark a revival i was quite interested to see how it would pan out. I was never going to take the plunge though as my actual attempts at game creation usually stop when i realise i don’t have any original ideas!

So i’m a little curious that you can download the tools for free but if you want to even play any of these games you need to be a subscriber to the XNA Creators Club. So if you create the next first person shooter that will rival Halo 3 you can’t actually show it off to the world? Instead you can only show them to other developers?

Have i got the wrong end of the stick?

Surely the whole point in creating games is so people can play them?

I sort of understand charging developers and giving them access to resources that will help them develop new games

I have lots of friends who have games consoles but no interest in programming and development. They have already paid for their console, their Live membership and tons of games. They even pay for the “classics” from Xbox Live Arcade so why are they going to pay a subscription on the off chance someone might create a classic?

Can someone please explain to me how Microsoft expect this will work?

Back In Business

Finally back in the office after a long period of work

We completed an SBS2003 installation over the weekend and Monday was left to tidy up the bits and pieces.

I setup Update Services and was impressed with how easy it was to get going but i’m having a bit from trouble getting it to do it’s thing.

The computers (and server) are all registered. The updates are scheduled for installation but the computers never seem to get the updates. I tried setting it to manual installation as well and it still doesn’t play ball.

I’ll go back to the documentation and see if i can figure it out now I’m away from site.

Had a bit of a nightmare situation with a photocopier engineer but that would be unprofessional of me to comment further…right?  :-p

Now i just need to work my way through 5000+ RSS posts  

I’ve been so busy this last week i haven’t had a chance to pick up Gears of War..i’m hoping i can change that over the next few days!

The Connected Home

When i first moved into my house i had a romantic view of my “connected home”

I had all sorts of plans and ideas of how my 21st century home would work.

I wanted to have a PC in the living room that would be connected to the television and display pictures, videos and music from another computer acting as a central store where my other devices (laptop, pocket pc) could all receive these media delights

I wanted X10 modules that could control my lights, heating system, even my curtains!

I wanted music being played to follow me around the house

I thought this is actually quite feasible (and after some research it i think i could have done it) but some events in my life took away the main factors to realising my dream….TIME & MONEY

So my plans were put on hold

Fast forward and i actually realised that i have actually put part of this in place without realising

My XBOX 360 sits downstairs in the living room where it recieves images, videos and music from my PC upstairs.

The PC currently dual boots between Windows XP and one of the Vista BETAs

At the weekend i also purchased a set of cordless headphones. The original idea behind this was so that i could play Xbox in the evenings as loud as i like without disturbing my other half or my daughter. The added bonus is that they are FM headphones (as opposed to infrared) so i could listen to music and have it “follow”me around the house.

I know this is cheating a little but the great thing about this i have all this functionality and it didn’t cost me awful lot of money and was setup in no time at all

Now all i need are some freebie X10 modules!

Xbox Sales

From the Yahoo News site: http://biz.yahoo.com/seekingalpha/061025/19252_id.html?.v=1

“Carl Howe (Blackfriars Communications) submits: Colin Sebastian at Lazard Capital Markets has warned that he expects Microsoft’s (NASDAQ: MSFT – News) XBox 360 shipments to only total 4.5 million for the year, instead of the 5 million expected. That says to me that the XBox 360 marketing plan is fading fast.

Why? People forget that the original projection for XBox 360 sales was for 5.5 to 6 million within six months of launch. That projection was re-iterated in January this year, but extended out to 5.5 million by July. And now, we’re looking at 4.5 million for the year. Ouch.

We’ll know more after Microsoft announces earnings tomorrow. But many analysts were originally projecting that there would be 8 or 9 million XBox 360s in the market before Playstation ever launched. If these numbers are correct, it says that sales aren’t living up to projections. And with two new competing consoles launching next month, this story isn’t going to improve a lot without a serious marketing push to compete. Suddenly, that one-year lead Microsoft had on Sony (NYSE: SNE – News) doesn’t look like such a big advantage after all.”

I always thought that Microsoft were aiming a little high with some of their targets. However i do think this piece makes an interesting point

“That says to me that the XBox 360 marketing plan is fading fast.”

For some reason it has felt recently that Microsoft haven’t been marketing the Xbox as aggressively as i’d expected to them. I can’t really remember seeing many XBox 360 adverts on the TV. Granted there have been adverts for games but it feels a little thin in the console advertising department. Granted this is my personal viewpoint and it may be different in the US and the rest of Europe and it could just be that i don’t watch enough TV or i ignore adverts!

Maybe they are going to have a big push when the PS3 launches? Especially with Gears of War just around the corner and Halo 3 in the new year

Oh well..just me thinking out loud. Isn’t that what this blog is for?