FierceIPTV published an
article recently that suggested that there was buzz at CES about the concept of IPTV on the XBox. This was mentioned by Bill Gates in his CES 2007 keynote, but according to FierceIPTV the buzz quickly fizzled out.
I hate to contradict a normally reliable source, there was also considerable hype around IPTV on the Xbox a year later, at CES 2008, when BT and Microsoft
announced that BT Vision, BT’s IP VOD service, would be available on the Xbox 360 by the middle of last year. But as I
reported back in July 2008, things had already become ominously silent, and we should not be expecting any further announcements by CES 2009. Indeed, at CES 2009 Microsoft told me that they had nothing more to report on the BT Vision project and that it was entirely in BT’s hands.
I still believe a launch is possible, but we should not underestimate the technical and commercial barriers, and I suspect it is a combination of these that is holding things back. I also believe the pressure is more on BT than on Microsoft to move ahead, because BT’s IPTV service has not performed to expectations and it will be looking at the growing installed base of Xbox 360s as a way to boost its user base.
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