Final Cut: Toradora! Part 1 DVD
Keep It or Trade It?: Madden NFL 11 (PS3)
Keep It or Trade It?: Trinity Universe (PS3)
Read or Recycle? Gantz Vol. 1
Read or Recycle? Ikigami: The Ultimate Limit Vol. 1
The New York Times is reporting that Microsoft has entered talks with The Walt Disney Company for the right to broadcast ESPN via XBox Live. Disney already offers ESPN360.com, which shows a wide variety of sports (including soccer, college football and tennis) for free over the internet, but it requires each internet service provider to buy into it. So, unless your ISP wants to pay for you to have it, you can’t get it yourself. The current talks between Microsoft and the House of Mouse would be for a per-subscriber fee system to gain access.
There is nothing official yet; so, details are still pretty foggy. The streaming content might be the same as ESPN360’s, but that wouldn’t reach a very wide market since ESPN360 is already free if your ISP offers it. The article also makes mention of the possibility of XBox games based around ESPN content similar to 1 vs. 100. Perhaps we could see a revival of old ESPN trivia shows such as 2 Minute Drill or Stump the Schwab? Now, that I wouldn’t mind seeing.
ESPN is one the last reasons I have cable right now; if I can get ESPN on my XBox 360, I’ll be able to cut ties with my cable company without looking back. I’m sure I’m not the only one in this situation. Should cable companies be worried? If video game consoles start offering TV channels to go along with Netflix, how much of the market share will cable companies lose?
Greg Barbe on 19 Jan 2010 at 1:13 pm #
Cable will lose big time. I already cut them loose and only get Netflix and internet for my entertainment. Don’t miss cable one bit.
This could eventually bite the customer in the ass too. ESPN gets ~$4 per cable subscription (2007 numbers, likely higher now). So as more people dump the cable companies for Netflix and internet tv they are going to be loosing a lot of money. And when ESPN can’t afford to pay the licensing fees to the MLB/NFL/etc they will raise their price on the XBOX and ESPN360.com viewers. And like cigarette addicts, people will pay the higher prices no matter how high they get. And I will feel no pity for them.