TV on Your Xbox 720

Is the 'Future of TV' Really Your Xbox?

At E3, 2011, Microsoft announced its intention to start offering live TV to anyone in possession of an Xbox 360. Some channels were to be free for Xbox Live subscribers, while others would cost you a monthly subscription or be available on a pay-per-view rate. Talks with major channels such as HBO and UFC had us excited; we wondered if the Xbox could actually stand to replace our existing cable or satellite services altogether!

The fall of 2011 was when we were supposed to see this new upgrade to our television-watching habits, but alas, fall came and went and winter dawned and announcements were few and far between. Unfortunately it seems things have reached a bit of a standstill on this live TV watching front, with a recent announcement from Microsoft suggesting that licensing costs were just too high to make their promise a reality. With other companies such as Apple and Google trying to push into the television market we don't doubt that Microsoft will aim for a piece of the pie in the future, but for now we'll have to make do with what we've got.

Of course, with the latest upgrades and apps on the Xbox 360 what we've got at the moment isn't bad at all. Unless you've been stuck with the Red Ring of Death for the last few months, you'll certainly have noticed that large update that offered a completely new look and feel for the Xbox dashboard. New and simple navigation allows you to easily move between the different menu options such as Video or Games. While it's easy to move around with a controller, it's obvious that this menu system was built with the Kinect in mind.

Not only can you swipe to move to your area of interest, but you can also use voice commands to jump to any particular menu and to any item within it. This could change the way that we think about the standard remote control forever. No more losing those all important buttons down the back of the couch; now you can control what you're viewing with a simple 'Xbox, Pause' command.

The voice-based menu control comes completely integrated with the Bing search engine (well they could hardly dump their own search engine for Google now could they?), so if you were looking for a particular movie or TV show a 'Xbox, Bing, Mission Impossible' command could return just the film you've been desperate to watch, without the need for any fiddly entering of text through the standard controller. It's definitely an advantage that the Xbox does have over a standard DVD player or cable TV service.

Live TV may be a way off in the future now, but there is still plenty to enjoy with an enormous database of movies to purchase and download straight through Xbox Live, as well as episodes of different programs from the television. Additional apps are promised in the near future as well, to provide extra entertainment from different sources. Although Microsoft's own TV subscription services have fallen through, there are still talks with major players such as Verizon FiOS, Comcast, AT&T and other providers that may offer their own services through Xbox Live, for a fee of course. Keep your eye on the Apps menu item on your own Xbox for more updates as they come. With the recent release of the well designed YouTube app there's certainly plenty to watch to while away the hours before the release of the next game you've been longing to get your hands on.

Another interesting update is that of an Xbox cloud service. We think this has great potential to start linking Microsoft devices together more successfully. Downloading a movie on your Xbox 360 straight to the cloud could grant you the ability to watch it on your computer, or your Windows-enabled smartphone, or any other Microsoft device. Maybe games on the Xbox 720 will be cloud-based after all? That remains to be seen, but for TV and movie viewing it's a move that definitely makes sense.

Microsoft has been boasting that the Xbox is the 'future of TV' since E3 in 2011. Whether this statement will become reality remains to be seen as they will need to sort out their live TV licensing issues. But as a means to watching stored programming and movies? The latest upgrade has certainly made the Xbox a success.

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