Thursday, January 18, 2007
AT&T to Give Away Xbox 360 Consoles?
Posted by Jeremy Charette in "ARTICLE" @ 02:00 PM
"Q: With the relationship you have in IPTV with AT&T, could we see something like AT&T takes Uverse out and bundles it with Xbox? A: AT&T did not announce anything tonight with respect to Xbox. Microsoft made an announcement that IPTV is a set-top box. Everything has to be figured out as to what has to be done. We’ll obviously offer to AT&T to use this as a set-top box. We can make a lot of these things and they’re cheaper and cheaper to make all the time."
It looks like Microsoft is really pushing to get the Xbox 360 into more homes, but not necessarily as a game console. They'd like to see the Xbox 360 become the de facto IPTV set-top box. I'd venture to guess they'd be willing to take a loss on the hardware, just as cell phone service providers do. In return, they'll see millions (or tens of millions) of Xbox Live subscriptions, game sales, marketplace sales...it would be a huge win for Microsoft, and could really hurt Sony's bottom line. This generation isn't over, but it may as well be. There isn't much Sony can do to catch up at this point.
It looks like Microsoft is really pushing to get the Xbox 360 into more homes, but not necessarily as a game console. They'd like to see the Xbox 360 become the de facto IPTV set-top box. I'd venture to guess they'd be willing to take a loss on the hardware, just as cell phone service providers do. In return, they'll see millions (or tens of millions) of Xbox Live subscriptions, game sales, marketplace sales...it would be a huge win for Microsoft, and could really hurt Sony's bottom line. This generation isn't over, but it may as well be. There isn't much Sony can do to catch up at this point.
