It’s been rumored for a while, but Microsoft finally announced today that with its upcoming Fall Dashboard update, along with the Bing and YouTube features, your Xbox Dashboard will be getting television channels.
The press release and an official blog post from Major Nelson, don’t give us a terribly large amount of info in regards to pricing or anything like that, but we do have a list of entertainment providers that will be showing up on your Xbox, whether it’ll be brand new or something already there.
Here’s the list of providers and the regions they’ll be available for:
| • | ABC iView – Australia |
| • | AlloCiné – France, Germany, Spain, U.K. |
| • | Antena 3 – Spain |
| • | Astral Media’s Disney XD – Canada |
| • | AT&T** – U.S. |
| • | BBC – U.K. |
| • | blinkbox – U.K. |
| • | Bravo – U.S. |
| • | BSkyB** – U.K. |
| • | Canal+* – France, Spain |
| • | Channel 4 – U.K. |
| • | Channel 5 – U.K. |
| • | CinemaNow (Best Buy) – U.S. |
| • | Comcast – U.S. |
| • | Crackle – Australia, Canada, U.K., U.S. |
| • | Dailymotion – Available in 32 markets |
| • | EPIX – U.S. |
| • | ESPN** – U.S. |
| • | Facebook** – Available in all 35 Xbox LIVE markets |
| • | FOXTEL** – Australia |
| • | GolTV – Spain |
| • | HBO GO – U.S. |
| • | Hulu – Japan |
| • | Hulu +**– U.S. |
| • | iHeartRadio (Clear Channel) – U.S. |
| • | Last.fm**– U.K., U.S. |
| • | LOVEFiLM – Germany, U.K. |
| • | Manga Entertainment – U.S. |
| • | Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment/Real Sports – Canada |
| • | MediaSet – Italy |
| • | MSN with MSNBC.com – Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Spain, U.K. |
| • | MUZU.TV – France, Germany, Italy, Spain, U.K. |
| • | Netflix**– Canada, U.S. |
| • | Rogers On Demand Online (RODO) – Canada |
| • | RTVE – Spain |
| • | SBS On Demand – Australia |
| • | Syfy – U.S. |
| • | Telefonica – Spain |
| • | Televisa – Mexico |
| • | “The Today Show” – U.S. |
| • | TELUS** – Canada |
| • | TMZ – U.S. |
| • | Twitter** – Available in all 35 Xbox LIVE markets |
| • | UFC – Canada, U.S. |
| • | Verizon – U.S. |
| • | VEVO – Canada, U.K., U.S. |
| • | VimpelCom** – Russia |
| • | Vodafone Portugal** – Portugal |
| • | YouTube – Available in 22 markets |
| • | ZDF – Germany |
| • | Zune**– Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, U.K., U.S. |
That’s a pretty massive list. Important to note is this is reaching people worldwide, not just Americans, which is something that Microsoft has had a nasty habit of doing.
It’s confirmed that an Xbox Live Gold subscription will be required in order to run these services, but we don’t have any other details other than that as far as how confirming subscriptions will work. We’ll keep you folks updated as we learn more about this update.
What say you, gamers? Looking forward to using TV on your Xbox?
Published: Oct 5, 2011 01:22 pm