UPDATE: Microsoft is now telling me Best Buy's Cinemanow application may not be free to all Xbox Live members. As seems to be the case with much of these new content updates, there are plenty of details that remain in flux.
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There was some confusion about Microsoft's big entertainment news yesterday, in which Verizon, Comcast, HBO and other companies pledged to bring content to Xbox 360 in the next few months.
What content is coming over depends on the company, and there was some question about whether it would require Xbox Live Gold.
Plenty of questions remain, but Microsoft did provide me with a tiny bit of clarity on the Gold question.
"Public service broadcasters, like BBC, and transaction-based applications, like Best Buy’s Cinemanow, will be available to all Xbox LIVE members," said a Microsoft spokesperson. "Other applications and services, such as HBOGO, Bravo and Dailymotion, will require an Xbox LIVE Gold membership. We’ll have more details to share about each of these experiences soon."
I'd actually asked for a breakdown of every subscription requirement, but that's all I got back.
Verizon, for example, outright listed the Gold requirement in its press release.
"Using a Verizon-developed software application," read the release, "FiOS TV and Internet customers who are also Xbox LIVE Gold members will be able to view popular live TV channels through their Xbox consoles without any extra hardware required."
It appears some services that were once on the Silver side will be brought over to Gold, as well. One Giant Bomb reader passed along an image from AT&T that confirmed its U-verse service will be making the transition to Gold before the end of the year. In response, AT&T is giving a one-time $60 credit to U-verse customers to use towards a Gold upgrade.
When asked about its decision making process behind putting some service applications but not others behind the Gold requirement, Microsoft sent me a pretty boilerplate answer that doesn't say very much at all.
"Xbox LIVE is free to any Xbox 360 owner with a broadband Internet connection and includes access to tens of thousands of movies and TV shows in 1080p HD, not to mention nearly 25,000 pieces of gaming content all through Xbox LIVE Marketplace. Also available is a 12-month Xbox LIVE Gold subscription for only $5 per month. Gold members have access to all the music, movies, games and now live and on demand TV available on Xbox LIVE. No other device brings together all of this entertainment with the social connectivity of Xbox LIVE and the ability to use Kinect for voice search and voice commands, which allows users to easily look across a variety of content catalogs and play entertainment without ever raising a finger."
If I hear anything more, I'll let you know, but to assume most things are going Gold would probably be accurate.
I hope I'm not stealing this.
edit: I think i dun did it.
Anyway, being a dirty European, most of this is of no consequence to me.
first? too good to be true, damn quests!
good too hear the bbc stuff will be available to all, also isn't that a bit out of character for AT&T?
Hmm, interesting. It's not really what I was hoping for, I guess...
Locking everything behind Gold seems pretty stupid, and I'm really surprised they still haven't introduced some additional subscription level that only gives you multiplayer. Well, okay, not surprised when looking at it from their point of view... but it's very consumer-unfriendly.
I don't care too much, since Live isn't supported in my country anyway and all these additional services like Last.fm, Zune Movies and all that are always IP-blocked when I access them via a US or UK gamertag. It's just really fucking dumb that there's such a huge portion of their userbase that isn't based in any of these few countries getting all the benefits and they still have to pay the same price for a subscription.
Foxtel on 360 (Aus cable) does require gold, they usually try and hook you with a free month of it, then there's no going back as it's a pretty good service. We are getting some free-to-air stuff like ABC and SBS which won't require Gold though. Also XBLG costs $79.95 a year here, a total rip off!
All this shit is such a waste of time. As long as it plays games, I'm good.
I have AT&T internet, but we don't do TV or anything and I don't believe we actually use U-Verse...so none of this affects me. Which is, I suppose, a bummer in itself.
I find it pretty stupid that you have to be a Gold member to be able to access parties. That's just ridiculous.
I'm glad the Gold membership I continue to pay the same price for continues to have less and less value because Microsoft has no interest in brokering deals that extend beyond the US.
Globalization my ass...
Will there be additional fees on top of having a gold subscription?
@RobertOrri: It is probably because the US is the majority of the entire Xbox community, so most other places wont get it or it will take a while to get it everywhere. Same for the PS3, Japan gets everything months before the US ever sees it. At least that is what I would assume is the reason behind what happens.
I find this all to be pretty silly since all I really want to do is play video games. I pretty much always have a gold membership to play games online (and to occasionally buy a game that's been discounted), so I guess this wouldn't effect me either way. I guess it sucks that they're limiting silver users even more, but I don't really see anyone using that stuff anyway, so I don't see much of a reason to make a huge fuss over it (though I guess that's more based on my personal experiences than anything).
@Wandrecanada said:
That's ok, all the gamers in the US who don't use any of this crap they keep piling on and just want to play multiplayer, but still need to keep paying the ever increasing price to the troll at the gate to the internet, feel your pain.
Will I need to pay for Gold and another subscription fee for the services?
I use my xbox 360 to mainly play games but the introduction of sky player in the U.K was a god send, I had been thinking about paying £10 p/m extra for multi-room as the women in this household do not wish to watch football on the weekend and since sky player came to 360 me and my pals can relax in the gaming room on the weekend and watch all the games on the big screen in peace then play some games afterwards.
Yeah it would be great if XBL was free but I have paid the same yearly price of £35 since launch and it has added value over the last six years so I am pretty happy with my gold subscription, I would have to pay £120 extra per year for sky multi-room but included in my gold subscription of £35 per year I get 40+ live channels of sky and thousands of on demand movies, tv shows and sports and plus everything else XBL offers so for me paying for a gold subscription is costing quite a bit less than what I would have paid for multi-room.
@DudeOlav said:
Thanks for sharing, that's amazing
U.K XBL members are getting quite a bit new stuff also.
http://www.xbox.com/en-gb/LIVE/partners?uid=101609230&tid=9134
Lovefilm
4OD
Demand 5
Youtube
MSN player
Dailymotion
muzu.tv
screenrush
crackle
vevo
I do not know what will be free for all or gold members only but if your a gold member and love film member like myself we shall be getting quite a bit of new content to enjoy.
As a u.k customer I think MS have done good by us u.k subscribers with the extra content they add to xbl.
man, I'm just going to see what I see when they roll out the changes. Either it's useful or it's not.
Pay a subscription to being able to pay for stuff that let you subscribe to other stuff... a yeah and a lot of ads, There is the Xbox live experience for you gents.
Ya. I love paying money for a premium service. As for ads, I dont really see any. If I did I'm sure I'd be mad. XBL Silver with ads? Hell Yes.
Seriously, what ads? I think Hulu is supposed to, but its free anyway.