Movies Arrive on XBox 360 -- But Not Without Problems
Filed under: Tech Stuff, Distribution, Newsstand, Games and Game Movies
As I reported before, Microsoft was going to start providing downloads of select movies and TV programs to users of its XBox 360 gaming console through its XBox Live service. Well, the day finally came and the results, while impressive due to the sheer number of sales, were not without their share of problems. According to Variety, Microsoft went live with the service on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and it wasn't long before message boards, and Microsoft phones and emails, were jammed with complaints of slow download speeds, missing programs, being charged multiple times for the same program and other problems.Microsoft responded quickly (especially for Microsoft) to the complaints with postings on its public message boards that it was aware of the problems and was working on fixes. But insiders at the software giant report that Microsoft vastly underestimated the amount of sales, especially of High Def programming from the WB, CBS and others, and so was ill-prepared for the incredibly large amount of bandwidth needed to download that much High-Def content. However, by Sunday Microsoft reported at its website that "download speeds for most users should be significantly improved across the board." After that announcement, according to the Variety article, online complaints dropped to almost nothing. In addition to improved download speeds after a few days, Microsoft also announced plans to offer refunds or "make-goods" for users encountering problems -- which is a good move on their part.
So, score one for Microsoft. Even if they have problems in other areas of their business and are often accused of being an evil company bent on world domination, they got it right with the Xbox 360. As a user of the console, I appreciate it's impressive design and how well it works. Also, I happened to download one or two programs on Friday afternoon (The Matrix and Star Trek: The Wrath of Kahn if you want to know which ones) and although the download speed was glacially slow, once I finally got the content, it made for a very impressive viewing experience. If Microsoft really can work out the glitches and is able to expand its content to include a great deal more movies and TV programs, companies like Apple who seek to offer competing services might really have a problem on their hands. Who knows, maybe Microsoft really will become king of the living room?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
12-01-2006 @ 12:20PM
PhilWil said...
Wow, that is pretty cool. I guess I know what I am getting my sister for XMAS. Now all she needs is broadband and she will be good to go. My Mom will be happy with this too cause now she can play some DVD's and maybe download a movie or 2.
I wonder thought, how cable companies are taking this considering the shows (especially movies) are also something that they can have for a subscription of pay for view? If i wanted leave iIt to Beaver or some oddball cartoon like 2 Stupid Dogs, wouldn't cable want to get my dollar since its coming off of their network?
And how do they look at iPod and iTunes? YouTube for that matter? (I'm starting to think YouTube might actually make it by sheer force of will and its 100 million page views a day eventually showing whole shows on 'channels').
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11-28-2006 @ 4:11PM
Captain Obvious said...
Those two movies were not available in high definition. I believe currently only six movies are in HD.
I had problems downloading V for Vendetta - it went for three days and only reached 55% downloaded. I called MS, and they immediately refunded my Live Points, and was able to redownload the movie in about 2-3 hours. Great quality, too.
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11-28-2006 @ 6:56PM
chris ullrich said...
thanks for catching my typo captain. didn't mean to leave the letters HD in the sentence (and they are now gone). although, after i wrote this i went and downloaded V for V as well and it really does look very good. about the same as directv hd but still, pretty darn good. now if only i could get around that 14 day thing.
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11-28-2006 @ 8:11PM
Captain Obvious said...
My only regret...MS needs to have a warning before you play it for the first time. "You are about to begin the 24 hour time period for this video" or something like that. I accidentally clicked play after it downloaded on Saturday night at like 9 PM. I was just about to go out, so I couldn't watch it then, but I also didn't want to have to watch it on Sunday because of all the football. So I had to get up early to watch it and still ended up missing the beginning of some of the early games. If only a little warning would have popped up I could have avoided all that.
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11-28-2006 @ 9:35PM
darkbhudda said...
I think they also underestimated the amount of people with fake US accounts - overseas people registering a second account with a US address to get access to US content. They just cracked down on those.
In comparison to other services, I believe the HD remastered Star Trek TV series as well as other content is in 5.1 surround sound. Some studios are only providing SD material at the moment. Most of the other services are focusing on SD and stereo sound.
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