Sky and Microsoft bring Live Sky TV to the Xbox 360

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British firm BSkyB has joined forces with Microsoft to give Xbox 360 owners the chance to watch live television and on demand content on their consoles.

The Sky Player will come to Xbox in the autumn, giving subscribers access to live pay TV channels - including Sky Sports. According to Sky the following options will be in place:

For a customer joining Sky through their Xbox, Sky Player TV will offer a wide range of linear TV channels as well as a comprehensive library of on-demand content. A number of subscription packages will be available, as will the opportunity to access programming on a pay-per-view basis.
Xbox owners who already subscribe to Sky TV will now be able to access Sky Player's on-demand services through their console, in addition to their PC or Mac. And for those customers who also subscribe to Sky Multiroom, Sky Broadband Max or Sky Player
Multiroom, they will also be able to enjoy live TV via their console.

The Sky Player home page has the same look and feel of the NXE that Microsoft introduced recently.

You can also access Live TV from the Player:

There is a full EPG to tune into your favorite Sky channels:

The player also allows Xbox 360 friends to watch Live football together. Potentially you could sit in a virtual room with all your friends together watching a football game and using your headset to talk to each other and the controller to make your avatar gesture. This looks really exciting and providing it's priced correctly then Sky and Microsoft are both onto a winner here.

(4 replies) #1 digitalsoft on 29 May 2009 - 11:55

Sounds good if sky had better content to be honest.

#1.1 GP007 on 29 May 2009 - 12:13

This shows what other providers in different countries can offer through the 360 though. Someone has to start it, now others will fallow.

#1.2 +TCLN Ryster on 29 May 2009 - 12:27

Better content? Sky has the biggest selection of new American TV shows, sport and HD content of any provider in the UK.

#1.3 _X_ on 30 May 2009 - 00:46

Not the mention the most amounts of adverts and text dating services in the land!
My experience with the Sky player was mixed. If you are paying for a subscription you can watch the tv free, fair enough. But if you want to watch anything else, for example a previous episode of a TV show you have to pay, no matter how much your paying for their package. Not too keen on that, but fair play to them, someone has to do it.

#1.4 digitalsoft on 30 May 2009 - 11:28

By content I was refereing to Sky player, without that extra subscription it sucks, so it just means more money on top of the sky subscription.

(6 replies) #2 G0NADS on 29 May 2009 - 12:15

hmm football? you mean soccer ;p

#2.1 sreteP on 29 May 2009 - 12:20

G0NADS said,

That sport already causes too much violence to worry about the name.

#2.2 +TCLN Ryster on 29 May 2009 - 12:31

Don't get me started on the whole Soccer/Football thing

#2.3 GP007 on 29 May 2009 - 12:42

There's more than just the football /NFL bit going, there's also Australian football also different, and then rugby is a offshoot of football as well.

What people need to know is that before the UK set it's rules for football that we have today, "football" was played many different ways using both your hands AND feet.

#2.4 Minimoose on 29 May 2009 - 16:24

Flamebaiting is fun Gonads?

#2.5 sanriver12 on 29 May 2009 - 20:00

and by football i'm pretty sure YOU men handegg, right?

http://chickencrap.com/images/2359.jpg

#2.6 +DARKFiB3R on 01 Jun 2009 - 20:22

sanriver12 said,

+1 LOL

(3 replies) #3 Tommy DW on 29 May 2009 - 12:19

OMFG if this happend, I'd go out, sell that black plastic piece of **** i own (PS3) and order an xbox360 elite and subscription to sky that day.

If they can pull it off and code a decent enough browser for the channel listing it'll make them millions Then they can go to LoveFilm and get them on bored

#3.1 Copoboxx on 29 May 2009 - 18:21

You racist kid

#3.2 andrewbares on 30 May 2009 - 01:36

Have you been on PS Home? It's had online video streaming (trailers only right now) where you can be in a room with 100+ ppl. Oh, and the PS Home avatars actually look real, unlike the Wii-like animations the Xbox can handle.

#3.3 artzm on 01 Jun 2009 - 22:36

andrewbares said,

No way, you can watch trailers with your friends?!? Instead of hoping that changes, I'll stick with Microsoft since they have already announced it will happen.

(3 replies) #4 -T- on 29 May 2009 - 12:26

Wonder if i can use my UK xbox to link to my uk sky account in australia to do this

#4.1 GP007 on 29 May 2009 - 12:39

Wouldn't your internet connection from Aus to UK be a problem? Streaming would be pretty bad I'd guess.

I've been told by people living in Australia that the broadband connections there are poor and capped pretty bad. Unless you wanna pay some crazy prices per month.

#4.2 -T- on 29 May 2009 - 14:46

I already pay a crazy price per month, so the bandwidth aint much of an issue, the main problem would be speed as I assume I'd need to use a proxy of some kind

#4.3 artzm on 01 Jun 2009 - 22:38

Aus internet does blow, but since you already have the xbox I'm assuming, see if you can get to any other UK only content...if there is any. If you can get to that I'm sure you could get to this.

(3 replies) #5 Unto Darkness on 29 May 2009 - 13:19

Is this available internationally?

Damn, never thought the day would come when I would finally be able to watch soccer through my 360

#5.1 lee26 on 29 May 2009 - 14:02

I doubt it. Sky don't usually offer international subscriptions except to businesses in europe but even that aint cheap but I could be wrong.

I'd be surprised if it was.

#5.2 Copoboxx on 29 May 2009 - 18:23

Yeah!! It's available internationally because i went to Turkey for holiday last year and i saw specific people having Extremely large sattelites on their roof, they were english who owned houses there when i asked them they told me that it was to watch sky so i was surprises you could watch it there

#5.3 acnpt on 29 May 2009 - 21:05

Copoboxx said,

They are probally using a sky card which is registered to an address in the UK.

#6 PaulCabby on 29 May 2009 - 13:33

Hopefully the pricing will decent! :o

#7 +mad_onion on 29 May 2009 - 14:04

what so i could subscribe to sky and it would stream the channels to my 360

that would be awesome!

(1 reply) #8 DomZ on 29 May 2009 - 14:15

This is a move in the right direction for the 360 and UK users, now we just need some proper film streaming service on there and not the poor selection that is currently on it, oh and iplayer!

#8.1 digitalsoft on 29 May 2009 - 23:34

iPlayer is essential in my opinion. They offer the greatest online demand service out of all channels in the UK, just need that service on the 360 now.

(1 reply) #9 IceBreakerG on 29 May 2009 - 14:55

I wonder if anyone is going to complain about how this isn't and won't be available in the US, the same way other people complain about how US services aren't available in their country.

#9.1 roadwarrior on 30 May 2009 - 13:21

No, because the main reason people in the UK watch Sky is to watch US shows (long after they air in the US).

(1 reply) #10 Quigley Guy on 29 May 2009 - 15:25

Wonder if it will work in ireland

#10.1 hoppers_out on 29 May 2009 - 16:45

Quigley Guy said,

Yep, according to the article on the BBC Technology News website, this will be available in thr UK and Republic of Ireland.

(3 replies) #11 sonrah on 29 May 2009 - 16:15

No US? That sucks.

#11.1 +StevenNT on 29 May 2009 - 18:07

BSkyB is a United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland only business so not surprising they won't offer it for the USA. Plus they only have programme rights for the the two countries anyway.

#11.2 Kushan on 29 May 2009 - 18:33

You have netflix.

#11.3 A.B.L.N.N. on 01 Jun 2009 - 22:23

Kushan said,

Netflix instant movies sucks though.

#12 +Vice on 29 May 2009 - 16:28

This is easily one of the best things I've ever seen Microsoft and Sky do.

(1 reply) #13 BGM on 29 May 2009 - 17:17

if this means i can have skytv without a dish, yippie kai ayyy!

#13.1 Kushan on 29 May 2009 - 18:33

You can do that right now, Sky already has this service available through your PC/Mac on their website and it's available separately from a Sky Satellite Subscription.

(1 reply) #14 Kushan on 29 May 2009 - 18:36

I'm curious about one thing. I'll be moving to a new house in just under a month with 4 other friends. We were planning on getting Sky anyway so this is good news to us because it means we can essentially get Sky in all of our rooms as well as the living room at no additional cost. But The wording of this is a bit awkward:

Xbox owners who already subscribe to Sky TV will now be able to access Sky Player's on-demand services through their console, in addition to their PC or Mac. And for those customers who also subscribe to Sky Multiroom, Sky Broadband Max or Sky Player
Multiroom, they will also be able to enjoy live TV via their console.

Will we be able to use this on 5 different 360's or will it only work on one 360 at a time? We could probably all use the website separately but I think using the 360 would be a lot more convenient for all of us, TV being better than PC monitor and such. Anyone know if we'll be able to do that?

#14.1 PureLegend on 02 Jun 2009 - 07:16

Sounds like you'll need to get Multiroom.

#15 ekw on 29 May 2009 - 19:44

Still waiting on Hulu to show up!!

#16 Adam20 on 30 May 2009 - 00:51

I'd have prefered iPlayer myself

#17 virtorio on 30 May 2009 - 01:28

Wonder if it will work in NZ.

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