Amazon and Google are both reportedly working on videogame-capable TV streaming boxes,joining a sector where Microsoft’s XBox is the leader. Their bets on a big future for digital TV devices underline how much innovation is going into television viewing these days. Images of an Amazon wireless gaming controller surfaced in a Brazilian regulatory filing last week, seemingly confirming earlier reports that the internet retailer is building a streaming box.Google, meanwhile, confirmed it had bought a company that made a games controller for Android, reportedly to be integrated into a forthcoming Google streaming box. The moves by Amazon and Google will put them into competition with Apple and Microsoft, who each make their own TV-streaming devices.Microsoft’s device, the XBox 360, is also a leading videogame console which, in a rare turn for Microsoft, has put the company at the forefront of an emerging digital device trend. The battle for the living room is about to turn into a four-way war,with Microsoft in the strongest position with somewhere north of 80 million devices sold. As with smartphones and tablets, each big tech company is trying to build its own vertically integrated world. For example, Apple’s leading video download store only works with Apple TV;Microsoft and Google have similarly exclusive download stores, too. Amazon Instant Video is absent from Apple’s system; Google’s YouTube will reportedly not ship for Amazon’s rumored box. Only Netflix and Hulu have managed to stay device agnostic and, thus, ubiquitous. With all the fighting going on, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that television tech is undergoing an exciting renaissance. Suddenly a near infinite library of video — professional, amateur, and vintage — is available instantly to tens of millions of households. Tech companies are only just starting to figure out how to package, promote, and personalize those streams. Limitless video choice is a brand new phenomenon,historically speaking. For close to three decades, television functionality was essentially unchanged.There was one box containing a color screen,which got progressively sharper and flatter over time. There was a second box, first the VCR and then the DVD player, for playing physical media. There was a third box, first analog and later digital, for decoding incoming cable television signals. And there was sometimes a fourth box for playing videogames, the first ones crude and the later ones amazingly detailed. Still, the balance of power remained with the gatekeepers, with the cable and network executives who selected and scheduled programming and with the retail managers who stocked your local video rental store and videogame boutiques. Seven years or so ago that all begin to change with the release of digital set-top boxes that made seemingly infinite digital video and videogame libraries instantly available over the internet. In 2007 Apple released its set-top box Apple TV,which could tap into Apple’s online movie store. In 2008 Microsoft’s XBox 360 videogame console began hosting Netflix’s streaming movie service, as did Roku’s pioneering digital streaming box. Sony’s PlayStation later got Netflix, and Apple kept introducing new versions of Apple TV and new partnerships with content streamers like Hulu. Microsoft did its own deal with Hulu as well as with Amazon Instant Video. And so on. With Amazon and Google jumping into the fray, the deals are only going to proliferate, as will, more excitingly, the experiments. Microsoft and Sony have been making it easier for indie videogame developers to sell through their online stores, and things are even more open on the Android and iOS app stores, where it’s trivial for any videogame maker to set up an account. Expect a similar opening up of the television and movie business. Podcasting technology has already made it easy for amateurs to set up channels into tablets and smartphones; streaming boxes can’t be far behind. In other words, as tech companies compete more heatedly over TV tech, there’s a simultaneous flowering of opportunity for creative types who know how to make compelling TV, shorts,documentaries, animation and movies. It turns out TV is only just starting to get interesting.
Posted on: Mon, 17 Mar 2014 12:58:05 +0000
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