Service launching on the console this Autumn…
Today, Microsoft and Sky announced a partnership to bring the Sky Player to Xbox 360 consoles this Autumn. A Sky subscription will be required to view the content.
The Sky Player was available as a demo and it offered a basic look of what to expect, including being able to stream Live Football, Cricket and Golf matches. It also allows you to watch your favorite TV shows on Sky like Ross Kemp on Gangs, Are You Smarter Than A 10 Year Old and movies like Transformers.
On top of that, you can view Sky News live and join 7 other friends’ Avatars to watch a Footie match in a digital stadium via a Picture in Picture screen. You can flick back and forth from fullscreen or make your avatars express joy and agony at the results you see. Plus the chance to view match statistics like posession during it.
You can also view a on-screen TV Guide like you can with Sky’s Set Top Box, but on this it does keep the channel in the background.
Picture quality seems to be determined on how fast your connection is, but from what I saw…it did seem to be slick and smooth. As is the menu to choose programming, which follows the NXE design perfectly.
When asked about specifics of packages and technical info, most were answered with the standard “We’ll be able to answer than nearer launch this Autumn”.
As soon as we have more info, we’ll be sure to let you know!