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Xbox Original Programming

N

NullPointer

Member
Available only on Xbox 360, Xbox One, and other Microsoft devices, every Xbox Originals show will offer interactive capabilities, as well as unique interactive features customized on a per-show basis, making it a one-of-a-kind entertainment experience you won’t find anywhere else.
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Huh.

I can't say I've ever wanted it, nor can I imagine how this could possibly work out in a good way, but I'm definitely intrigued.
 
A

Ape

Banned
NullPointer said:
Huh.

I can't say I've ever wanted it, nor can I imagine how this could possibly work out in a good way, but I'm definitely intrigued.
Click to expand...

"The interactive team has focused on two areas, allowing adventure and adrenaline junkies to get a more vicarious experience by controlling the series from different angles and seeing things not in the final cut; while also allowing viewers to further explore the causes in each episode by connecting with their communities."

Levin and Tellem both admit that these shows are all experimental in the sense that the interactivity and what Xbox audiences want isn't set in stone.

"Until they're out there, we won't know if it works or not," said Levin. "We do want to put certain things out there just to get feedback from our viewers
Click to expand...

Here is an example.
 
L

Linkified

Member
Amir0x said:
I still do not know why they're choosing to put money into this increasingly volatile and decreasingly profitable business, but there's at least three of those shows I'd watch if they're any good. I just have zero confidence they will invest the money to making them good enough to be worth watching. We shall see, the ones I'm interested in are Winterworld, Deadlands and Gun Machine.

Some of these sounds like they would require an actual decent budget for effects.
Click to expand...

Who knows maybe if they are changing Xbox Video to a more of a Amazon Video style service - where Prime members get "free content" as a value add to Prime subscriptions. If it means them removing general Apps from behind a paywall like Netflix and instead they want to deliver new video content. I'm all for.

Some of the shows do sound interesting at least.
 
K

killer rin

Member
Man, quite alot of these sound extremely interesting. I thought I was just going to be picking up the Halo shows and the Documentary, but now I think I'm going to be watching nearly everything.

ironcreed said:
I'm getting an Xbox One, but I think they are screwing up big by going down this route. People are not going to buy a $500 Xbox in order to watch shows when they can watch Netflix, etc on devices they already own. I'm expecting this to blow up in their face.
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Xbox Video. So you'll need either a Windows 8 Machine, Windows Phone, Xbox 360 or Xbox One
 
C

coldfoot

Banned
With the Start menu being finally fixed in August, there won't be a reason not to have Win8, so you can watch them all there. I never buy episodes though, so I'll wait till they are on HBO or Netflix or Amazon, free with subscription.
 
M

Marcel

Member
killer rin said:
Xbox Video. So you'll need either a Windows 8 Machine, Windows Phone, Xbox 360 or Xbox One
Click to expand...

The Windows Phone performs poorly because they have the most limited selection of apps in their store. Xbox Video (original programming) won't change Windows Phone fortunes or those of anything you mentioned.

It'll be a sweetener for existing Gold customers and maybe a monthly purchase for anyone outside the Gold walled garden. The funniest thing would be if they wanted to charge you for Xbox Video on top of Gold. Then you know it's gonna sink.

coldfoot said:
With the Start menu being finally fixed in August, there won't be a reason not to have Win8, so you can watch them all there. I never buy episodes though, so I'll wait till they are on HBO or Netflix or Amazon, free with subscription.
Click to expand...

It's taken them THIS long to fix that? Wow.
 
A

Amir0x

Banned
Linkified said:
Who knows maybe if they are changing Xbox Video to a more of a Amazon Video style service - where Prime members get "free content" as a value add to Prime subscriptions. If it means them removing general Apps from behind a paywall like Netflix and instead they want to deliver new video content. I'm all for.

Some of the shows do sound interesting at least.
Click to expand...

It's not that. It's just really the most bizarre business decision I've seen a company like Microsoft consciously make in a while. For the one thing, Xbox programming is going to be competing with other viable video services that exist elsewhere, so it's already a crowded market. And those viable video services usually offer just incalculably more programming, for a much smaller buy-in.

For another, it's an increasingly volatile business in which even cable companies are rapidly trying to find ways to survive. Every single big network and video service has entered a brutally competitive landscape for which there are less viewers to fight over every year, and which TV becomes less important in the age of youtube and netflix. It cannot be overstated how little business sense it makes to suddenly enter this market, because 360 is on its way out in relevance and will likely end up contributing little to viewers in two years, Windows 8 is still at like 8% market share, and Xbox One is such a comparatively tiny audience. Think of it, even on Xbox 360, only approximately 46 million people were on Live, and even that was combining both Silver and Gold accounts which are hardly the same thing at all (in fact, will Silver users even be able to watch these shows?). Xbox One has 4 million sales if it's lucky (will be at, what, ten million by the time the shows start coming out, of which only 60-70% will likely even be online in any meaningful way - if I'm being ridiculously generous?), and only a small percentage of the base will watch - that's not a knock against XBO, the same is true of any device.

They're choosing shows that seem pretty ambitious, will require at least a modest effects budget to be convincing, and they're going to be aiming at an audience that is comparatively tiny. Netflix alone has 49 million worldwide accounts! And that's a service where people buy into it JUST to watch that sort of content!

I think it makes sense to discuss the very dangerous business ground this is walking on for Microsoft.
 
L

LukasTaves

Member
That's actually many more programs than I was expecting at first.

Many do seen more like stopgap projects, but some also seem interesting. Very optimistic about this!

Banjo-Kazooie said:
Polygon's story also has them saying they are looking into TV series or features based on any of their exclusive games. "Xbox Entertainment say they are working with the different game studios to see which makes sense as television or feature."

Franchises they have been looking into so far are Gears, Forza, State of Decay, Fable, Age of Empires.
Click to expand...
Given that all the others are active franchises does this means Age of Empires is having a comeback?
 
C

cakely

Member
coldfoot said:
With the Start menu being finally fixed in August, there won't be a reason not to have Win8, so you can watch them all there. I never buy episodes though, so I'll wait till they are on HBO or Netflix or Amazon, free with subscription.
Click to expand...

I can't think of any reason to get Windows 8, whether Microsoft brings back the start menu or not.

Metro is like the Kinect 2.0 for operating systems, it adds nothing for me and I want nothing to do with it.
 
C

Chettlar

Banned
Amir0x said:
I still do not know why they're choosing to put money into this increasingly volatile and decreasingly profitable business, but there's at least three of those shows I'd watch if they're any good. I just have zero confidence they will invest the money to making them good enough to be worth watching. We shall see, the ones I'm interested in are Winterworld, Deadlands and Gun Machine.

Some of these sounds like they would require an actual decent budget for effects.
Click to expand...

Deadlands sounds, really bizarre, and really interesting. Are there any other shows currently that are like that?
 
S

shacklesmcgee

Member
Synth said:
It should be exclusive to their service (Xbox Video), but it shouldn't be exclusive to any of their devices if you ask me. You're not going to entice people to purchase your hardware for shows they have no way of even confirming they will like otherwise. I mean, sure they could pirate an episode, but at that point they'd probably decide to do that with the rest of the show too. Let everyone access it via the service, and then make sure the service is best on your devices (which right now they are automatically, by being the only devices with an app, instead of relying on a website).
Click to expand...

Pretty sure this is what will happen to every one of these shows, going by peoples TV habits nowadays
 
S

SPDIF

Member
RulkezX said:
Not a single quote saying that's the case in that article.
Click to expand...

So? Does there have to be a quote for it to be true? I don't see any full sentence quote in that article, does that mean the other information isn't true? As they say in the article, they had a walkthrough of Microsoft's plans. I'm guessing somewhere along the way during that walkthrough they were told that the programming for Gold subscribers would be free. I doubt they'd write "The only certainty right now", unless they'd had some sort of confirmation.
 
O

Obscured

Member
Have to wait to see how they actually pan out, but I'm pleasantly surprised by this lineup, sounds more interesting than I would have thought. I am also pleasantly surprised by the attitude expressed that they realize that some of what they are trying is experimental and also know it will take a while to really create what they are going after here. I was impressed hearing that person in charge kept pushing back the timeframe and that MS didn't push back. I also like they are tying it to a device but making it part of their overall platform. All in all I'm feeling optimistic about this and can't wait to start seeing some stuff.
 
E

Exploratory

Banned
Penguins&PolarBears said:
But Amazon and Hulu have done a terrible job developing original shows. I could easily see Xbox TV doing a better job especially since it is being run by executives from CBS, WB, and AMC. Not to mention they've partnered with big name production studios from Spielberg, Ridley Scott, Seth Green, Sarah Silverman, etc. Honestly I don't see any way that companies like Hulu or Yahoo have an advantage over Xbox Live. Xbox already has a huge subscriber base and is backed by a company with far more resources. Whether Xbox Originals becomes a huge mainstream success is another question, but I don't think it is that difficult to pass the low bar set by Hulu or Amazon. Even Netflix hasn't had that much success beyond Kevin Spacey. Arrested Development S4 was a complete abomination that tarnished the memory of the show.
Click to expand...

Orange is the new black is also very successful. And arrested might not have been great but I don't think that was the team that was behind its fault. It was just having 1 character per ep was bad.
 
J

Jomjom

Banned
I think once these shows release a lot of the people complaining about MS's strategy of TV TV TV will have to eat a lot of crow.

Most of those shows look like they'll be great.

Are these shows going to be free with Gold?

Miles Quaritch said:
Sony are making 'Powers', sounds good so far. I'm hoping it's like Alphas.
Click to expand...

The divisions for Breaking Bad and Powers are not the same right? I think Powers will be more like The Tester and less like Breaking Bad. By that I mean horrible.
 
S

Synth

Member
shacklesmcgee said:
Pretty sure this is what will happen to every one of these shows, going by peoples TV habits nowadays
Click to expand...

Probably. But it's not a good idea to force that option on some of those that would have purchased it legitimately if given the choice. Expecting them to change their device or OS to even see if they like it, is a bit much to ask.

blackdevil said:
not for Microsoft^^ stupid to not make it Xbox One exclusive!

most people will watch all these shows on the internet anyway^^ if they are good that is.
Click to expand...

It's stupid to even limit it to MS devices imo. It would be incredibly stupid to limit it to Xbox One. You'd be guaranteeing that each show would have a tiny audience.
 
R

REMEMBER CITADEL

Banned
Jomjom said:
I think once these shows release a lot of the people complaining about MS's strategy of TV TV TV will have to eat a lot of crow.

Most of those shows look like they'll be great.
Click to expand...

And if they're successful, Microsoft might even turn some of them into video game franchises.
 
N

NotTheGuyYouKill

Member
I loved the novel Gun Machine... not sure how they gonna turn it into a television series. Originally it was supposed to air on Fox.

Guess we'll see how it goes. Was actually coming to post it and then the search popped this thread up. I did post on the OT side though...
 
B

blackdevil

Member
Synth said:
It's stupid to even limit it to MS devices imo. It would be incredibly stupid to limit it to Xbox One. You'd be guaranteeing that each show would have a tiny audience.
Click to expand...

i absolutely agree but if they want to give their xbox one a push it would be smart to make these Shows Xbox One exclusive but i understand that more devices = more potential viewers = better for Microsofts shows overall.
 
J

jond76

Banned
State of Decay show please!

I'm not interested in the soccer show, but I'm glad all of this is starting to show up.
 
S

Synth

Member
blackdevil said:
i absolutely agree but if they want to give their xbox one a push it would be smart to make these Shows Xbox One exclusive but i understand that more devices = more potential viewers = better for Microsofts shows overall.
Click to expand...

Yea but the Xbox One is one part of Microsoft's ecosystem... and not at all the most important part. They need to make their services as strong as possible before they start trying to use them to force device purchases.
 
E

E92 M3

Member
Why would I watch this when my TV/game time is limited as it is. As long as the budget for these shows doesn't interfere with games I don't care.

Maybe the Halo show will be good. I did like Forward Unto Dawn; everything else sounds boring.
 
Z

zhao3gold

Banned
Quite interesting. Really look forward to some shows, especially Halo. And hope the Xbox Originals can attract some main stream come to Microsoft service.
 
Ozzy Onya A2Z

Ozzy Onya A2Z

Member
FonkyByNature said:
People can use a lot of devices to watch these shows. Win phone, XB1, 360, Win 8, Surface... not too bad, but personally, i'm not interested and i have a feeling this will fail big. Microsoft just don't have it in the entertainment field, there are way bigger, more experienced players.
Click to expand...

Do you realise movie industry companies like Dreamworks are half owned by Microsoft and have been for many years. There are plenty of other examples.

NullPointer said:
Huh.

I can't say I've ever wanted it, nor can I imagine how this could possibly work out in a good way, but I'm definitely intrigued.
Click to expand...

Hopefully a mix of Smartglass and controller interactions more than Kinect. Perhaps there could be some interesting Kinect features with this? You don't know jack was a great party game, something like that could work with Any of those inputs.

A Mario Party-esque game could use a mix of executed well.
 
N

NullPointer

Member
Oh God, I think live action Gears would look unintentionally hilarious, both the Cogs and Locust. So much is exaggerated and roided out. Unless they visually retcon the whole damn thing that is.
 
S

Synth

Member
NullPointer said:
Oh God, I think live action Gears would look unintentionally hilarious, both the Cogs and Locust. So much is exaggerated and roided out. Unless they visually retcon the whole damn thing that is.
Click to expand...

At this point I think they need to take a long hard look at how to progress with Gears today, regardless of if it's for a TV show, or a game.
 
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