The Media Marketplace seems like a good idea in theory; Allow users to download television shows and movies, store them on the harddrive and watch them using the console, in HD. The problem occurs when they charge for something that we are used to getting for free, namely televison. If you pay attention to trends in digital culture then you know about stuff like youtube, and you also know that the major broadcasting companies are beginning to hone in on the untapped potential of digital distribution. On nbc.com you can watch full episodes of a variety of different shows streaming and on demand with very limited commercial interruption. You can go watch the whole season of Heroes right now (at least up until the current episode) for free. Why would they offer this service with no charge? Couldnt it have a negative affect and their actual broadcasts by giving people alternatives to tuning in, and therefore costing them ad revanue? The answer is no, because the people who will use this service are people who wouldnt be tuning in to begin with, and any revenue they make from advertising on the site is all gravy. It costs them very little to do, but can yield large amounts of previously untapped revenue.
Marketplace could take this approach, sell a couple of ads per program and let users download the shows for free, but instead they are making us pay for something that will expire after a certain amount of time. As broadcast companies focus their recources to digital distribution, using the free to watch with limited commercials marketing model there will be no need, and no demand for a service that charges you to download the same shows. I believe that eventually this digital distribution will make things like TiVo obsolete, because there will be no need to have a DVR when you can simply point, click, and stream, for free. I wonder how many people here actually pay to download stuff off of the media marketplace, and if these shows, movies etc. became more widely available (which is sure to happen over the next couple of years) online and on demand for free would they even consider using Microsofts service?
For free? Yes some content is available for free online (legally) but if you take a look at whats selling its all mostly premium content such as South Park which isn't available for free. Not to mention movies and what not are not available online, (again legally) for free.
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