As we watched the Xbox One reveal, as Microsoft focused a massive majority of its time on TV, most Australians started to glaze over. NFL on Xbox One, snapping from TV to video games? Most of us wondered if this type of functionality would ever make it to Australian shores, let alone at launch. Today Microsoft announced specifically what will be available in our region, and it’s a relatively sparse offering, but probably still more than you might have expected.
First off, here’s what’s available in the US…
United States
– Amazon Instant Video
– Crackle
– The CW
– ESPN
– FOX NOW
– FXNOW
– HBO GO (coming soon)
– Hulu Plus
– Machinima
– MUZU TV
– Netflix
– Redbox Instant by Verizon
– Target Ticket
– TED
– The NFL on Xbox One
– Twitch
– Univision Deportes
– Verizon FiOS TV
– VUDU
And here’s what’s available in Australia…
Australia
– Crackle
– Machinima
– MUZU TV
– Network Ten’s tenplay
– Quickflix
– SBS On Demand
– TED
– Twitch
Just for reference here’s what’s available in the UK:
United Kingdom
– 4oD
– AmazonLOVEFiLM
– blinkbox
– Crackle
– Demand 5
– Eurosport
– Machinima
– MUZU TV
– Netflix
– NOW TV
– TED
– Twitch
– Wuaki.tv
Marc Whitten, Xbox Chief Product Officer, claimed it was a “stellar app portfolio” from a global perspective and you know what? It’s not terrible. We’ve come to expect a more limited array of digital options here in Australia and, despite the small number, I’m actually surprised we’re getting anything at launch.
In addition to the above list, Australian users will also have day one access to…
– Xbox Fitness
– Xbox Video
– Xbox Music
– Internet Explorer
– Skype
– SkyDrive
– Upload
Thoughts? More that you expected? Less? Do you even foresee yourself using your Xbox One is this way? Let us know in the comments below.
Comments
85 responses to “This Is The TV Xbox One Owners Will Have Access To In Australia”
Surely Foxtel over HDMI is the “real” TV Microsoft was referring to?
It’s pretty much what I expected, what with Aus being last place in quality streaming
But that’s not MS’s fault. Its the content providers here in Aus.
Where did I blame MS?
To be honest, I’d be blaming the government for their decisions about the networking side of things, imagine if we got Fiber-Optic internet 2-5 years ago, we’d be much more advanced in the technology side.
Where did he blame you blaming MS?
Get off my plane
But first place in piracy! 🙂
No ABC Iview? I use that all the time on my 360
I use my 360 to play games.
Do you use your television to only watch TV?
I don’t watch TV.
Well that’s one of a million examples of something you may have multiple uses for, despite it initially being made for one thing. You understand my point, no need to be such an evil monkey so soon in to the week!
Yes, I see your point, obviously enough people use these services to make them want to have them available on the console, but they’re not for me, hell, I’ve never even heard of half of them.
I’m just frustrated that consoles are not consoles anymore, they’re trying to make them into an all-in-one media hub/PC, I just want my console to play games.
Now where was I, oh yeah, yelling at kids to get off my lawn.
Believe it or not you’re in the minority. According to Microsoft, in the last few years, people spent more time streaming video on their console than playing games. I feel your frustration though. For me though, as long as the thing still plays games properly, and the other stuff doesn’t get in the way I’m good. There’s no reason why we can’t have both.
I agree, I wonder how much better these consoles would be at playing games if they focused on, you know, games. With a computer, TV, smart phones, ipads, etc., I personally as a consumer just see no point to all of this entertainment hub nonsense. In some things versatility is welcome, but in a games console, i’d rather you spend the R&D time and resources purely on creating a console that can play games as well as possible for as long as possible.
How much money was spent on locking down those TV contracts that could have been spent locking down new IP contracts instead? If everyone didn’t encourage them, we could be playing games without numbers in their titles, instead of Call Of Duty 24.
I use my 360 to both play games and watch TV
#lifehack
Power user *nods*
Actually it’s pretty handy to have iView on the 360. Too bad the SBS on demand required the Gold subscription for some strange reason (SBS is government funded like the ABC)
They receive government grants for their community focused contributions, but they are an independent entity and rely on private sourcing of funds [advertising] for a lot of their finances.
That being said, SBSoD is free on PSN and my Bravia TV….. so who knows why it needs XB Gold…..
Same here. I use ABC and SBS quite a lot. I hope they become available quickly.
Iview probably won’t happen, particularly if MS requires users to have Gold in order to use the TV channels. ABC’s charter prevents it from permitting third parties to charge for its content in Australia (or, at least, that’s the ABC’s current reading) and therefore it can’t license itself to MS if they’re charging a fee for access.
SBS doesn’t have the same restrictions.
ABC is already on the 360, behind the pay wall
SBS, heyyyy?
*nudge nudge*
Maybe he just really likes WW2 documentaries, okay?
*wink wink*
Actually, to be honest, I haven’t really trawled it for nudie movies at all (besides, that’s what the internet is for). There’s good anime for kids to watch. Plus there’s some weird shit on there that’s fun to watch.
Animes…weird shit…
*Nudge nudge*
😛
Don’t laugh, I’m 34, and when I was a teen there was no internet and SBS was the primary source of nudity for a young man. For many years it brought forth a fruitful bounty of foreign booty
Mate – i’m 28 and SBS was the same thing to me back in the day haha
That and Evangellion and Bubblegum Crisis… mannnn dem shows!
Ahhhhh, a fellow SBS fap-brother. Why didn’t you just do the secret handshake? That’s why we made it.
I had to Login to + you, it was worth it.
Dem memories :’)
I am 39 and SBS didnt come along until later and even then it was dad that was watching SBS 🙂 I had to resort to 14.4kbits BBS goodness for my nudie bits….it was a slow line by line process lol
Because the last time i did the secret handshake we got stuck.
Let this be a lesson to always wash your hands, kids!
In all seriousness, SBS has some great stuff (especially SBS2). They have 5-10 international films on On Demand all the time and every week they put an old episode of Community up (trying to be legit, here). iView’s better for content but I’d put this in second (9’s bs and ten and seven have issues)
every boy knows about friday night SBS
And no youtube!?!
Given how badly poorly Google have been supporting anything Microsoft lately, it might never come.
Well you can just browse to it seeing as Xbox One has a browser.
Guess I’ll keep using my android box while I decide what console to buy. YouTube xbmc iview and all the chromecast stuff, plus twitch ustream and all the other video apps. Don’t need gold for it either.
Hope its not as bad as IE was for 360.
I think ABC cracked it recently because all these TV apps are behind the Xbox Live paywall, and they don’t like that because ABC content is supposed to be available unrestricted to all Australians.
Yup, bummed about iView. I use it every day, for both myself and kids.
No Foxtel on Xbox? I know it’s a rip off but I use it occasionally.
Nothing really differed than what we have now, but crackle is good for free movies and tv shows
Access to Twitch is not a terrible thing, tenplay maybe, what channel is the olympics and world cup (football re: soccer) being broadcast on? nine or ten? other than that, not a large variety accessible though as stated, it was kind of expected. Though there is the potential for other things later on down the track and it is kind of implied that more will become available.
With access to twitch via console will we be able to stream directly to twitch via the xbone? or will we still have to frankenstien a rig up? this may already have been clarified elsewhere but I can’t seem to locate the info anywhere.
SBS have always had the world cup – 9/10 would never get the world cup – Channel 7 tried to do qualifier games for the world cup years ago and put an ad break in when the ball went out for a throw in and then when it got back from the ads a goal had been scored… True story – Channel 9 and ten would not bother with World Cup Football because they cant make much money off advertising!!!
I seem to recall reading that you can indeed stream directly to Twitch via the Xbone.
Does anyone know whether it can be used as a pvr? Use the oa3 with playtv atm but keen to see if the XBOX can do the same 🙂
It can not.
The recording feature in the console is only for games unfortunately.
Xbox One allows you to plug your PVR into the HDMI in and have the Xbox overlay on top of it.
No NBA Gametime is a huge negative for me… I won’t get one until they have it.
Well it will definitely come. Just keep using 360 app for time being!
Yeah cos it is so reliable… The NBA Gametime app is horrendous currently on the 360
I’ve heard a few people have issues with it, but it’s been fine for me (only a few hiccups.) Worst comes to worst, obviously can just watch it on laptop/mobile.
For me, it’s not the unreliability of it, but the fact that it is missing out on a lot of features that should undoubtedly be included i.e all of the NBA videos that can be found online (NBA Vault, Shaqtin A Fool, Inside the NBA, etc), ability to watch several games at once (or at least have two on screen.) Also, an integration with Yahoo Sports would be great for the Fantasy stats – but I don’t see this happening.
I’d love to know if I can install the US Apps if I have a US Xbox Live account like the Xbox 360. Netflix is a must.
Free to air, at all? I know their focus is PayTV and streaming, but unless they offer a box a la PlayTV, it doesn’t sweeten the deal for me whatsoever.
These are only the streaming apps.
I’m pretty sure I’ve read that you can still plug your free to air connection in and it’ll run like an epg/remote. Of course it’s hdmi in only, so you will need to run it from your set top box… or your foxtel box.
Yeah it’s pretty much a pass-through box, so far as I can tell, so I guess the existence of a dedicated receiver may be a little superfluous for a lot of people. For those who don’t have set tops with HDMI outputs, or maybe extremely late adopters of digital TV, it’d be an inexpensive accessory and would certainly present XB1 as the “all in” media hub Microsoft are trying so hard to sell it as.
… and, as pointed out above, it won’t function as a DVR – unless it’s got the capability to capture and compress the signal hard baked into the pass through software.
No iView or Foxtel apps are a bit of a surprise.
What I would be interested to know however, is how long it’ll take us to get OneGuide for either Freeview or Foxtel though.
Im actually pumped about TED. I can’t get enough of that atm. Otherwise what I expected and not a huge factor for me. I will get an xbone at launch and will log into my US and UK accounts and see what I can get 🙂
I’d be keen to hear how much you can get access to with international accounts. Please report back?
I’m hoping it’s just as easy as the 360, or even better, as easy as Windows 8 where you don’t need extra accounts. Downside is on the 360 because you never “own” the international apps, you can’t pin them, and you can’t use Kinect to open them. At least they’re usable though.
Needs more iView
Is iView likely to be added at a later stage? They seem to be having major issues maintaining the service on existing devices anyway – iView has been broken on the PS3 since late October.
Right, so I’d never seen this ‘Quickflix’ before, but noticed that it seemed to be taking the place of Netflix. So I think, “Huh, OK. Guess I’ll check it out.”
Wow. A quarter of the range at triple the price. What the fuck is wrong with TV/movie licencing? What horrible crimes did we commit against the licencing groups to offend them so grievously that no-one in the world is capable of dealing with Australia without first trying to jam their cocks in our ears?
(Edit: And they fucking wonder why we’re the biggest nation of pirates in the world. Brain surgeons.)
Quarter the range at triple the price and then for the big series (the walking dead for example) they expect you to pay another $49.99 ON TOP OF THE MONTHLY SUBSCRIPTION! Or… just torrent it without fear of ever being prosecuted.
800 lb. elephant in the room, Fox-tel?
These are only the streaming apps.
So, if your foxtel comes into your house, through an aerial, then you’ll be able to plug your set top box into the xbox and run it like that.
You can get Foxtel on Xbox via the 360 at the moment for 1/3 of the price of satellite or cable.
Yeah the sparseness of our options is directly related to Rupert Murdoch locking away everything, which is why I am taking a more proactive Fuck Him position lately. In fact if I was elected to parliment I would introduce the Fuck Rupert Murdoch Bill that would allow australians to bypass copyright restrictions on any media he controls in this region.
Sounds fair. Got my vote!
Yeah $4.99 per month unblocker US+ $5.99 per month Netflix US + $7.99 per month Hulu Plus $19.
Or $20 per month Foxtel Play basic LOL
Don’t see NBA TV which is a major factor for myself. Thought it would be there day 1 as 360 already has it.
Will creating a VPN connection with a US “service” allow me to get access to the content available in the US?
Both consoles need a play tv equivalent.
Play tv (and using a US account to put netflix on it) is what turned the PS3 into my most used box.
That’s less than what I can get on my 4 year old Sony Bravia smart TV directly…
Surprised at no Foxtel
I’m really surprised network ten made an app for the One, their app for the 360 never fkn works. I hope ABC make iView for the One, it’s one fo the best media apps out there.
Also is anyone else surprised to see Foxtel missing at launch?
Yeah I tried the network 10 app once. If froze the xbox requiring a hard reset. Uninstalled.
Strange that there is no 7 or 9 streaming, considering you can watch their shows online (I may be wrong, 9 did have this a while ago). Even stranger is no Foxtel Play/Go or iView.
Seven only have a PlayStation App, while Ten only have an Xbox app. At least Sevens app bloody works though, Ten’s doesn’t. Although ABC iView sucks balls on the PlayStation and is pretty good on the 360. Nine don’t care about this console business at all :p
This is actually much more than I expected, I am quite happy with the turn out for Australian features.
Arrrggghhh, there be no Netflix here me hearties! Looks like we’ll be sailing the torrential seas a while longer, arrrggghhh!