Xbox 360 and TiVo

In line with my previous posts on the future of home PCs and 'set top boxes with broadband connections' being the future of the living room, looks like TiVo and Xbox 360 would be the major competitors in the near future to occupy that space. For one, they are already there in the living room and they both are connected to the Internet.

There is no stopping Xbox360, with all their live community and likely netflix, zune, iptv integration and a easy to use controller with a chatpad and of course with the MS Marketing Muscle. Once they have the foot in the door, everyone knows what they are capable of doing. Xbox 360 already has a huge 'paying' community and Xbox Live Marketplace is offering more and more content. Xbox platform could easily become the Windows of the living room. As Xbox system is a closed system with no third party software, it is more easy to control and avaoid security issues like in Windows. And for the same reason, it could emulate the success of iPod/iTunes closed environment by controlling everything in the ecosystem, but only in a larger scale. There are already 15 million Xbox 360s out there, but primarily as gaming system. I guess at some point, they should release a less expensive, non gaming xbox system with IPTV and other entertainment services.

TiVo is more conventional box in the lines of VCRs and the DVD players of the old times with familiar remote controls and a bunch of extremely useful features that integrate with the current living room eco system, i.e broadcast TV. With the new marketing push, they might capture a significant market with the non gaming crowd. But still needs more killer features to have a permanant place in the living room. And the push from the dishtvs and comcasts is always there for their 5bucks. TiVos already have this unique feature, i.e DVR which Xbox cannot do yet without a Windows Media Center PC in the network. But any feature that needs an additional hardware is as good as nothing. TiVo is low in sound and power and doesn't generate as much heat as Xbox. TiVo is already integrated with Amazon Unbox. So it has the biggest store backing the download service. TiVo is inexpensive with all the subsidies. TiVo to Go is another killer feature, get all the recorded content on to your laptops, ipod and other PMPs. You can already share your content with other TiVo users.

Wii is also an interesting contender with the Opera web browser integrated and allow you to browse internet unlike XBox360 and TiVo. Apple TV, doesn't seem to have much applications and is not good enough to be a mass market phenomenon. PS3 is too expensive and is overrun with Xbox Marketplace. Slingbox is a feature in the future settop boxes rather than a separate gadget. I really dread to see an application like Yahoo! Go on the TV.

And then there is my ICECUBE ;)