AT LONG LAST, FURTHER DETAILS COME TO LIGHT…
As Australians, unfairly or not we’re often used to getting passed by when it comes to content and special offers. A paricular bugbear of late has been Microsoft’s launch of Netflix to the North American region, and UK being given access to SKY TV via their consoles.
Well, we’re now “in the loop”!! As of 1st November 2010, sign-up will be enabled over on Foxtel’s homepage!! Foxtel and Microsoft have announced firm details and pricing to elaborate on their brief press release a few months back. You’ll have to pay extra per month for a Foxtell Live subscription, and a Gold membership is necessary to watch Live TV streaming (Foxtel “On Demand” – the PPV movies and certain TV series – will be the only thing available for Silver members), but the options are there to tailor your viewing pleasure.
The basic package will set you back a little under $20 per month, and each of the extra set of channels come in at $10 per month each. Channel bundles are as follows:
“Get Started”: FOX8, MTV, Nickelodeon, Channel [V], LifeStyle, YOU, Discovery, National Geographic, TV1, SKY NEWS, FOX Sports News and CNN.- “Entertainment Package”: MTV Hits, MTV Classic, [V] Hits, UKTV, Disney, The Comedy Channel, Discovery Turbo MAX, Nat Geo Adventure, Universal, BBC Knowledge, and SCI FI.
- “Sports Package”: FOX SPORTS PLAY, ESPN, Eurosport and FUEL TV. FOX SPORTS PLAY will be an Xbox 360 exclusive channel specially programmed to feature Australia’s most-loved sports programming, including Hyundai A-League Football, Barclays Premier League Football, Rugby Union Spring Tour, KFC Twenty20 Big Bash, India vs New Zealand test cricket, live boxing, ATP World Tour tennis finals and many more.
- “Showtime movies package”: Showcase and Showtime Premiere.
- “Movie Network movies package”: Movie One and Movie Two.
A few fine print points – there are no ISP partnership announcements for this Foxtel streaming (to quote) “at this time”. Note the “at this time” comment – this could mean there may well be negotiating still going on and announcements in the works, but regardless, until something is released as a solid agreement you can expect to chew through a significant portion of your download quota by streaming Foxtel through the console.
Another point – if you have an existing Foxtel subscription you will be able to implement it as a an additional set-top box with the associated fee instead (currently $15 for a “normal” additional Foxtel box). Whilst this is purely speculation, one could imagine that you should have access to all the channels you normally pay for under this package (eg., including sports, movies, etc.), but since Foxtel haven’t updated their information page as-yet, again, we’ll just have to wait and see. And if you’re in an area that can’t get access to Foxtel in the conventional way, unfortunately you won’t be able to get access this way either.
For more information – including the original press release in full – you can see it here, with Jinx’s (a member of Xbox’s Australian team) comments and some FAQs.
As always, we’ll bring you more details as they come to light. Stay tuned…
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