Verizon FiOS kicking off Xbox 360 streaming TV with 26 channels for subscribers

This is much better than AT&T's U-Verse offering. U-Verse is all channels, but you have to pay for a $100 kit and a $50 set-up fee.

If only Fios was available where I live. . . and if only I still watched TV?

The only advantage I could see to watching programs on the Xbox versus just straight through the cable on your TV, would be some of the app features.

I don't really pay attention to sports much, but I've experimented with the ESPN app and the UFC one (I think it's only in the beta, so shhh) and I think some of the added functionality is cool. Like Joystiq mentioned in their article (http://www.joystiq.com/2011/10/07/ufc-on-xbox-live-full-access-octagon/), you can vote on which person you think is going to win that particular match, look-up info on each player, and watch related videos while you wait on the match to start.

Anyway, my whole point was to say that if some of these features were to be implemented for some of these "channels", then they could be useful. I guess it's kind of like how companies promote that sort of thing on blu-ray players...but I honestly don't know how commonly used that is. For me personally, it would be a pain to have my BD player hooked up to the Internet.

is verizon fios in new orleans? and for anyone who has verizon fios, is it any good?

Xbox is hooked up to TV already receiving cable TV.....what is the point of this again?

For those wondering what the point is, I will tell you (from my perspective). I have FIOS with a DVR in my living room (and also a PS3 with Netflix). Upstairs I have the Xbox and no STB for the FIOS tv. Now, with this deal I have 26 channels on my Xbox upstairs for free. I just pick up OTA broadcasts, which are spotty at best, even in this new digital age. While I'm wondering what the channels will be, I have to admit that this is a nice value add for services that I am already paying for. I would much rather buy an Xbox for a bedroom than pay Verizon to use one of their STB's that does much less. Now, what channels?

Here in Canada Rogers customer will also be getting access to their Rogers On Demand service (a limited web based version) on the xbox soon. I'm curious if Bell will be integrating in the near future since it's fibe boxes use a version of the Microsoft media centre platform and Telus who use the same platform and worked out an agreement where people can use an xbox as their "media centre" and control VOD right from their xbox. Convergence, not with a bang but a cross platform wimper.

The real question is if Verizon will be charging you to install this on your xbox. I have U-verse, but I'll be damned if I'm going to pay $100 to use the service I pay over $100 a month for on the 360 I payed $400 for and continue to pay $40/year for live on. Completely ridiculous.

Pretty cool for like a kids bedroom or tv room. The concepthas to start somewhere and I only see the 360 tv service getting better.

wow pay 3 bills just so i can watch 26 channels on my xbox?! what a deal!!!!

/sarcasm

The biggest selling point is the 35/35MB plan for new users. For the 90 bucks thats not a bad deal. Considering I currently pay Comcast $64 for basic cable and 24MB that never hits that speed.

Skipping past all the lengthy comments so I apologize if this has been mentioned previously

I would assume that most, if not all of us has our gaming systems connected to the same TV as our cableboxes. So this service seems like pointless to me. Are we too lazy to switch the input on the tv?

Here is the basic problem...and I say this as someone who works in marketing, within the cable television industry. They don't know what the hell they are doing. The "telcos" like Verizon and AT&T entering this business with IPTV don't have a clue about broadcasting and instead of entering the business with a new and more progressive business model...they did exactly the same thing their coaxial competitors have been doing, forever. Then you get "features" like these XBox Live updates, which are virtually useless but somehow serve as a bullet point. AT&T has been offering to let you use your XBox 360 as a set top box for a long time, but almost nobody does it. Why? Because they want to charge you over $100 to do it, more than a year of cable box rental. Why on earth would I do that? When I got U-Verse, I asked the installer about it and he said he has never, in all the years he's been doing it, done an XBox installation. So how useful is that "feature," really? Answer? It's not. Just like this Verizon app is not.

So far, the only potentially useful "TV" app I've heard about is the potential for HBO GO on the 360, so I can have access to the entire library of HBO shows, which I can't get with On Demand.

But yeah, for the most part this all feels like Microsoft throwing darts at a board and seeing what sticks, because they don't have a clue what they're doing with this TV thing.

I suppose it's all about baby steps, but this step is so infinitesimally tiny that I'm not sure we're advancing the whole "360 is the center of the living room" thing at all with this. The requirements to enjoy this feature are incredibly high, and you don't even get every channel anyway.

Perhaps a couple of years from now when FiOS gets distributed across more cities and we start seeing more channels being offered through this. As it stands the only people who would take advantage of this are the people who just happen to have everything as it is (already pay for FiOS cable+internet, already have a 360 and pay gold for it). Everyone else just shrugs and says "who cares?"

ESPN now available on 360 & iOS devices! *must be subscriber to approved telcom & Comcast is not on the list*

TV is being brought to your 360! *telcom is not supported and you must be a subscriber as well*

Too many hurdles to jump through for live TV via IP. I cannot wait until the day that content providers will be able to offer their content a la carte via the internet, but the big telcom companies with fight till their dying breath trying to keep their grips on everything.

Fios is way better than that. 89 a month for tv,phone,and 15/15. I pay 115 a month and get a boatload of HD channels, phone, and 25/25 internet. To top it off, they gave me a $200 visa gift card to switch from cable. Another thing, it doesn't have 'boost' which is a marketing ploy for cable companies to throtle your internet after like 10 seconds which really gives false speed test results. I get solid and consistent 25/25.