Sky’s the limit

Yesterday morning Microsoft announced an exclusive deal with Sky to bring sports, movies and TV shows straight to the Xbox 360 this autumn. The service will be provided through Sky Player, an on-demand TV service which has been available for a while now to access via your PC or Mac.

Xbox 360 owners who already subscribe to Sky will be able to access Sky Player through their console, in addition to their PC or Mac. If you are not a Sky subcriber though you will be able to sign up for the Sky Player through your 360 which will enable you to watch Sky on your 360 without the need for a satellite dish or a Sky box. No package or pricing details have been announced yet but we expect something soon.

At this press event on Thursday Microsoft also gave us a glimpse of the service, they showed off how users will be able to watch live football with up to seven of their friends from the comfort of their home and Xbox Live. During a match users can get into a party then talk to each other via their headsets throughout the match. If that wasn’t enough all users can enter into a virtual stadium with a virtual stand for everyones avatars to stand or sit down in. Users will also be able to make their avatar cheer if a goal is scored! Awesome!

This service sounds great and Microsoft have done really well to secure this deal with Sky. Hopefully though people without Sky will not have to pay too much for it and it would make sense if some sort of pay-per-view payment scheme is announced. I can imagine quite a few people would just like to watch one football match rather than paying to watch every match in a season. Anyhow we will keep you posted on any new details on this matter as soon as they emerge.