STB in a Game Console: Will Legacy Dedicated STBs Continue to Reign in the Tumultuous Pay-TV Market?

Author: Serene Fong, Industry Analyst, Broadband

Published: 30 Sep 2009

Home entertainment devices are the new kids on the block in today’s competitive pay-television environment. The need for ISPs to acquire and retain customers to save their hemorrhaging revenues has pressured them to differentiate their services. The last couple of years have seen service providers and manufacturers toying with the idea of using game consoles as platforms for viewing videos. The increasingly sophisticated technology of the latest consoles such as the PlayStation3 and the Xbox360 has demonstrated their potential to allow for the fast, easy — and most important — least expensive way to stream or download movies to the television. So the question is: will game consoles assume the role of set-top boxes in the future?

The full text of this Insight is available to subscribers of the Connected Home Research Service and the Digital Lifestyle Research Service and the Home Networking Research Service and the Broadband Research Service.

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