Xbox 360 Adds More Media Apps, Still Lacks Some Promised in October
posted Sunday Apr 1, 2012 by Nicholas DiMeo
Since October, Microsoft has been boosting its media partners that are available on the Xbox 360 and even though all of the partners they announced were not available when the Xbox Dashboard was refreshed, we were promised we'd see the entire list at some point. While the news surely wasn't encouraging, a few days after the refresh Xbox Live was given another bunch of media apps that we were able to play with, however we still were missing around ten that were on Microsoft's initial list. Then, in mid-February, the 360 was given another batch of apps, yet we still did not see Bravo, HBO Go, Vevo, Xfinity and Manga Entertainment and some of those weren't even on the "Coming Soon" list.
Almost six months after the announcement of all of these different media additions to Xbox Live, more were added this week. What's been added and why are we still missing some apps? Learn about it all after the break.
This week, turning on your Xbox revealed another round of media served up on the console. To start, Microsoft has added HBO GO, which will allow you to get access to over 1,400 HBO shows, including their original series, movies, sports and comedies. All of this is Kinectable and free, provided you have an HBO subscription with a cable provider who is participating in the online program.
Next up we got to see Xfinity added to the platform. With Xfinity On Demand, this simply adds another video-streaming cable option to your Xbox console in addition to AT&T U-Verse and Verizon FiOS. A quick setup is all that is needed to get your Xbox ready for the app.
The long-overdue Vevo and its 45,000 videos by 11,000 artists showed up this week, too. Music video enthusiasts can finally rejoice as the world's leading all-premium music video and entertainment platform can now be enjoyed through a Live Tile on the Xbox 360.
Finally, MLB.TV was kicked into full gear. As long as you have a subscription to MLB.TV Premium, you can get all out-of-market games in the regular season in HD. All 2,430 of those games are available with full Kinectability as you would imagine and you also get access to the archived 2011 season, short game recaps and a free Game of the Day. As an added token of awesome, if you're really into the MLB, you can split your screen and watch two different games. Both of the games can be live or you can even watch a recap of one and a live shot of another.
Where does all of the new apps leave us? Well, while they are all great additions, we are still short Bravo and, yes, Manga Entertainment. While Bravo is something I don't really care one way or the other for, Manga Entertainment is something that a couple of us on the show have been wanting since they mentioned it in October. At this point, I think that Microsoft is simply listening to us as usual and purposely messing with us by not including the app in any of the batches to date. It took up to last month before we even saw it in the "Coming Soon" and as far as we here at the show are concerned, "soon" has come and gone about eight weeks ago. It's time for our promised apps, Xbox.
Are any of you using the new apps? Which one is your favorite? Do you also need Manga (or Bravo) in your life? Tell us about it in the comments below.