This has been annoying me ever since SkyPlayer launced on Windows Media Center and on Xbox360. Anyone familar with using an Extender with WMC will now that that SkyPlayer isn’t available, you have to be using a computer with WMC, so for us having SkyPlayer available on the Xbox360 is great. Well no it isn’t because as non-Sky subscribers the Pay-Per-View (PPV) content is not the same. Here is a screen shot taken from WMC on my netbook:

Episode 4 from Season 8 of 24 available via PPV on SkyPlayer through Windows Media Center

Now if you take a look at what is available for PPV on the Xbox360 there is nothing but reality TV amongst a few other non-mainstream programs that get shown on Sky1. Why isn’t the same content available? It seems rediculous for this to be true but it is (if I could take a screen shot of our Xbox360 I would). You can watch every previous season of 24 on WMC SkyPlayer yet none are available via the Xbox360 SkyPlayer.

The media make such an issue over illegal downloads while at the same time putting hurdles in place to stop content being access legally. I’m not going to commit to a Sky contract in order to watch one or two shows but I’m happy to pay around £1 to watch each episode. So come on Sky, I have my money waiting you just need to find a way for me to give it to you.

Apologies for the ranting nature of this post but it is something I feel quite passionate about and has been troubling me for some time. I feel much better now. [:D]

2 thoughts on “Why is SkyPlayer PPV content inconsistent across platforms?”
  1. Jay,

    I totally agree, the lack of what i think as decent content on the xbox sky player was the very reason i uninstalled it from my Xbox.

    Ed 🙂

  2. It would make sense for the SkyPlayer to use the same backend delivery/catalogue system across both platforms. As usual we suffer from the film/TV studios locking away their content while in the US there is full shows available via services like NetFlix, etc.

    Even the new video service on PS3 is films only with no TV series available (that I am aware of) so would be an oppertunity for Sony to get one over on Microsoft but I won’t be holding my breath.

    Now, think happy thoughts, think happy thoughts… 😀

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