Xbox 720 will cost $99 with cable TV subscription, predicts Pachter

[mike_intellivision]

ironmanDX said:

mike_intellivision said:
I will repeat ... I cannot see what is in this for the cable companies. That is where this idea fails to make sense.

Mike from Morgantown

Isn't it obvious? M$ would more than likely subsidise the money, they would gain in viewership anyway and get money from companys from ads. The more people are watching, the more the ads cost to put on a network at whatever time slot. They'd also likely gain subscribers after/if they stop using the service on the next box.

With what is Microsoft going to subsidize them?  MS would be charging less for its product under this model, hoping to make up the revenues from monies flowing from the content providers. 

However, the content providers are slowly adopting closed gate philosophies, making "cutting the cord" difficult. For example, MS talks about ESPN on Xbox 360. But you need an XBLA Gold subscription plus access to an ISP that offers ESPN3.  In other words, you are not getting anything for free.  Likewise, six months ago, Starz pulled all movies it controlled distribution off of Netflix because it was cutting into the subscriptions to Starz.  

This model just doe not make sense to me.