HBO Go is coming To Apple TV By Mid-2013

Apple might not need to make a TV set to make a big splash in the television market: a brand new report from Bloomberg claims that the company is negotiating with Time Warner Inc. to bring HBO Go to Apple TV by the middle of this year, citing two people familiar with the plans. That would still mean that the ability to watch HBO shows on Apple’s set-top box would be limited to people who already subscribe to the network in cable and satellite packages, but it’s a promising step.

HBO Go currently provides mobile access to HBO shows and content, which would mean that Apple TV users who are also subscribers would have access to the more than 600 hours of video currently available on the service, which includes hit shows like Game of Thrones and True Blood. The move wouldn’t be unprecedented, as Apple already currently offers Hulu Plus and Netflix access on the platform, and HBO Go is already on Roku and Xbox.

And in the end, it would still mean that customers are shackled to traditional cable and satellite distribution methods, even if the delivery mechanism for their HBO content is actually Apple’s standalone streaming video player. But turning the Apple TV into a platform with access to a broader content library is a key step in making it a better value proposition for consumers: AirPlay is a good selling point, but content options are more plentiful on other devices, even given the fact that the iTunes library is among the largest for digital video.

Many have wondered also whether Apple would open up the Apple TV to third-party apps in a way similar to how it’s running on the iPad and iPhone. This sounds like just another hand-selected partner, however, so it’s unlikely we’ll see an opening up of the platform anytime soon.

Sony Likely To Unveil PlayStation 4 On Feb. 20

Sony is gearing up for a big announcement on February 20, according to invitations it sent out to the media on Thursday. The smart money was already on a next-generation PlayStation console being the topic of discussion, but theWall Street Journal came out and blatantly declared that’s what we’d be getting. But while we have a good idea of what, generally, Sony will be talking about, it’s the specifics that matter most for Sony’s long-term success.

Sony said that we’d “see the future” at the special February event, and the WSJ’s sources say it’s definitely going to be a next-gen console, debuted ahead of a similar evolution of Xbox from Microsoft. The console will actually make it to retail by the holidays in 2013, just in time to compete with Microsoft’s offering, which is also rumored for release around that time. But video game and console sales aren’t at their best right now, with gaming-related device sales experiencing considerable dips ahead of last year’s holiday sales season.

Rumors about what the console will actually look like so far include retaining an optical disc drive, said to be a concession made to ensuring that large-sized games are still convenient for customers to actually obtain and play, and a move from the Cell chip that powers the current PS3 to an AMD-based design, which might complicate things in terms of backwards compatibility with current games. That will annoy existing customers, but alienating those customers isn’t even Sony’s biggest issue with fielding a next-gen device; it’s attracting new users from a young gamer population that has grown up on mobile.

Current console gamers have a hard time seeing how mobile could ever truly replace a home console gaming experience, especially when a next-generation console promises to improve considerably on the 10-year old tech found in the PS3 and really push the envelope in terms of graphics, performance and realism. But the spec race isn’t the key battleground in gaming anymore, like it or not. Apple famously shifted focus away from what was under the hood in computers and mobile devices and onto the end-user experience, and that had repercussions beyond its own primary industry. Gaming became a much more broadly defined category, one that includes teen and twenty-something males sitting in front of a TV with a controller in hand, but no longer one defined by that demographic.

People underestimate the effect of mobile gaming on the industry at large I think, especially when you consider that an entire new generation of gamers is experiencing gaming first on touchscreen devices, with instant availability, downloadable titles and much shorter average gaming sessions. Those experiences will breed different expectations, resulting in consumers in key growth demographics who might not be all that excited to see what kind of ultra-realistic water effects a next-gen console can reproduce, even as those of us who grew up dreaming of in-game fog you could virtually feel on your skin eat up whatever Sony wants to sell us.