Microsoft ready to unveil TV shows made for Xbox

Microsoft is finally ready to serve an assorted helping of original TV programmes made for the Xbox 360 and Xbox One.

Nearly two years after launching a studio to create new shows to be streamed on Xbox consoles, the tech giant says they are coming this summer.

However, viewers should not expect Xbox Originals, as they are called, to be available the same way that content is provided by sites such as Netflix and Hulu.

“We don’t necessarily know what approach will work and we don’t necessarily know what approach won’t work,” said Nancy Tellem, president of Xbox Entertainment Studios.

She spoke during a recent press preview of Xbox Originals at Microsoft’s offices in Santa Monica, California.

It came ahead of Microsoft’s presentation yesterday at the “newfronts” in New York — a digital take on the annual “upfronts”, where broadcast and cable networks unveil their future schedules for advertisers.

Others set to participate include Hulu, Crackle, Maker, AOL, and Yahoo.

Tellem, previously president of CBS Entertainment, said no decisions have been made as to how each Xbox series will be available.

They could be part of the $5 (€3.60) a month Xbox Live subscription, for sale individually or available for free through advertising partnerships.

Among the shows coming to Xbox this year are the street soccer docu-series Every Street United, which will be first to debut in July, and the six-part tech-centric documentary Signal To Noise.

The first instalment — Atari: Game Over — chronicles this past weekend’s excavation of a landfill thought to be filled with copies of Atari’s infamous ET game.

Xbox has also partnered with UK broadcaster Channel 4 to co-produce an eight-episode series called Humans, set in a world where robotic servants wait on their human owners.

The move into showbusiness comes a few years after Microsoft first proclaimed that Xbox consoles — now over 80m strong with 48m monthly Xbox Live subscribers — are used less for playing games online and more for listening to music and watching movies, shows and videos on apps from content providers such as HBO, Fox and Twitch.