OCT. 11, 2010 • AT&T’s U-verse television services arrives on the Xbox 360, but only to current AT&T U-verse subscribers. Owners of an Xbox 360 console who can pick up the service where they live will also be forced to take a U-verse set-top box if they don’t already have one, as AT&T will not allow the Xbox 360 the primary receiver for general programming, or on demand videos. Neither will Xbox 360s with a hard drive be allowed to double as a DVR.
Impact: This is a minor convenience for U-verse subscribers that own an Xbox 360. The U-verse service comes with one main set-top and two additional set-top boxes are available for free for the first three months and after that are $7 a month. So essentially this has the ability to save consumers $7 a month. The issue is AT&T is charging $99 for the software plus a $55 install fee. In other words, the break-even point for subscribers is two years. Not really a big attraction.