XBox 360

"Xbox Live Gold members might have yet another reason not to go outdoors this summer, as Microsoft will have its own version of the TWC TV application"

-Engadget

Summary

When Microsoft opened up the XBox 360 to MVPD’s, it fit perfectly with Time Warner Cable’s strategy to extend our video services onto all platforms.  Offering access to 22 million XBox Gold subscribers, 7 million of which are in footprint, the XBox 360 was a perfect next step.  Designing a live TV experience on this platform offered us many challenges, not to mention 3 separate input devices.  We were accustomed to designing experiences limited to a single input, a remote control that we had spec’d.  Designing and developing for the XBox required support for analog (game controller and DVD remote), gesture, and of course voice.

Microsoft has its own UI metaphor, one heavily focused on the capabilities (or limitations at the time) of the Kinect.  Honoring our strategy of extending live TV into more rooms in the home, coupled with new UI necessary to channel surf Live TV, we decided to focus more on the back-end rather than start creating our experience from scratch.  This was no easy feat.  The XBox 360 experience, like Metro that followed it, really forced content to the top of the hierarchy in ways that we hadn’t currently supported.