Logitech Slashes Google TV-Based Revue to $99 as Returns Exceed Sales

[alent1234]

While that's certainly true I think there's two additional points that need to be mentioned:

1) Geek's view of reasonable pricing tends to be somewhat unrealistic. Look at the fuss recently over Netflix raising prices, you'd think they were demanding you gave your kids college fund over rather than $6 a month. Now the content owners tend to go in the other direction but as much as I hate to say this (being a consumer and wanting the lowest prices possible) but I have a suspicion the content owners are closer to the balancing point than the geeks at this point.

2) Google didn't bother even talking to the content providers and that's a systematic problem with their various projects. Put simply Google has a long history of ignoring copyright and content ownership and in this case it came back to bite their customers hard.

Ultimately whatever the future of TV / Internet Video it's only going to happen when the various parties sit down and work out a deal that's acceptable to consumers AND allows content producers to make a profit.

SUV's have high profit margins and people are willing to pay it
gasoline has low profit margins yet people think they are being ripped off
cable companies are pretty low on the profit margin scale
content owners have decent margins

yet people think oil companies are evil along with cable companies when most of the money is made by the others in the chain. sometimes life is not fair

 

[Santabean2000]

- Give ATV the app store and everything that brings to the table (including iPlayer, 4OD etc..)
- Let other iOS devices act as controller/keyboard for aforementioned apps

...watch them sell like hotcakes.

Why has this not happened yet?!?!? Seems like a no brainer.

M

Because this will come with Apple's 'real ATV', a 40"-60" beast that they'll sell to you for a lot more than the current $99 box.

It is coming. No doubt.

 

[macUser2007]

I wish the TV was more integrated and better organized.

My home theater rig.

set top box, surround sound, hdtv, apple tv

That really isn't that much stuff, pretty typical but to hook it all up was actually really annoying. To make the Apple TV and the Cable box both play through the surround sound was annoying. If i wanted to hook up one more thing to the TV i'm not sure i could get it to play through the surround sound.

Also i need to change TV inputs, surround sound outputs just to switch between all the devices. It's incredibly frustrating. Also I have 3 remote controls. There really needs to be a better way.

LOL! Take a look at this, for instance: http://usa.aopen.com/products_detail.aspx

It's the size of a Mac Mini.
It has a built-in BluRay option.
It has a built-in TV tuner option.
It does 7.1 and HiDef audio (and Windows 7 even has a plausible room-correction feature built-in).
Windows Media Center is a decent front-end, with a decent Netflix plug-in (plus many of the other streaming services are available, too) and great multi-tuner DVR capability.
One HDMI output to your receiver is all you need.
The MCE remote can control your TV (although universal remotes are cheap, so get one - I use an RF remote, so I can hide this and the receiver away).

The new ones even support USB 3 and Intel Wireless Display, so you can do away with wires and transmit 1080p video and 5.1 audio to your TV and receiver.

I run an older version AOpen, and I am pretty happy with it. I have an 8TB NAS hooked up to it, where all my music is ripped (lossless) and where my movie library is (MKVs with multi-channel tracks).

 

[zhenya]

I am not a huge fan of airplay. It cost some money, but I setup a Sonos based music system and it beats the pants off anything airplay can offer up.

Honestly, other than zones, what does Sonos offer over Airplay that justifies its huge price in comparison to the AppleTV? With Airplay, different devices can now play different content on the same network (lacking only a centralized control point), AND it can do video. I'm honestly curious here.

 

[whatever]

Um...Mr. Jobs, TiVo is pretty damn successful, as has been for about a decade now. I know cable companies have put a major dent in their sales by offering their own DVR's, TiVo is still doing pretty well.

Have you looked at TiVo's stock.

It's been a dog for years. Granted they have several patent lawsuits going, but they've been struggling as a company for years.

The best thing that could happen to TiVo is that someone buys them.

I know that people who have TiVo's love them, but here is another example of inferior products (basically every non-TiVo DVR) still TiVo's market share.

Had TiVo been smart, they would have licensed their technology to all of the TV manufacturers.

 

[tripjammer]

I have my fingers crossed for an iOS 5 update to the ATV2 that includes the App Store, but I also wouldn't be surprised if Apple continues to ignore what is glaringly obvious to us ATV owners. Can you imagine the iPhone being as successful as it currently is without the App Store? I can't.

Seriously, make the hardware, put it out there, and let developers do the rest. I've jailbroken my ATV2 in order to install Plex on it, which is nice, but there's so much more that could be done with it if only the opportunity were available.

Apple TV 3 dawg...it coming and coming soon...like in less than 2 months.

 

[tripjammer]

Honestly, other than zones, what does Sonos offer over Airplay that justifies its huge price in comparison to the AppleTV? With Airplay, different devices can now play different content on the same network (lacking only a centralized control point), AND it can do video. I'm honestly curious here.

I agree Sonos sucks..there is not video part of Airplay..

On IOS 5 on a apple TV 2...and a Ipad 2 i will do video mirroring...not possible on any other equipment.

 

[accessoriesguy]

Google TV sucks, Apple TV sucks.

Honestly, since cable and satellite subscriptions come with tivo boxes, I don't really need anything else. I wont pay for something that I can watch on my computer already.

The only interest I have in apple t.v. is that if you have mac/iPad/itouch? you can stream stuff to your t.v. easily without having to constantly connect cables, as well as watch stuff with your itunes and what not. For $100 it's not that bad. Not necessary, but it is a luxury, but i'm pretty sure if you have all those apple products this is just another dime to you.

 

[ghostlyorb]

Is someone else manufacturing them and returning them to stores to cash in on returns?

how do you return more stuff than you can sell?

I read it as... Out of 100 units sold.. at least 51 of them are being returned. So the number they "sell" is lower than the number of returns.

 

[fabian9]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8J2 Safari/6533.18.5)

I can't wait for iOS 5 so that I can stream everything I do on my iPad to my apple tv. It's going to be great for all the video apps that don't currently support AirPlay.

 

[WestonHarvey1]

The Apple TV is moderately successful because it is so simple. It's the only device I haven't programmed into my universal remote. The whole point of the thing is the absolute simplicity of its interface driven by that ultra minimalist remote control.

It's a tough business where failure is almost a guarantee. You can't do what Logitech did and build a $300 WebTV with wireless keyboards and other junk and expect it to sell.

With iTunes, Netflix, Youtube, Airplay, and maybe eventually apps, it is $99 well spent.

 

[RKpro]

If returns outnumber sales, there is something really wrong with the product, and a price cut is not the solution.

 

[Meandmunch]

I love it,

"Ask Google in a couple months".

Jobs I love you man, I hope you live forever.

 

[Ubuntu]

I have never heard of this product before. I did not know there was such a thing as Google TV, either!

 

[John.B]

I read it as... Out of 100 units sold.. at least 51 of them are being returned. So the number they "sell" is lower than the number of returns.

I read it as... Best Buy is returning these to Logitech by the truckload. Pallets full of them.

If nothing else, this will be another great case study about hardware manufacturers who "partner" with Google and lose their shirts in the bargain.

 

[harley3k]

Look for the BUY option to return to ATV2 with iOS5.

Off topic I guess, but a general reply to the comments about this.

With iOS5 and your content in the "cloud" - no reason the BUY feature can't return to the ATV2. Click to buy / it'll start streaming now; download to your iTunes later, or never if you are living in a "post pc" world

 

[Omniblast]

I bought my Google TV for $230 and I kept it for close to 3 months before returning it to Costco. Now that it's back at $100, that's more reasonable of a purchase for it. However my main gripe wasn't that there was a lack of content, sure there was content if you wanted to pay for it. Worked great with Amazon when I purchased Expendables to rent and watch. It was great. However if one does not want to watch paid programming and wanted to get free stuff, you could do a search and have it link up to your DVR and record the shows you want since it acted like a giant TV guide. That was one of the better features of it, though I wish that it was integrated more. My main gripe was that it was a bit SLOW. Tapping on it and waiting was a bit slow, and less responsive. I wish it was more responsive.

I do have a Apple TV (got it for free with apple care), it's jailbroken, and now netflix doesn't work with it because of an update. Most of the content in Apple TV requires a payment of sometype unless you like to watch youtube videos or stream audio from their radio service. The only real wow factor for Apple TV is that I could push the content from my iPad or iPhone to it.

I really did love searching up shows with Google TV. I'll probably hunt for it around Costco again to see if they have it. Maybe I'll have to purchase it off Amazon or somewhere online.

 

[err404]

While that's certainly true I think there's two additional points that need to be mentioned:

1) Geek's view of reasonable pricing tends to be somewhat unrealistic. Look at the fuss recently over Netflix raising prices, you'd think they were demanding you gave your kids college fund over rather than $6 a month. Now the content owners tend to go in the other direction but as much as I hate to say this (being a consumer and wanting the lowest prices possible) but I have a suspicion the content owners are closer to the balancing point than the geeks at this point.

2) Google didn't bother even talking to the content providers and that's a systematic problem with their various projects. Put simply Google has a long history of ignoring copyright and content ownership and in this case it came back to bite their customers hard.

Ultimately whatever the future of TV / Internet Video it's only going to happen when the various parties sit down and work out a deal that's acceptable to consumers AND allows content producers to make a profit.

I agree completely. I didn't mean to suggest that the content providers are evil or wrong for what they are doing. I've looked into the numbers and it's quite interesting: the end result is that selling an episode of a show for $.99 can actually result in less short-mid term income than the traditional syndication model. This is due to the devaluation of the content at syndicated outlets.
The end result is that the content owner's business model is currently not compatible with large scale internet distribution. Consequently they are hesitant to make content distribution deals with the heavy hitter like Google or Apple.
It'll happen, but it will take a while for the business models to adjust.

 

[SkippyThorson]

I literally laughed out loud when I read this. It certainly doesn't help that the screen cap of Steve would make a perfect Meme to follow up this article.

The smirk and the the gleam in his eye capture exactly how I expect his reaction to be.

 

[dagamer34]

You will not get a successful set top box until you make cable and satellite providers irrelevant. Everyone knows that the Internet is how content should be delivered in the future, but the powers-that-be do NOT want to loose their influence.

An ideal plan: $100/month for streaming content to your AppleTV, iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. Content would include all the traditional "channels" as well as options for VOD and PPV content. No regional limitations. If you can get an Internet connection, you can get this service.

The problem with the above scenario? Comcast no longer sells you a cable subscription, you just treat them as a dumb pipe. And THAT is why it hasn't happened yet.

 

[John.B]

You will not get a successful set top box until you make cable and satellite providers irrelevant. Everyone knows that the Internet is how content should be delivered in the future, but the powers-that-be do NOT want to loose their influence.

At the end of the day, broadcast and cable are the revenue sources that pay the content developers to do what they do. From sports to crappy reality TV and everything in between. It's a regular income source that would be hard to replace with the finicky nature of ala carte customers. People will pay $80 a month for a cable TV subscription but most won't pay $0.99 to watch a TV show or $2.99 to watch a movie.

 

[Dustman]

people actually paid 250 for something made by logitech???

Why not? Logitech is a fab company with the best customer service experience I have ever had! Their warranty support is unmatched, and its easier to get something like a keyboard replaced in one phone call than a company like Apple. Not saying Apple support isnt great, but not to the same extent as Logitech.

That being said, replacing a 30 dollar keyboard is different than a 3000 laptop, I do understand that.

 

[ShiftyPig]

I should probably be more educated on this, but what exactly does Google TV *do*? For $299, it seemed like a glorified on-screen guide to me when I read about it awhile back

 

[goobot]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8J2 Safari/6533.18.5)

If apple were to gain a streaming service with a lot of content at $10 a month along with an app store that has a touch screen remote and acceleromerter, i think the atv will dominate.

 

[PlipPlop]

Just make your own HTPC, you can get a decent Atom board for not much. Then you have a small pc behind your tv which can do a lot more than Apple TV and Google TV