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Google TV hasn’t been on Logitech Revue boxes or Sony Internet TVs and Blu-ray players for a month, but are sales lagging?
Google won’t say, but the company promoted Dish Network’s amazingly reduced sale of the Logitech Revue for $179, or 40 percent off of the $299 retail price from last month.
The offer, which requires a DVR integration service of $4 per month, is good for any of Dish’s 14 million-plus subscribers. More details on Engadget here.
Sure, we understand holidays are prime for sales, but 40 percent off?
That’s the kind of pricing reserved for books publishers know will sell well when they hit stores — see Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol — or failing products.
I think it’s too early to assume Google TV is failing, but maybe Dish really hopes to boost its subscriber base with Google TV.
Update: A person familiar with Google’s plans told me the discount was announced at the Logitech Revue launch last month. I was at that launch. I vaguely remember talk of a discount, but not this much.
Anyway, I’ve been using Google TV on Logitech Revue for a few weeks now and it’s sweet for Web browsing and accessing Netflix and YouTube Leanback.
While Revue easily lets me switch to my DVR AT&T U-Verse content, Dish offers something I can’t get from U-Verse. Dish users’ DVR content integrates better with Google TV. Google explained:
“For instance, you can search for a TV show, and in addition to searching Web content and live TV, Google TV will also search your DVR recordings for that show. If it’s not on for a few days, it’ll automatically find the show and allow you to record it with the click of a button.“
See the Dish integration in action here:
Having Google TV surface the dozen or show programs and movies in my U-Verse queue would be a perk, but I can honestly say I don’t feel I’m missing much by not having this Dish feature. Seriously.
And people are really getting carried away about not being able to watch programming from the Websites of Fox, CBS, NBC and ABC. Enough already. Why can’t people DVR it on TV and watch it later?
Why do people need to consume all their programming from the Website? I suppose the on-demand factor is cool; I get my needs met by the Netflix app on Google TV and by the DVR on U-Verse.