It’s official folks — GOOGLE TV is a flop!
That brand new set-top box from Google, which was supposed to be the answer to the popular APPLE TV, began with a great deal of promise. Not only could it stream movies from Netflix, Amazon, and others (similar to Apple), but it also had a full web browser installed (unlike Apple). This meant users would have the luxury of simply pointing their TV browser to Fox.com to view the latest episode of “Glee,” or to ComedyCentral.com to catch Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show.” It was a novel concept and one that was poised to put Apple in the backseat among TV set-top boxes. Except it didn’t work.
Not only did buyers report grotesquely huge controllers and an incredibly poor user experience, but the networks stepped in, decided not to play along, and blocked all of their content from being accessed by Google TV. And with the killer feature “web browser” reduced to near nothingness, that was pretty much the final nail in the coffin.
GOOGLE TV has barely been out a few weeks, and already Best Buy and the Sony Style stores have discounted the device by $100. Needless to say, this is not at all a good sign for a brand new product right in the midst of the lucrative Christmas shopping season. But with the networks blocking pretty much all of their content from playing on the devices, it’s difficult to fathom why anyone would wish to buy a GOOGLE TV even at the hugely discounted price.
GOOGLE TV is not out of the game yet, but it’s certainly down for the count. Tech experts wisely predict that if Google is somehow unable to strike a deal with the networks to allow their content to stream to the box, GOOGLE TV could quickly become a great big, expensive, living room paper weight.
