Comcast is trying to be Roku now

Apparently redoubling his efforts to win the streaming wars, cable provider Comcast announced a new wireless streaming device called the XiOne.

A quick point of clarification here, before we continue: A Comcast spokesperson apparently said Vulture that the name of the device should be pronounced “more like an acronym, so the letter X, the letter I, then the number a. So ‘X – i – 1.’ ”Sounds more like a child of Grimes and Elon Musk than a streaming device, but OK!

The XiOne would soon be available to customers in the United States who use Xfinity Flex, Comcast’s streaming product for broadband-only cable customers, although it is now available to the company’s SkyQ customers in Italy and in Germany. Eventually, the device will also be available from Comcast partners such as Cox Communications in the United States and Rogers, Shaw and Videotron in Canada.

The XiOne supports Wi-Fi 6, 4K UHD, HDR, Dolby Vision, and Dolby Atmos, and it’s obviously Comcast’s game to compete with Roku and Fire TV, both of which have recently started incorporating their own streaming products. in partner televisions. But Comcast has spent years timidly retreating from the streaming wars, only to raise its giant dinosaur head in 2021 and find itself hemorrhaging subscribers along with all the other big cable TV players in the States. -United, and there is no indication that it would do better in distribution. than other established brands that are lighter on their feet.

The new device is being rolled out amid rumors that Comcast plans to insert the X1 technology that is currently powering its set-top boxes in other devices, namely its own line of smart TVs. Just last week Reported protocol that Comcast has partnered with Walmart and Hisense to develop the “XClass TV,” which will also run a version of the company’s proprietary operating system. Unlike Comcast’s other set-top boxes, however, “XClass TV” would be available to everyone, not just those who subscribe to the company’s cable services.

“When Sky joined the Comcast family, we brought our engineers together to share ideas, roadmaps, talents and technologies to support our global customers,” said Charlie Herrin, president of technology for Comcast, in a communicated. declaration. “The launch of our new XiOne device is a direct result of these efforts and highlights how our collaborative development approach can bring new and innovative streaming products to markets faster and more efficiently. “

Comcast may be chomping at the bit to become a streaming giant, but it’s too little, too late. Rather than spending years developing increasingly elaborate plans for strangle competing streaming services, Comcast should have gone on the offensive, kissed the soup he was swimming in, and undertakes to immediately develop a competing service. But that’s not what happened, and now, there is little to no reason to believe that a regional cable company, and a late participant in the streaming war, even stands a chance against its competition.

There’s also the pesky little fact that Comcast is, at the end of the day, a cable giant with a cable giant mentality, and that mentality has historically been the opposite of “the customer is king.” When the company first rolled out Flex, which was billed as a free streaming service that came with a free 4K streaming box for Comcast internet subscribers, it accused ridiculous fees for the rental of equipment. (The fees are now $ 5 / month for additional flex boxes after the first one.) And all this for the customer support of the brand that has been called “America’s Worst Company” not once, but twice over the past decade? Reader, let me suggest a Roku.