[April Fool's Day] Partnership with Sony, Movie streaming Add-on unveiled

[April Fool's Day] Partnership with Sony, Movie streaming Add-on unveiled

April Fools 

Team XBMC

March 31, 20111 min read

Today we are proud to announce an exciting new partnership.

In early May 2010, a representative at Sony Japan’s Home Theater and Console division expressed interest in using XBMC as a delivery platform for its newest content. After nearly a year of development, we have delivered a product that is suitable for deployment into millions of living-rooms, backed by Sony’s reputation for delivering high-quality standards-compliant hardware and software. We believe that within 3 months, we will have a new appliance on store shelves that will revolutionize the industry. The XBMC team is also excited to be a part of Sony’s Home Theater and Consoles division, where free-thinking developers are regarded highly.

What does this mean for XBMC? The sky is the limit. Combined with Sony’s impeccable reputation in tech crowds, we anticipate that the platform will be a quick success in the retail market. Sadly, the XBMC source will be closed in the future (all developers unanimously agreed to assigning a proprietary license), but we believe this is the right move going forward. As Jonathan Marshall, XBMC Foundation President put it, “While the free and open-source model worked well when we were all still in our parents’ basements, now that we’ve been showered with gifts from our new friends at Sony, we understand that it is not sustainable in the long-term; DRM is the way of the future.”

Top10Top 10 We realize that some may see this as abandoning our principles, so we have used our new partner’s influence to secure a special treat for XBMC’s existing users. For the next year, we are able to bring you the latest box-office top-10 movies in 1080p quality, some before the Blu-Rays even hit the store shelves. The best part is, they are free of charge! Just check out the ‘Blu-Ray Movie Streamer’ plugin, available now in the XBMC add-on browser.

We understand that not everyone will agree with our decision here, but we assure you, it’s for the best. Stay tuned for more as the details unfold!