The UFC is coming to XBox Live on December 20th. XBox announced via twitter the start date in which fans can purchase UFC PPVs on the XBox platform.
It was announced last summer at E3 by Dana White that UFC PPVs would be on XBox. Earlier this fall, it was announced that the UFC would be available on December 1st with the first live event available being UFC 140 on December 10th. It now looks like the first PPV available on the platform would be UFC 141 on December 30th.
Payout Perspective:
We will continue to follow this story and see if there was any reason behind what appears to be a delay in rolling out the UFC on XBox. The video above was posted by XBox on November 30th. Its a good promo featuring White and various UFC stars. It looks like the UFC on XBox will also include a social media component which will allow users to post things onto their Facebook pages. As we’ve stated before, the UFC-Microsoft relationship is a good thing. We will see how many people jump on their XBox to order UFC PPVs. With PPV buys down overall, it will be interesting to see what affect the UFC’s partnership with XBox does.
Any idea of the price point via XBox? Or if UFC will take a larger share of the revenues than they get from the traditional Cable PPV distribution?
Thanks. TRying to see if it is worthwhile to unhook his xbox for the PPV and connect to the HD big screen tv vs just buying through verizon.
Xbox’s other streaming offerings have been solid. This will hopefully be a solid alternative to the laptop HDMId to the big screen. I tried a Roku PPV once and got burned on buffering and customer service, so I’m gunshy of trying them again.
Assassin,
The UFC on Xbox will most likely be $44.95/$54.95 just like a standard UFC PPV through a cable or satellite provider, but there will be no tax and no PPV franchise fee since you are buying it directly from Zuffa (so basically, you save $5-7). This is how it works on UFC.TV via a web browser or a Roku device (although they only offer a flat $44.95, no SD/HD option but the streams are pretty much HD quality provided you have a decent connection. I’ve been doing this for about 14 months now and it’s worked great.
Thanks MV. I think I will wait to see how it works for others before I attempt. I am not an early technology adopter. Wish they would cut the prioce some, even in the beginning to get people to try.
One has to wonder what effect this will have on PPV numbers we all here. Metzer has sources inside cable and maybe DTV. BUt more and more the UFC is finding new medians to sell their contend that i am sure Metzer doesnt have sources in to get the info. Right now im sure that the PPV sales through these are not huge. But when you have the ability to use XBox, UFC website, and many other platfforms. Those numbers will start to climb. Not only will see not see the increase in sales we will see a decrease as cable and DTV PPV buyers move to an untracked platform.
Also these new platforms surely give a better percentage to the UFC then cable and DTV currently do. Make the UFC more profit with less PPV buys than ever before.
For those that have used XBox streaming, is there a way to record content? One of the things about ordering UFC PPVs is that I can record and rewatch it later. That may play into whether or not some folks order the UFC on XBox.
@BSmash – I agree that moving the content from cable providers may give the UFC a bigger cut of the PPV revenue.
Nice move to distribution on network of 30M+ members. More of the core demo that the UFC needs to continue to build it’s brand.
Definitely will help get PPV marketing in front of a solid laser focused demo…whether or not it helps in buys is to be seen. May canabalize more from the cable/satellite operators than anything…which is fine by the UFC. There is still relatively low adoption rates of content streaming on Xbox live, but definitely something they are ramping up. I think right now its a nice to have for Xbox as they push their network more towards the content model than just gaming. Big for the UFC in terms of increasing revenue share of PPVs if it ever takes off. The price will never change though, the universal contract they have with their cable/satellite distributors does not allow them to discount or change pricing on any form of distribution, it has to remain the same across the board (hence it costs the same to buy the PPV from UFC.tv or on your Iphone as it does on Xbox, or Comcast or DirecTV.
Xbox was never meant to be just a gaming console… They want a portal into your home for content distribution… You heard it here first… Xbox/Microsoft is going to put Cable/satellite/netflix/television network distributors out of business. Xbox is going to take over your home and it will have nothing to do with games… XBOX IS GOING TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD!!! lol