Sky Glass 2’s next big feature might be game streaming
Xbox and PC games, straight to your Sky TV, without the need for a computer or a console?
Sky wants its new Sky Glass 2 screen to be your one-stop shop for all your entertainment needs. Revealed at a press conference earlier this week, the new displays offer improved sound over its four-or-so year old predeccessor, a brighter screen panel and the all-important Entertainment OS, which aggregates streaming content from all the big services, along with Sky’s own content library. All this, without the traditional Sky TV need for a satellite dish, with everything instead delivered over your web connection.
But Sky has also got one eye on the future of its Glass line — along with a stripped-back and more affordable Sky Glass Air model set for release later this year, improvements to its underlying platform are top of the agenda — with the biggest tease reserved for future gaming apps.
“I think looking at gaming and music, if you look at what's actually connected over HDMI to Sky Glass, there's not a lot — that’s because of the good job we do with aggregation — so a lot of the time it’s a gaming console [plugged in],” Fraser Stirling, Global Chief Product Officer for Comcast and Sky, told Shortlist at this week’s Sky Glass 2 event, revealing the current hole in Sky’s ‘one-device-for-all-your-entertainment-needs’ philosophy with its smart screens.
“Obviously the bigger players out there are looking to streaming — and, no surprises, the ones that own a lot of the cloud infrastructure are able to do that. So we've been looking at that as a new form of entertainment, and definitely keeping an eye on that space.
“So, yeah, I just say stay tuned. But I think it's definitely an interesting area, definitely something a lot of those companies, like Microsoft, Nvidia and Amazon, are really leaning into. So I want to make sure that we're always at the forefront of that stuff.”
No PlayStation, no problem?
Sky’s already pretty agnostic when it comes to allowing (what are arguably) competing content providers into the Sky Glass fold. Netflix shows, Amazon Prime Video movies, Disney+ series and Apple TV+ originals all sit alongside Sky’s own content and terrestrial broadcast TV. So it’s not all that surprising that it’s open to adding another entertainment pillar into that mix with game streaming.
And it’ll have plenty of partners to pick from if it does pursue that avenue. As Fraser alludes to, the likes of Nvidia, Microsoft and Amazon all have well-established game streaming platforms, with GeForce Now, Xbox Game Pass and Luna, respectively, letting gamers ditch their consoles and gaming PCs in favour of streaming games directly to any device with a display over broadband.
It's an area of increased interest for Sky’s TV-making rivals too, with the likes of LG and Samsung already integrating game-streaming services into their TV operating systems. Those manufacturers might have an edge over Sky when it comes to gaming features — they’re supporting the super-smooth high-refresh rates that hardcore gamers lust over, whereas even the new Sky Glass 2 keeps the more pedestrian 60Hz refresh rate. But for Sky Glass’s target audience — those that don’t want to fuss with extra boxes, reams of cables, and aren’t necessarily looking to become esports masters — game streaming would make for a very attractive cherry on top of the Sky package cake.