In total, Amazon Prime will have over 15,000 videos available for streaming, including some very popular television shows. Amazon launched its video streaming service about a year ago with 5,000 videos. With today's announcement, that number is now tripled.

Wired's Tim Carmody argued recently that Amazon is particularly well-positioned to emerge as a such a competitor, not only to Netflix but to cable television as well.

Amazon Prime still has some growing to do, and for now the service is tied to Amazon's free shipping service of the same name. GigaOm's Ryan Lawler argues that unbundling the two and launching a stand-alone streaming service could make the service an even stronger contender for Netflix's throne as king of this space.

It's worth keeping in mind that Amazon Prime Instant Video only launched in February of last year. Netflix has been around since 1997 and launched its Watch Instantly streaming feature in 2007. Amazon is rising fast, and its clear that digital content is a growing priority for the company, especially now that its also sells its own media tablet.

Rather than being broadcast on HBO, a standard cable channel or even network TV, "Lilyhammer" is going straight to audiences via the Web. Netflix hopes that by making some content available exclusively through its service, it will attract new users and potentially even gain some additional leverage with other content providers.

2011: A Rough Year For Netflix

Netflix's own new initiative comes after what can hardly be described as a good year for the company. Between its subscription rate increase, loss of a key content deal, botched plans to spin off its DVD business and loss of 800,000 subscribers, the latter half of 2011 alone was a bit of a nightmare for the once-beloved company.

It also comes a time of heightened tensions between Netflix and some of its content providers, who have more traditional relationships and revenue streams to worry about. First, the company lost a key contract with Starz Entertainment. Now DVDs of Warner Bros. movies are subject to a 56-day waiting period before users can rent them, and a 28-day window before they can be added to one's queue. Netflix hasn't exactly pushed back against such efforts from Hollywood, so perhaps it deserves part of the blame. Regardless, it's clear that big content providers are nervous about the potential impact streaming services could have on traditional models.

Original Content: A Savior?

This being the case, the move toward original content is a wise, indeed necessary, one. Will it be enough to turn things around? It's hard to say what kind of impact "Lilyhammer" alone will have, all the show is apparently already very popular in Norway. What's perhaps more important is the milestone that this represents.

One of Netflix's next forays into exclusive content will be interesting to watch. "Arrested Development," the discontinued Fox comedy with a major cult following, will return for a new season, but will only be available on Netflix.

This will be the year that online streaming services try to position themselves as an even more attractive alternative to cable by offering their own content. Even if the new trend doesn't destroy any legacy models, it could bolster the leverage of streaming services when it comes time to negotiate with legacy players over content deals.

After what turned out to be a pretty good year in 2011, Hulu announced last week that they are planning to invest $500 million in new content initiatives. That will undoubtedly include more pricey agreements with traditional content providers, but today the company revealed another place it plans on spending that money: on original programming.

A week before the debut of "Battleground," Netflix will be airing its first installment of original programming as well. A mobster drama called "Lilyhammer" is expected to be the first in a series of Netflix-only shows to launch over the next two years. Next year, the canceled-yet-beloved series "Arrested Development" will be making its triumphant return to screens of all sizes, not through the Fox network on which it originally aired, but exclusively through Netflix.

Web-Only Premium Content: A Disruptive Force?

As early and unproven as this Web-first model is, it may well represent the next phase in Web TV and pose a tangible challenge to traditional content distributors. Such a challenge would come despite the predictions of people like Mark Cuban, who recently wrote a blog post outlining why the television business as we know it isn't going anywhere, despite advances made in the online streaming industry.

Cuban, himself the chairman of a cable network, touts the immediacy and timeliness of the traditional TV model, as well as its inherent value to advertisers, who he says prefer to have their messages reach viewers within a shorter timeframe.

Still, if Web-only series such as those premiering on Netflix and Hulu do particularly well and spawn more like them, that will be one less reason for many people to keep their cable subscriptions, if they ever sign up in the first place. With the arguable exception of live sports and certain popular, premium cable programming, the incentive for subscribing to cable continues to decline, especially as prices climb.

Long the go-to source for LOLcats and viral, homemade videos, YouTube is getting serious about premium content as well, with Google actively seeking more professional video content and redesigning the site to help better showcase that content. This push for premium video comes as Google TV is being revamped and added to more connected devices and television sets.

Cable may not go extinct overnight, but if what we saw come out of CES last week is any indication, the future of TV is very much connected to the Web and far more interactive than ever.

A new infographic from G+/Gerson Lehrman Group shows these and a few other interesting trends too. For example, Dell was able to cut service calls by posting video how-tos on its support site. This and other TV oddities can be found below.

The reality is that both companies have been entirely reasonable about pricing. In the face of market forces out of their control, both companies have put forward reasonable price increases. The reaction online, unfortunately, has been entirely out of proportion with the reality. People need to stop whining and do a little research before they lay all the blame on Netflix and Redbox.

Editor's note: This story is part of a series we call Redux, where we're re-publishing some of our best posts of 2011. As we look back at the year, and ahead to what next year holds, we think these are the stories that deserve a second glance. It's not just a best-of list, it's also a collection of posts that examine the fundamental issues that continue to shape the Web. We hope you enjoy reading them again and we look forward to bringing you more Web products and trends analysis in 2012. Happy holidays from Team ReadWriteWeb!

In Defense of Netflix (Sort Of...)

I will grant you that Netflix totally botched its announcement about its price increases. And the Qwikster thing? That was like the New Coke of online service announcements. If you're not old enough to remember the New Coke debacle, Wikipedia can hook you up. But what it can't do is actually convey the taste of New Coke, which was horrible. It was sort of the haggis of soft drinks, but I digress...

But if you consider the cost increases that Netflix has been facing, there's really only one way its prices could go, and that's up. I actually applaud Netflix in that its reaction to being squeezed by the content providers was to raise prices rather than laying people off, which is a more typical corporate reaction. (Not that Netflix is innocent of layoffs entirely.)

Consider that when Netflix first launched its streaming service, it didn't bump the price of subscriptions. Last year, the company introduced a modest price bump of $1 a month for plans with the same number of DVDs plus streaming. That's $1 a month for a service that now accounts for 32.7% of Internet bandwidth. This tells me that Netflix users, at least some of them, are using the hell out of streaming.

Since then, Netflix has had to increase licensing payments to Starz, for CW content and others. Netflix is also producing original programming to feed the demand for content. In other words, the company's costs are going up, up and up. More money for content. More money for bandwidth. More money to create new content.

Netflix isn't doing this out of the kindness of its heart, of course. I'm not saying that its users need to be thrilled about its changes, but the numbers of users storming off in a huff and sounding off online is completely disproportionate.

The folks who are complaining about the current streaming selection with Netflix need to understand, it's not like Netflix is just opting not to carry certain movies or TV shows. In some cases, the content providers (like HBO) won't license to Netflix at any cost. Others have priced themselves out of reach.

Alternatives and Pricing

One thing that seems to be missing entirely is a sense of perspective. A single DVD plus streaming account with Netflix will set you back a whopping $15.98 a month. Renting a movie with Redbox now sets you back $1.20 a night, up from $1.00. I don't know how many movies folks rent with Redbox on average, but if you rent 10 movies a month for one night your costs have "soared" by $2.00.

To put that in perspective, movie ticket prices in St. Louis (where I live) run anywhere from $5.00 for matinée showings to around $10.00 for weekend showings of 3D flicks. You have to multiply that by the number of people going to the theater, plus snacks, plus gas to and from the theater. Think of how much movie ticket prices have risen since Netflix introduced streaming, or since Redbox's inception.

Alternately you could look at the costs of cable or satellite. I don't think it's possible to get a reasonable cable/satellite package with decent movie channels for less than $50 a month.

Why People Are Over-Reacting

It's not entirely surprising that people are over-reacting to the price increases. Prices for goods and services go up all the time, but Netflix and Redbox have a few factors working against them.

First, they're fairly new services. They established pricing in new markets, and now they're having to readjust. The increases are taken out of proportion because there's nothing to compare against. The price of milk goes up, no big deal. If you rent, you expect that your rent will go up every year or two. When gas prices went up, local businesses raised prices accordingly, and people (mostly) took it in stride. But for some reason, people seem to expect the costs for these new services to remain immutable, or (magically) go down.

Secondly, the press has made a big deal out of the increases. Especially Netflix. Because both are national services with standardized pricing, it's obvious when the pricing changes. I've noticed the same effect with the price of stamps, despite being incredibly cheap to mail letters in the United States (compared to other countries) people get all bent out of shape over a few pennies for postage. But few people pitch a hissy fit when bread goes up by a few cents.

There's also the fact that a lot of people are really concerned about money right now. If the price increases had come at a different time, a lot fewer people would have gotten upset about it. Timing is not on their side.

Finally, the customer loyalty that Netflix and Redbox have is predicated on the fact that people feel that they're getting a great deal and good service. If people were less attached to the services, they'd not be as peeved now. It's weird, but we expect to get gouged by AT&T. Netflix wants more money? It's an outrage!

Blame Where It Belongs

If you really feel injured by the Netflix and Redbox price bumps, put the blame where it belongs. In this case, it belongs firmly at the feet of the content companies (in the case of Netflix) and the banks (in the case of Redbox).

The problem is, of course, it takes a lot more effort to actually punish the content providers or banks. So people cancel their accounts and/or stop renting from Redbox. This doesn't really hurt the guilty parties in the slightest. A weakened Netflix is exactly what the content providers would love to see. If it goes under, it's business as usual. Netflix stops disrupting their business models. If not, the company is in a weakened bargaining position because in the face of lost subscribers the company can ill afford to lose any more content deals.

The fees that banks see from Redbox, individually, probably wouldn't even be a blip in the banks' profits. They're wringing more money out of all merchants, not just Redbox.

Do what you want with your money, of course. If the content selection doesn't work for you, then it doesn't work. But the virtual fist-shaking and complaints that Netflix or Redbox are "gouging" customers are way off-target. I've never used Redbox, but I wouldn't stop using the service over its first price increase in eight years.

I'm keeping my Netflix subscription as-is, though. The company has, with the exception of the Qwikster debacle, earned my business. People should stop whining and reconsider whether they're really getting the bang for their buck. What do you think?

At first glance, a company with the size and clout of Verizon would appear to be a formidable potential challenger to Netflix, who has been especially vulnerable lately. Still, there are reasons to doubt that Verizon would be successful in making a dent in Netflix's dominance of this space.

Verizon's Initial Limitations

Yet there are a few caveats reportedly coming with Verizon's new offering. For one, it's not going to be available anywhere that Verizon offers FiOS service. Geographically, that's a huge portion of the U.S., but many major U.S. cities, especially along the East Coast, have access to FiOS and thus won't have the option to sign up for the new service.

It's also apparently going to have a limited selection of content at first, with only a handful of content providers signing on. After all, Verizon wants wants to move further into the online video space, but is not exactly eager to disrupt the pay TV industry.

As rocky as things have been for Netflix's brand in the last few months, the company still has the benefit of being a relatively young Internet company without the baggage and reputation of a bloated telecom. There is, at least to a small yet growing extent, some philosophical resistance to the idea of signing up with such companies for anything more than an Internet connection. In all likelihood, Verizon's streaming service would be aggressively bundled with its other products.

Still, for existing Verizon customers (and there are more than a handful), a competitively-priced streaming service could be attractive enough to add to that monthly bill.

What do you think? Would you sign up for a Netflix competitor from Verizon?

Netflix today announced a new user interface for all Android tablets, including both the Amazon Kindle Fire and Barnes & Noble Nook. The interface displays twice as many movies to place in the user queue and is generally a better looking app than it was before. Yet, does the new UI solve some of Netflix's problems with search and discovery on tablet devices?

Hulu Plus is the same way. The only search results that come up are TV show and movie titles. Ultimately, this may be the biggest problem with discovery on either premium streaming content service. Netflix can add as many bells and whistles to the Android tablet UI as it likes, but ultimately it is just a beefier version of the same thing.

How can Netflix solve this problem? One of the best avenues may be a partnership or acquisition. Does Netflix have the liquid capital to make an outright acquisition of the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)? That would solve many of Netflix's discovery problems in a snap. Currently, what a lot of users do is check IMDb independent of Netflix and then go and search for those particular titles. The great thing about IMDb is that it breaks down content by actor, studio, director etc. It is precisely the type of search that Netflix should have on tablets and third-party streaming devices.

Netflix may have had an opportunity earlier this year with the movie app and critic dababase Flixster/Rotten Tomatoes. Warner Bros. snapped up Flixster as part of its content collection, discovery and social network and turned it into an exceptionally horrid desktop app (see our review here). With Netflix's often tenuous relationship with the major movie studios, Flixster has been closed off to them forever.

The bottom line: It is nice to see a new tablet UI for Netflix, but it does not solve the real problems that users have on devices. What kind of feature do you want to see from Netflix on tablets? Let us know in the comments.

Of the non-computer traffic, much of it comes from Netflix (on TVs), Facebook and YouTube (both mostly on mobile devices).

Looking first at overall traffic - which includes both computers and other devices - real-time entertainment accounts for 60% of peak downstream Internet traffic in North America. There's been a steady increase in this figure over the past few years. It was 50% in Sandvine's March 2011 report, 42% in 2010 and just under 30% in 2009.

Netflix alone accounts for 32.7% of total peak downstream traffic in Sandvine's latest report, a relative increase of more than 10% since U.S. spring. YouTube accounts for 11.3% of peak traffic.

Post-PC Habits

The report notes that people are watching real-time entertainment on an increasing number of screens - including smartphones, tablets and "a TV with direct (smart TVs) or indirect (via a game console or set-top) Internet connectivity."

Interestingly, the report states that when people watch online video, "they generally choose to watch content on the largest screen available to them." So they will choose a TV over a computer, a tablet over a smartphone, and a smartphone over nothing at all. What's more, screen size has direct correlation to data usage:

"For example, when watching a video on a 60-inch HD capable plasma screen, most subscribers will opt for the highest video fidelity available. In that same scenario, higher- quality audio might also be provided to the home theatre system."

What's behind the increase of consumption of real-time entertainment on devices other than computers? Sandvine claims it is mainly due to game consoles, "through manufacturers partnering with content producers." As an example, it cites this month's announcement by Microsoft of "a massive expansion in the list of content providers that will be available on the Xbox 360, including such heavyweights as Bravo, Comcast, HBO, BBC, Telefonica, Rogers on Demand and Televisa."

Mobile Devices

Looking specifically at mobile devices (which effectively means smartphones), Sandvine reports that real-time entertainment generates 30.8% of peak demand on mobile. Web browsing is next, on 27.3%, while social networking is 20.0%. Most of the latter comes from Facebook, which represents 19.3% of peak mobile traffic. YouTube gets 18.2%.

These statistics correlate with other data that we've been hearing. For instance, in September Google announced that mobile devices are responsible for 10% of all YouTube downloads. Mary Meeker's Web 2.0 Summit presentation attributed 33% of Facebook traffic to mobile devices. Meeker also pointed to Pandora and Twitter, which have 60% and 55% respectively of their traffic going to mobile devices.

Slide from Mary Meeker's 2011 report

These statistics from Sandvine, backed up by Mary Meeker's data, clearly show that devices other than computers are not only having a big impact on consumption of real-time entertainment - they're now the primary way to consume such content.

Let us know in the comments about your own usage patterns for consuming real-time entertainment on the Web. Are you finding that most of that is through a connected TV, mobile device or tablet?

That's exactly what the team at Hunch has done. The personalized recommendation service launched their browser-based Netflix Predictor today, which uses the company's "taste graph" to help determine what movie you should watch next.

The site does a pretty impressive job of suggesting what to watch. When I connected my Netflix account and started tinkering with the slider-based filters across the top, I found myself genuinely interested in checking out many of the films that popped up. The Web app lets you tweak the results by genre, release date, maturity rating and overall popularity.

The final product is a list of recommendations that is totally separate from Netflix's own native suggestions, as decent as those can be. In some ways, Hunch's are better, especially if you narrow things down using the filters.

You can also watch a trailer of each movie, read a summary and, if your interest is piqued, jump right to Netflix to start streaming, assuming the movie is available on demand.

The startup hasn't been publicly unveiled, but the company recently launched a splash page with a trademarked logo for Vdio and the slogan "Are you watching?" The site's launch wasn't announced and it's currently blocking search engines from crawling it. The trademark on the page was traced by GigaOm to Pulser Music Services, which is the company that launched music streaming service Rdio in 2009.

With Vdio, the duo is likely taking a new approach, most likely informed by their experience with subscription music service Rdio and this time, aiming squarely for Netflix.

How Vulnerable Is Netflix?

Netflix has been having a rough six weeks or so. Just as its controversial subscription rate hike took effect in the beginning of September, the company made another wildly unpopular announcement: that it would be spinning off its DVD rental service into a seperate business with its own branding and website and keeping Netflix intact as a streaming-only company. Those plans have since been abandoned. Meanwhile, the company has seen its stock price drop as it has lost an estimated 1 million customers.

Despite these recent troubles, Netflix still has 25 million customers and lots of content deals in place, which seem to keep on coming. It's a leader in the online video space and doesn't appear to be going anywhere anytime soon.

Building a Top-Notch Team, But to Launch What?

Still, that hasn't stopped Friis and Zennstrom from assembling a mega-team to work on this startup, which appears to be codenamed Project WBS. That's the name of the entity that owns the Vdio trademark, which counts alumni from Joost, the Apache Foundation, NBC and somebody from Netflix with content aquisition experience. They've even hired somebody from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory for their experience wrangling especially gigantic data sets.

The collective experience of Project WBS is impressive enough that whatever they're building, it's a rather serious foray into the online video space.

Other than what bloggers have dug up, very little is known about the company and its actual plans. They appear to be set to launch in the UK first. Their splash page accepts sign-ups via Facebook, but registering doesn't unlock any additional functionality or details about the service.

Having heard those complaints loud and clear, the company has decided to axe Qwikster altogether and keep their DVD rental service as part of the Netflix brand. This summer's price hike will stay in place, but the company hopes to stop the slow exodous of customers by capitulating on the Qwikster issue, which had proved wildly unpopular.

"It is clear that for many of our members two websites would make things more difficult, so we are going to keep Netflix as one place to go for streaming and DVDs," Netflix CEO Reed Hastings wrote in a blog post. "This means no change: one website, one account, one password... in other words, no Qwikster."

The prospect of having two separate Websites with different login credentials and movie queues did not sit well with many customers, who have grown accustomed to managing everything from a single account with a common interface. The backlash was quite loud online, and it apparently wasn't just chatter and empty threats. Evidently, the company has been seeing enough canceled subscriptions (some of which were expected) to warrant a change of plans.

Even as the company gives in to customers' wishes and backs off of an unpopular decision, many commenters on the Netflix company blog remain disastified, many of them demanding that Hastings step down as CEO and criticizing the company's recent series of PR gaffes. Some people remain hard to please, but Netflix is hoping that this latest move will begin to turn things around.

The deal, which covers such popular film series as Shrek and Madagascar is expected to net DreamWorks Animation $30 million per movie for the duration of the agreement. What makes this deal significant isn't so much its price tag or the content involved. Its significance lies in the fact that this is the first time such a major Hollywood content provider has inked a deal that skips over pay TV distribution in favor of the Web.

"The so-called pay TV window is one of the entertainment industry's most important business tools. In the past, HBO has paid steep licensing fees of about $20 million per picture for exclusive rights a few months after films arrive on DVD. But Netflix - capitalizing on a consumer shift to streaming content on computers, tablets and Internet-connected televisions - has been making similar deals, albeit mostly with smaller suppliers."

The two companies are touting the deal as a major achievement, but not everybody is convinced. CNet's Greg Sandoval wonders whether Netflix is "desperate to generate positive news" after several weeks of customer and shareholder disappointment.

The company has had a rocky September, which it kicked off by implementing a highly unpopular increase in their subscription fees. In the weeks that followed, more customer frustration followed as they spun off their DVD business into a service that's entirely separate from their streaming business. Meanwhile, the company is now expected to lose 1 million customers and has seen its stock price tumble.

What was less clear before today's press conference was exactly what the details would be. Those are now revealed, and as it turns out, what Dish and Blockbuster have planned is hardly the "Netflix killer" many predicted.

The offering Dish unveiled today is not a stand-alone video streaming and DVD rent-by-mail service like Netflix, but rather it's a $10 add-on for Dish subscribers. This might be a really nice added value for existing subscribers, but it doesn't look as attractive to other consumers.

What turns a lot of people off from cable and satellite TV subscriptions is their price and the fact that providers bundle together a ton of content that they're not necessarily interested in. A growing number of people instead look toward Web-based, on-demand video content from the likes of Hulu, Netflix and others. This is especially true of younger consumers, who are moving fewer TV sets into their dorm rooms this Fall and instead packing merely their laptops.

Blockbuster Movie Pass may have its perks for Dish's 14 million pay TV subscribers, but for everybody else, it simply chains them to the old model of paying for and consuming content.

Even With Their Price Hike, Netflix is Still Cheaper

In this morning's presentation, Dish touted the price point of Blockbuster Movie Pass as one of its advantages over "the competition," an obvious reference to Netflix, whose pricing model they cited specifically. While it's true that $10 is less expensive than the $16 that Netflix customers must now begrudgingly pay for the DVD-and-streaming combo, Blockbuster Movie Pass ends up being more expensive in the end becaue it's tethered to Dish.

Blockbuster Movie Pass doesn't launch until October 1, and the prices listed on the Dish website now say that plans "start at" $19.99, a price that only appears to only be in effect for 12 months (and requires a two year contract). If the new service is an extra $10, then consumers will be paying a minimum of $30 per month.

Granted, this package gets you more than what Netflix offers, including all that satellite TV content and a DVR functionality, so the price comparison isn't apples-to-apples.

You Think Netflix's Streaming Selection Stinks? This is Worse.

People have long complained that the content available to stream on-demand from Netflix is limited. That's improved over time, but may take a major hit if the company can't manage to salvage its deal with Starz Entertainment.

Even so, the site has 20,000 titles available to stream instantly, whereas Blockbuster Movie Pass will start with only 4,000 that are available to stream to desktops. Interestingly, only 3,000 will be able to be streamed directly to TV sets.

Blockbuster Movie Pass may prove to be an attractive option for those already interested in traditional pay TV subscriptions, but for people looking for an alternative to Netflix, this probably isn't the way to go.

Blockbuster photo by yapsnaps.

While the company expected to see its subscriber growth slow down temporarily, it didn't quite expect the outrage it garnered and is now projected to lose 1 million customers from it.

Today, a company nearly put to death by Netflix's disruptive video service is planning on striking back. Blockbuster, which was acquired out of bankruptcy by the Dish Network, will likely announce that its launching a competing streaming service. We first started hearing word of Dish's plans to launch a Netflix competitor several weeks ago and today's event, conspicuously titled "A Stream Come True" would appear to be the place they're going to announce it.

As vulnerable as Netflix may seem at the moment, it still has 24 million subscribers and a giant catalog of content available across various devices and by mail. In order to truly compete, Dish and Blockbuster would need to offer something of particularly unique value, be it a lower price point or a broader selection of content. Since Dish is a pay TV provider, it already has a catalog of content at its disposal.

If the new offering has a catalog as bigger (or bigger) than Netflix and offers it for less than the $8 Netflix charges, the company could be in trouble.

Update:The Dish Network confirmed in its press conference earlier today that the new service, called Blockbuster Movie Pass, will be launching on October 1 for Dish subscribers. Rather than a stand-alone Netflix competitor, the product appears to be an add-on for Dish satellite TV subscribers. It will have 4,000 movies available to stream to PC's and 3,000 will be available on television sets, alongside the Dish Network's existing offerings. There will also be a DVD-by-mail component to the service. It will cost $10 per month on top of existing Dish subscription fees.

Specifically, Comcast and Verizon are talking with Microsoft about the possibility of including cable subscriptions via the Xbox 360, according to a report from Digiday. The tech giant's gaming console, which already streams content from sources like Netflix, Hulu Plus and others, could in effect become a cable box if Microsoft manages to strike a deal ahead of its upcoming release of Xbox TV.

For its part, Apple has famously described its set-top box as "a hobby" but is widely rumored to be working on producing an Internet-connected HDTV set, which may hit the market as early as next year. Smaller companies like Roku and Boxee have found enthusiastic niche audiences for their set-top boxes, but nothing approaching mainstream adoption and not without content-related issues of their own.

With over 53 million units on the market worldwide, the Xbox has a far bigger reach than all four of those Web-only devices combined. By enabling consumers to subscribe to cable from Xboxes, Comcast and Verizon would help make the the device much more attractive to consumers, who may be less likely to cut the cord if the cable experience is made easily available from the same device they use to stream Internet video, play games and so much else.

Comcast has been aggressive in its attempts to thwart the disruptive challenge the Internet poses to its traditional business model. Inclusion on Xbox gaming consoles makes sense as part of the company's "TV Everywhere" model, which is designed to keep its offerings desirable in the eyes of consumers, who are increasingly expecting the ability to watch content at any time, on any device. The cable giant has also invested heavily in everything from hardware to content.

Do you think Comcast and other cable companies will hang onto subscribers by adapting like this or are they pretty much doomed? Share your thoughts in the comments below.