It seems that before Conan O’Brien made his move to cable TV channel, TBS, Microsoft made an attempt to bring the chat show host to the company’s Xbox LIVE service in an exclusive deal.
According to an article on Gamasutra, Microsoft tried to lure Conan in an attempt to have him present a show via the gaming consoles Xbox LIVE service. Although the discussions are believed to have gone on for some time, Conan and his team decided that although Microsoft were developing some great stuff, they were just not in a position to work with them and decided to go the more traditional TV route.
The reasoning behind deciding against joining Microsoft’s service seems to be due to the lack of a set vision. Microsoft didn’t seem to know how long the show would run for, if the show would have breaks or even if it would be a show at all.
It has been well known that Microsoft are courting a number of big media based companies in regards to adding subscription based services to Xbox Live. Gamasutra states that Microsoft is still looking for partners with an aim to launch a subscriber service towards the end of the year in the US.
In the United Kingdom, Microsoft has already added the subscription based Sky Player service to Xbox LIVE, although it has failed in trying to get the BBC to allow its iPlayer catch-up service to be available to gold members only as the corporation requires it to be free to UK users.