Microsoft to Launch First Original Shows on Xbox in Early 2014
At Dealmakers breakfast, Tellem says Xbox isn't Netflix or Amazon but its ‘own animal’ — Developing original series for Microsoft has taken a little longer than veteran TV executive Nancy Tellem had hoped …
Context & Ripple Effects
Microsoft's move to put its own shows on Xbox caps a deliberate build-out: the company brought Nancy Tellem over from network television in its 2012 Hollywood hiring push, and this is not even its first attempt at made-for-Xbox programming — it unveiled a web series slate back in 2008. What has changed is the ambition: Tellem told Variety's Dealmakers breakfast the first originals land in early 2014, while conceding development has run slower than she hoped.
Her framing matters for how the story travelled: Xbox 'isn't Netflix or Amazon but its own animal,' a distinction aimed at deflecting direct comparison with streaming incumbents. The pickup across gaming-adjacent outlets — VG247, Joystiq, Engadget, Game Informer — shows the news landed less with TV trade readers than with the console audience Microsoft needs watching.
First-order effects
- Tellem's studio gets its first public deadline: original series ship to Xbox owners in early 2014, converting a 2012 executive hire into visible content on the console.
- Xbox enters original programming as an explicitly different category — per Tellem, not a Netflix or Amazon clone — so Microsoft's slate will be judged on interactivity and fit with games rather than episode counts.
Second-order effects
- Netflix and Amazon face a third deep-pocketed rival whose distribution costs nothing extra — every Xbox owner gets the service preinstalled on the console's dashboard.
- TV studios and talent gain a new buyer willing to fund formats broadcast networks won't touch, pressuring traditional buyers to bid more aggressively for projects with gaming crossover appeal.
Third-order effects
- If the early 2014 slate performs, hardware makers solidify a structural shift from renting other people's catalogs to owning originals — turning consoles from pipes into studios and putting Microsoft in direct competition with the networks it once merely carried.
- The slower-than-hoped timeline Tellem acknowledged signals the real bottleneck in platform-owned video is development discipline, not distribution reach — a pattern any tech company entering original content will have to solve.
The trend: Game console makers are evolving into original-content studios, using preinstalled distribution to compete with Netflix and Amazon on living-room screens.