HBO originally announced its HBO Go service as a way for people to watch its content when they weren’t in front of a TV. When HBO Go came to iOS and Android, it gave its users a chance to watch programing from pretty much anywhere. During HBO’s quarterly earning call on Wednesday, CEO Jeff Bewkes announced his plan to bring the service to game consoles and Internet-connected TVs. The mobile app has proven to be a huge success, and HBO hopes bringing the service to even more devices will help viewership. Bewkes did not give a timeline for when the service will be migrating to the home theater, but we hope it is soon.
Bewkes stated that over 4 million copies of the mobile HBO Go app has been downloaded on iOS and Android combined. This is allowing HBO subscribers, and those that know them, to watch more HBO content than ever before. We think the HBO Go app is one of the best iOS and Android apps available, and love that the service is free for subscribers.
Seeing how popular Netflix has become on game consoles, it makes sense that HBO would want to bring its own content to gaming devices. Half of Netflix streaming happens on a game console, and the majority of that traffic is from the Wii. That is a very large pool of people for HBO to tap into.
Even though game consoles are typically attached to TVs (where users are typically used to watching HBO anyway), having the HBO Go app will still add value to the devices. With the app you will be able to not only view older episodes of shows you love, but you can also watch shows that are no longer in production.
