Another TV service bites the dust-- Microsoft will close down the subscription-based MSN TV internet TV service on 30 September 2013, all of 16 years after it was first launched.
"The web has continued to evolve at a breathtaking pace, and there are many new ways to access the internet," a Microsoft statement says. "Accordingly, we have made the difficult decision to end the MSN TV service."
Brought to the world in 1997 as WebTV after the $425 million acquisition of Web TV Networks, the service was renamed as MSN TV in 2001. Users connected to the internet mainly via dial-up, and could check emails, chat and share photos from the living room.
In 2004 Microsoft launched a sequel, the more powerful and broadband-capable MSN TV 2.
A company FAQ suggests transition arrangements, and subscribers are free to keep the charmingly gray MSN TV STBs (or simply, well, recycle it).
The announcement is slightly surprising, since we'd forgotten Microsoft was still running the dial-up service. However the company remembers its TV ambitions-- with the Xbox One positioned as less a games console and more an all-in-one living room entertainment hub, expect a revival of MSN TV-style services (maybe with a keyboard peripheral?) once the machine hits the market.
