Incomplete Gamer

Posts Tagged ‘Harvey Norman’

The Australian TiVo website is up and running and in less than two days TiVo makes an in-store appearance at your friendly neighbourhood Harvey Norman. The Incomplete Gamer hopes they’ve built a golden shrine to TiVo in each and every store: a raised rotating dais, complete with sexy smiling Sale of the Century models, gifting plush TiVo dolls, TiVo Beach towels and TiVo Slippers to everyone who passes; all the while extolling the virtues of TiVo – the god of Digital Video Recording.

The reality we fear, will be something far less compelling. The way we see it, TiVo in-store demonstrations just don’t work.

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If you graced us with your presence over the last few days you might have stumbled across our last post – Ten Reasons to Skip Tivo’s Aussie launch. In the interest of fairness, and with less than a day until all is revealed, The Incomplete Gamer brings you Ten Reasons to forget everything we told you before. Some might call that fickle. We like to think of it as balanced coverage.

1. It just works. While we praise and recommend Tivo with an almost missionary zeal, all the while basking in the warmth of its technological wizardry; our two Series 1 Tivo units quietly go about their business recording our favourite shows and listing them for our viewing pleasure on the ‘Now Showing’ screen. Tivo is our best friend, no doubt about it, but it’s the end result – the recordings – that capture our hearts and minds. Like a kettle that boils water or a toaster that toasts, Tivo is a product that does what it was engineered to do but, in the case of Tivo, in an intuitive, reliable and intelligent fashion that very few products, past or present, have managed.

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It’s coming. Seven promised Australia that Tivo would launch ahead of the Beijing Olympics and that’s precisely the plan according to recent reports, although at this rate it looks like Tivo might be taking up it’s position on the starting blocks Harvey Norman shelves, not much before the Opening Ceremony commences. The Gadget Guy reports that online sales will commence on July 15, followed by in-store sales commencing July 28. We’ll know more come the official launch this Tuesday according to the good folks at Hydrapinion.

The big question of course, is not so much when it will launch, but rather should you join the ranks of the early adopters and take up your place in the front the Tivo lovers queue at your local HN Superstore? Today, The Incomplete Gamer gives you ‘Ten Reasons to Skip Next Months Tivo Launch in Australia’. Tune in Monday and we’ll argue the affirmative with ‘Ten Reasons to be First in Line’.

‘Ten Reasons to Skip Next Months Tivo Launch in Australia’

1: Sticker Shock.

Forget 1 Reason. Try 700. With a rumoured RRP of $700, at first glance the Australian HD Tivo is not quite the bargain its US cousin is. Stateside, the HD Tivo is currently selling on Amazon for only US$229.97. However Tivo comes to Australia with no ongoing subscription fees. Tivo offers the same deal in the US in the guise of ‘Product Lifetime Service‘ which will currently set you back a further US$399. Total damage for the US version converted into Aussie dollars – A$656.26. The good news then is that for once we’re not a victim of price gouging. The bad news…we’re still facing a steep admission price. While charging on-going subscription fees would have been a hard sell in the Australian market for a Tivo boasting only free-to-air content recording capabilities, the up-side of such a pricing model would have meant a lower priced HD Tivo.

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