XBMC have announced a new partership with Sony. It will include the assimilation of the XBMC team into Sony’s Home Theatre and Console division and the closing of the XBMC source.

Presumably a PS3 port will be forthcoming…

Some time ago (at least a year or so) Sky launched Sky Player. Similar to iPlayer, it allows Sky subscribers to watch Sky content online. As of October 27th Sky Player will be available to UK Xbox 360 owners.

This seems only slightly useful at best. If you already have a Sky subscription (and an Xbox Live Gold account) then Sky Player will be free. With it you’ll be able to view some of what is available on your Sky subscription with live as Video-on-Demand. Except for the possibility of getting Sky in another room, I don’t really see the point.

If you don’t have a Sky subscription, things seem a little more worthwhile. Until you see the price*. The cheapest is £15 a month for a basic entertainment package. Adding Movies and Sports will set up back £41 a month. At those prices you might as well get a normal Sky subscription. The only other difference is at least you only have a month-to-month contract.

There are some screenshots from Colin Jenson.

*The pricing hasn’t been confirmed. The prices I’ve quoted is for the web based service. I can’t imagine the Xbox price beeing much different but I’d guess Microsoft might negotiate something a little less…

October 2nd sees the launch of the third Stargate series, Stargate Universe. The basic premise is very similar to Star Trek Voyager. A crew find a nine chevron gate address which takes them not to a planet, but instead to the Ancient ship Destiny in another galaxy. And then they can’t get back.

It will apparently be darker and edgier than previous Stargate series (which makes the casting of Robert Carlyle – most famous for Trainspotting and The Full Monty) seem a little more sensible.

One final interesting bit is that Amanda Tapping, Michael Shanks and Richard Dean Anderson all guest start in the first episode.