Google TV is coming to European living rooms this September, courtesy of Sony. According to info unearthed by Stuff, the first Android-powered Google TV set top boxes to hit the shelves will be a standard box costing €200 (£165) and a Google TV box with an Blu-Ray player costing €300 (£250). Both units feature HDMI connections and between 120 and 200 apps from launch.
Sony’s Stéphane Labrousse, Marketing Director for France told Les Echos that the two boxes will also give you access to Sony Music Unlimited, Sony’s Spotify-esque music streaming service. Naturally, Google services such as YouTube and Google Play will be built into the boxes. We’d hazard a guess that Sony’s BBC News app, already a feature of its connected Bravia TVs, would make an appearance too.
Though Labrousse says that Google TV “will be available in France,” he mentions that it “should also be launched in several countries of Western Europe, [including] the United Kingdom, Germany [and] Spain.”
We’ve still not heard of a confirmation from anyone at Sony in the UK but we’d hope that we’d get a look in alongside our French cousins. Figures from TV Licencing suggest that as a nation the UK is hungrier for flatscreen TVs than France, Germany or Spain – why wouldn’t Sony want to get as many boxes under TVs as possible?
We’ve contacted sources at Sony UK on this and we’re waiting to hear back.
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