After the major failure of the Revue set top box that came with Google TV software, the former CEO of Logitech was replaced by a new one, and now that CEO is shutting down the whole Revue project. The reason for this because Revue cost them a lot of money and they ended up doing a firesale in the end, selling it for only $99.
They seem to (sort of) admit that it was a pricing issue, as well as an implementation issue:
To make the long story short, we thought we had invented [sliced] bread and we just made them. [We made a commitment to] just build a lot because we expected everybody to line up for Christmas and buy these boxes [at] $300 […] that was a big mistake.
I’ve been thinking from day one that pricing the Revue at $300 was a huge mistake. I don’t know if they were trying to rip off the early adopters, being the first company to offer a Google TV set-top box, or if they just built it that way, with expensive components. It was probably both.
But Google had some fault in all this, too. First, they pushed Intel’s more expensive Atom chip, instead of a cheaper ARM one. Perhaps it wouldn’t have given the same type of performance back in 2010, but I think they should’ve waited a few more months for more powerful ARM chips then, and to the launch the right way, at an affordable price.
A delayed launch might’ve fixed the other problem that the new Logitech CEO is complaining about, too – that Google TV was beta software when it launched, and I tend to agree. Google needs to stop releasing beta software on products that cost hundreds of dollars, otherwise they will make a lot of people angry with them when their products fail to deliver their promises. But I do think that attitude is changing inside Google and they are becoming increasingly more focused, and more oriented towards releasing something of quality from day one.
So what’s next for Google TV if Logitech is quitting? This might hurt Google TV’s image a little, but I believe they will have even more partners next year, and we’ll probably notice quite a few products running Google TV at CES in January, and powered by ARM chips, including set-top boxes and TV sets. It may take a while for Google TV to take off, but I don’t think they are giving up, and it’s starting to look better and better with version 2.0, Youtube premium channels, and all their other content deals.