It doesn’t look like you can watch HBO without a cable subscription anytime soon.
HBO CTO Otto Berkes, our first speaker at today’s GeekWire Summit was asked about offering HBO content for those who may have a streaming device but do not pay to watch HBO via their cable network.
“We have an extremely powerful and effective business model,” Berkes said. “It would not make sense to disrupt that unless the upside were significantly higher than any potential downside.”
Berkes also talked about accessing HBO content on different devices like tablets. He added that 60 percent of HBOGo users were on mobile.
Berkes, who joined HBO last year and worked at Microsoft for 18 years as an original creator of the Xbox, wouldn’t say for sure if his company is building an app for the Xbox One, but didn’t give a clear answer.
“We want to be on the popular platforms going forward,” he said.
Berkes also touched on a new engineering and development office that HBO recently established in Seattle led by former Microsoft vets that GeekWire previously reported on.
“It’s become a real cornerstone to our future plans,” Berkes said of the Seattle office. “We are hiring hardcore software developers who could potentially do anything.”
Stay tuned for more coverage of the GeekWire Summit throughout the day. Head here for a live stream.
