NCAA football and basketball downloads coming to Xbox Live

Microsoft and ESPN have announced intent to pump complete college basketball, football, and other ESPN programming to Xbox Live customers. Commercial-free, standard-definition NCAA games will be available for 3 bucks a pop or $4.50 for "high-definition" versions -- other content will be priced as low as $2. Great, right? Only thing is, they aren't available until 48-hours after the game is over. Seems to us that any fanatic willing to burn cash for a game would have already seen his fill of highlights and news by then, eh?

Update: Service begins today with Saturday's USC vs. Oregon State game.

[Kurian @ Nov 5th 2007 6:04AM]

Thats the the lamest marketing scam I have ever seen.

[Paul @ Nov 5th 2007 8:05PM]

If it's such a scam, don't buy it.

It's that simple.

[Wilson @ Nov 5th 2007 7:04AM]

This is the stupidest idea ever. Who in the HELL would pay that much for games that are already over. How are you going to avoid the highlights for 2 days? I'm sure there will be some idiots who buy into this thinking it's a great idea. If I find any of them, I'll drive past their house with a bull horn and yell out the final score right after they pay for the download. Dumbass marketing...

[Mike @ Nov 5th 2007 8:35AM]

Just because you would not want to buy something does not mean someone else would. Thats why they are the ones with the money. If you had to shoot down every idea because of personal feelings then we would miss out on a lot. Its a great idea and of course there is a market for this. They don't give 20 million dollars to BCS bowl schools for charity. Its a billion dollar market and heres another product to add to that.

[riggs @ Nov 5th 2007 9:00AM]

im pretty sure no one else would either.

[FreeRange @ Nov 5th 2007 10:22AM]

UCLA vs. USC last year. Stanford vs. USC this year. Two games I'd have gladly paid good money to view a few days later because I was unable to view them in their entirety thanks to work and a wedding. In fact, I'll pay $5 to view them today! This isn't for every game, no, but it's a good service for those epic upsets.

[aaron @ Nov 5th 2007 9:16AM]

there is a decent sized market for this (just go look how many college fan sites there are).... and imo this is not intended to replace a live broadcast. its more aimed at people who want to rewatch a game and store it long term (since xbox live marks all content you have downloaded you can delete and redownload anytime you want... thats a key feature for all of this imo). having hd is also a key feature (itunes already has a similar service and i didnt hear much complaining when they added it).

any time your team comes up with a big win or upset would be a potential buys, you might want to relive that down the road.... i have 15 or so games ive collected over the years just sitting on my computer in horrible quality. if ms has these games in the future in hd i will use the service to get a high quality video i can redownload and "relive" the moment anytime i want.