Google TV is heading to Germany: Sony announced that it will start selling its new NSZ-GS7 set-top box to German consumers starting next month. The device will officially be introduced at the IFA fair next week, and then go on sale mid-September for a suggested € 199, according to Spiegel.de.
Germany isn’t the first international market for Google TV. Sony had announced at CES that it would make its Google TV devices available in countries around the world later this year, and U.K. retailers started selling the NSZ-GS7 in June.
However, Germany could become an interesting test case for Google TV, as well as for connected devices in general: Netflix hasn’t launched in the country yet, and won’t do so until at least next year.
Hulu is rumored to have eyed the market, but recent reports on investor dissatisfaction about Hulu Japan’s performance make an imminent expansion of the service to Europe unlikely. And plans by local broadcasters to launch their own Hulu competitor recently were stopped by the country’s High Court.
Still, Sony isn’t the only one betting that Germans nonetheless want to watch online video on their TVs. We recently broke the story that Roku is gearing up to launch in the country as well. Which begs the question: What are people going to watch on their Google TV devices? And once these devices become available, will content providers step up their game?
