Kwese Play entering liquidation

[rpm]

RIP Kwese Play

“It is with deep regret that we are today announcing the liquidation of Kwesé Play,” said Econet in a statement.

“A few weeks ago, Roku, our technology platform partners, deactivated all the Kwesé Play devices in our markets and customers have been unable to use them to watch Netflix, YouTube and other apps on their TVs.”

“We’ve spent considerable time negotiating with Roku in order to reactivate the devices, but have unfortunately been unsuccessful. This means that the Kwesé Play devices will remain deactivated and will no longer work.”

 

[Thor]

Called it.

 

[deweyzeph]

The article doesn't explain at all why Roku terminated their agreement with Econet.

 

[Pythonista]

The article doesn't explain at all why Roku terminated their agreement with Econet.

No pay, no service. That's how real companies work. It's only here where people expect stuff (water/electricity/land) for free.

 

[deweyzeph]

No pay, no service. That's how real companies work. It's only here where people expect stuff (water/electricity/land) for free.

There's no suggestion in the article that that is the reason. The liquidation seems to be as a result of Roku pulling their support, not the other way around. But there is no mention of exactly why they pulled their support in the first place.

 

[The_Ogre]

Wow, how schitty do you have to be with abiding by your agreement for Roku Inc to not want to partner with you any further?

And now taking the easy way out to avoid a class action by the people who got screwed over because they cannot sue the company now.

 

[ThatGuy_ZA]

Methinks Econet haven't been paying Roku and in turn Roku are probably reluctant to provide their firmware to these devices.

 

[cozinsky]

Is it possible to turn these Kwese boxes into normal Roku boxes so that they can still be used?

 

[The_Ogre]

Is it possible to turn these Kwese boxes into normal Roku boxes so that they can still be used?

From a thread the other day, none of the guys have gotten anywhere in trying to load the stock Roku firmware yet.

 

[hellfire]

I wonder if Roku will assist if contacted directly

 

[The_Ogre]

I see Takealot is still selling these devices

https://www.takealot.com/kwese-play-roku-streaming-device/PLID46920780

 

[nemisiz]

it is possible to change the Roku device from US to UK , using a DNS bypass , so would be good to maybe try the same steps on the Kwese device.
anyone have a Kwese Paper weight i can have to try this out?

 

[Soul Assassin]

it is possible to change the Roku device from US to UK , using a DNS bypass , so would be good to maybe try the same steps on the Kwese device.
anyone have a Kwese Paper weight i can have to try this out?

How is that going to do anything?

 

[The_Ogre]

it is possible to change the Roku device from US to UK , using a DNS bypass , so would be good to maybe try the same steps on the Kwese device.
anyone have a Kwese Paper weight i can have to try this out?

I'm also looking for one so I can mess around and see if I can get anywhere with it.

 

[Dolby]

I'm also looking for one so I can mess around and see if I can get anywhere with it.

OLX / Gumtree etc

 

[nemisiz]

How is that going to do anything?

so how Roku registers the device is based on the region it sees you accessing the page from , so most DNS region bypass have a option to make the Roku service show as either UK or US and based on that the device will register for that region .
So Kwese device being SA probably have the same logic and when you start the device based on the region in this case SA , it will provide the Kwese play firmware and not the UK or US based firmware like on a Standard Roku device.

 

[The_Ogre]

OLX / Gumtree etc

I only found one, but the guy advertised it for R550. The ad was placed two days ago, at that time Econet was already placed under administration so he's taking a fat chance.

 

[The_Ogre]

so how Roku registers the device is based on the region it sees you accessing the page from , so most DNS region bypass have a option to make the Roku service show as either UK or US and based on that the device will register for that region .
So Kwese device being SA probably have the same logic and when you start the device based on the region in this case SA , it will provide the Kwese play firmware and not the UK or US based firmware like on a Standard Roku device.

No, I had three original Roku's. It doesn't work like that.

 

[BBC]

Knew it from the time they launched that it would never work out

 

[Soul Assassin]

so how Roku registers the device is based on the region it sees you accessing the page from , so most DNS region bypass have a option to make the Roku service show as either UK or US and based on that the device will register for that region .
So Kwese device being SA probably have the same logic and when you start the device based on the region in this case SA , it will provide the Kwese play firmware and not the UK or US based firmware like on a Standard Roku device.

The firmware is already on the device, the DNS change gives you access to a different set of apps.