Samsung's Google TV Won't Make CES 2012

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The whole Google TV concept, especially of late, has been a bit on the shaky side. With a variety of competitors from Apple TV to Roku to Boxee already out in stores and, by all reports, doing a fine job of keeping customers happy with a variety of sources of free or otherwise markedly inexpensive television, it’s been a less than ideal market for Google’s offering to enter into anyway. But now, Samsung’s looking to make a new inroad for Google TV by releasing their own, but the hardware will be a bit late to the party.

The reports suggest that Samsung’s Google TV won’t get shown until after CES 2012, which is a pretty big blow for the hardware. But the word is that Samsung’s planning its own event for the Google TV launch, which does lend it an extra note of gravitas as well as getting it out of the intermix of news cycles when the CES avalanche hits.

But here’s the part that will really get you: remember how above I listed all those Google TV competitors? Well, Samsung’s head of television, Yoon Boo-keun, actually brought that up, saying that Samsung’s Google TV systems would be substantially different from their many competitors, though just how, apparently, they’re saving for the event itself.

This is going to be a very big event for Samsung, frankly. They need to make it clear how their products will differ if they expect to make any headway whatsoever with this product line. Samsung’s been demonstrating Blu-ray players and such with Google TV for some time now, but none of them have, at last report, hit commercially yet. But one thing’s for sure, with all the delay that’s been taking place, everybody else has had plenty of time to get good and entrenched. People like their current models. And for Samsung to get anywhere now is going to take something sufficiently different–something sufficiently better–for them to get some minds changed, and that’s no easy feat.

So what do you guys think here? What will it take to get Samsung in the game with their Google TV lineup? Would you leave your current alternative? No matter what you think, we want to hear from you, so head on down to the comments section and let’s talk Google TV!