Critical.
Authoritative.
Strategic.
Subscribe to CIO Magazine »

Microsoft tries a reboot on the Xbox 360 as living room PC

With several announcements ranging from partnerships to new features, Microsoft eyes non-gamers

While it may have been the game trailers that drew cheers from the crowd at Microsoft's Xbox briefing in Los Angeles this week, the partnerships and new features that the company announced signal its intent to expand the console's role far beyond gaming.

"I absolutely think Microsoft is trying to build on its Xbox Live advantage and push more out from games," said IDC games analyst Lewis Ward. "Consoles are becoming like 'smart' set-top boxes but with a massive game delivery advantage."

Microsoft announced 35 content partners at E3 ranging from Nickelodeon for kids to Univision for Spanish speakers. The National Basketball Association (NBA) and National Hockey League (NHL) will join Major League Baseball (MLB) in streaming games through the console. Sports fans will also be able to watch four different ESPN channels later this year.

To see some of the new features and content announced for Xbox, watch a video on YouTube.

Xbox will make content consumption different from traditional television viewing. For example, consumers could watch two basketball games simultaneously and using Kinect voice commands, switch between the two. With other voice commands, they could watch the games on full or split screens. Adding a social component to the games, fans can pick winners and share the picks with friends, which will appear in a carousel at the bottom of the screen.

Xbox SmartGlass is a new feature that will let users consume complementary content across multiple devices. For example, during the presentation Xbox Live vice president Marc Whitten demonstrated how a tablet could show additional information while watching the HBO series Game of Thrones. While watching the program on the big screen, the tablet showed a map of where the scene was taking place. In another demonstration, a gamer crafted a play on a tablet, then executed it on the television screen in Madden NFL.

SmartGlass will let users browse the Web using their smartphones as the controllers. Microsoft announced that Internet Explorer will come to Xbox, but didn't say whether other browsers would be supported. Nintendo and Sony have Web browsers, but navigating with a game controller and typing without a physical keyboard have made the browsers difficult to use.

"We'll see on the implementation of it, but I think the vision is interesting in that they can enable the Web browser hopefully in a more user-friendly way," said Ward. He thinks that Microsoft will debut its next-generation console at E3 next year.

"Partly what's going on with the SmartGlass announcement is that they're trying to pre-empt Wii U," said Ward, referring to Nintendo's next-generation console that will ship before the end of 2012.

Nick Barber covers general technology news in both text and video for IDG News Service. E-mail him at Nick_Barber@idg.com and follow him on Twitter at @nickjb.

Recommended

  1. BT Financial embraces BI to better understand customers

  2. Project management methodologies

  3. From CMO to CEO: Anametrix’s Pelin Thorogood

    CMO

Join the CIO Australia group on LinkedIn. The group is open to CIOs, IT Directors, COOs, CTOs and senior IT managers.

More about: IDC, IDG, Microsoft, National Hockey League, NBA, Nintendo, Sony, Xbox
Comments are now closed.
Related Whitepapers
Latest Stories
Community Comments
Latest Blog Posts
Whitepapers
  • Customer Success - Slater & Gordon Lawyers
    Lawyers work hard, and they work fast. Any activity that takes their focus away from the task at hand represents lost productivity and lost revenue. Slater & Gordon Lawyers needed to filter spam and email-borne malware and provide high availability for email. Results from the business solution they chose include 250 hours of IT staff time reclaimed annually for other tasks, long delays in email delivery alleviated, reduced email-related storage costs, and email failover to the cloud in minutes, avoiding hours-long outages. Find out how they got these results.
    Learn more »
  • 2013 Global Information Security Survey: Initial findings
    The results of PwC’s annual Global Information Security Survey indicate that companies are confident in their efforts to secure systems, information, and privacy. Strategies and personnel are in place, they say, and processes and technology are humming along. The number of incidents reported seems manageable. Read more.
    Learn more »
  • Advanced Targeted Attacks
    The new threat landscape has changed. Cybercriminals are aggressively pursuing valuable data assets, such as financial transaction information, product design blueprints, user credentials to sensitive systems, and other intellectual property. Simply put, the cyber offense has outpaced the defensive technologies used by most companies today. Find out more on how to protect against the next generation of cyber-attacks.
    Learn more »
All whitepapers
rhs_login_lockGet exclusive access to Invitation only events CIO, reports & analysis.
Recent comments