Broadband News

Microsoft expands Xbox 360 TV and film services

Tuesday 6 December, 2011

By Duncan Heaney

Microsoft launches update to 360 console to greatly expand television and movie content

Microsoft has released a major system update for its Xbox 360 console, and it looks set to dramatically expand the console as an entertainment platform. Users will soon be able to enjoy a much wider range of video, social and music services than before.

The first thing Xbox owners will notice is that new dashboard is radically different, with the console’s old sliding menus replaced by an interface that’s reminiscent of the Windows Phone 7.

Essentially, similar services are gathered into square tiles with different menu headings - Facebook and Twitter can be found in a menu marked “Social”, for example.

The update also adds a range of new on-demand film and television services. The first wave of releases, starting today, includes YouTube and Amazon’s movie streaming service LOVEFiLM. These join Sky’s TV player and Microsoft’s own Zune on demand film service, which have been available on Xbox Live for some time.

Later this month, these services are expected to be joined by others, including TV catch-up through 4 on Demand and Demand 5, and more on-demand film and TV services through Blinkbox and Crackle. BBC iPlayer is expected to arrive on the service early next year.

It should be noted that, with the exception of iPlayer, these new additions are only available to people with Xbox Live Gold membership, which requires a paid subscription. Gold members also have access to cloud-based storage for saving games and their user profiles.

Rather than just storing the information on the console itself, data will be stored externally by Microsoft and delivered over the internet, so that if the worst happens and a console breaks, no data is lost.

Another interesting new feature is the integrated search functionality, which uses Microsoft’s Bing search engine and the voice control capabilities of its Kinect add-on to enable users to collect content from multiple areas very quickly. For example, saying: “Xbox, Bing, Batman” will gather everything Batman-related on Xbox Live - from the movies to games and music.

The update is expected to occur at some point today, although Microsoft is remaining vague on the exact time. But as long as the Xbox is connected to the internet, either via a wired or Wi-Fi broadband connection, the update should start automatically.