Microsoft has planned to make the company’s Xbox 360 game console an entrance for movies, television and social networking, and to realize the plan the company has set up new relationships with social networking firms Facebook, Twitter and Sky, British satellite television provider which is a unit of the News Corporation.
Using the renovated game console, Microsoft said, Facebook users will be able to access their profiles and share photos on their television through the Xbox Live network, and Twitter devotees will also be able to post and read messages through the service.
Even Microsoft’s new deal with Sky will allow Xbox Live users in Britain to watch live television that consists of professional soccer on an Internet version of the Sky service. But not every channel available over satellite will be available over Xbox Live, and the offering will include dozens of stations.
Microsoft has since long strived to play a role in home television by building its own set-top box business. Partnering with Sky represents a back door into the television market. The company has also recognized how Nintendo has expanded the traditional audience for video games with its innovative motion-sensitive controller for the Wii. Microsoft provided the first public demonstration of its futuristic Project Natal, which it hopes will usher in an age of completely controller-free gaming.
Using a sophisticated camera, infrared sensors and voice recognition software, Natal allows users to control a game or other programs, like a virtual painting studio, merely by waving their arms, speaking to the system and moving around.
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