London: Microsoft has signed deals with more than 40 television and video-on-demand companies to launch a range of entertainment services on Xbox Live this December.
Xbox 360 owners in the UK will be able to access a large selection of on-demand and streaming media from such providers as the BBC, Channel 4, Channel 5 and the movie rental services blinkbox and Lovefilm.
Much of the content will be searchable via Microsoft's own Bing engine, and with some of the services, users will be able to use voice commands to find movies and TV shows via the Kinect device.
Some of the announced content providers are only available in specific regions. The list of providers available to UK console owners also includes AlloCin, Crackle, Muzu.TV, MSN, MSNBC.com, VEVO and YouTube. BSkyB, Last.fm, Zune, Twitter and Facebook are already available on Xbox Live.
Don Mattrick, president of the interactive entertainment business at Microsoft, said the move is a major step forward in the company's vision to bring console owners the entertainment they desire.
"Combining the world's leading TV and entertainment providers with the power of Kinect for Xbox 360 and the intelligence of Bing voice search will make TV and entertainment more personal, social and effortless," he said.
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer forecast this announcement last month in a presentation at Microsoft's Financial Analyst Meeting in Anaheim. Ballmer said the Xbox 360 was "perhaps the number one intelligent device connected to TVs around the world [and] it's quite obvious that we need to increase the amount of TV and video content that are available on it."
The deals are part of Microsoft's strategy to make Xbox 360 a general entertainment platform, rather than simply a games machine.
The announcement is a clear challenge to Sony PS3 console. It is not clear yet, however, if BBC content will be supplied via an Xbox version of the iPlayer app.
