Microsoft has gone a step closer to bringing itself into the living room following its launch of digital video downloads for the Xbox 360.  Microsoft has been trying for a long time to find ways of getting consumers to take on its audio & video technology outside of the PC by including licensing its out Window Media technology to content providers and device manufacturers, but have had little success when it came to dedicated handheld and set-top Windows Media compatible players.  With around 6 million Xbox 360 consoles sold by the end of September and this figure expected to reach 10 million by the holidays, the console makes an effective Trojan horse by doubling up as an online media player, since pretty much every console in the US can join the service, assuming the consumer has a suitable broadband connection.

The download service will offer hundreds of TV programmes and movies via its Xbox Live Marketplace in Standard and High Definition, with further programming added every week.  Microsoft also claims this is the first games console to offer such a feature, although so far this service is only available to US Xbox 360 users.  Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. plans to offer a similar service later on for PlayStation 3 users.  For now, they currently offer downloadable video clips of movies and video games.

It will be interesting to see how many consumers take on this service, particularly those who already have cable/satellite TV and a PVR.  Unfortunately, like most PVRs (without an internal DVD writer), the console will not allow the transferring of its content to another device or allow content to be written to DVD.  As a result, this makes this service unsuitable for those who are interested in downloading TV shows or movies to watch on the move. 

Further details on the new service can be read at The Money Times source here.