Well well, that was a busy morning at the Microsoft E3 Media Briefing. All of the news is available at Microsoft’s News Center and via the Xbox press site – and I have just some of the highlights below. A few notable stats before we get to the juice of this morning’s announcements:
- Since launching in 2005, Microsoft has shipped 67 million Xbox 360 consoles. Add to that 40 million Xbox Live customers (remember when people said we were mad to think a games console would go online?)
- ….and 19 million Kinect sensors.
- …So Nick Bilton’s NY Times piece yesterday seems right on the money.
So what’s next?
- Halo 4
- Forza Horizon
- Fable: The Journey
- Gears of War: Judgment
- Dance Central 3
- FIFA 2012
- …and more games
Next? A partnership with Nike titled Nike+Kinect Training that will bring a whole new era of home fitness (long overdue) to the Clayton household and many more. It features Nike trainers who work with some of the their top athletes to offer custom training programs. As Yusuf Mehdi, chief marketing officer of the Interactive Entertainment Business, said “Kinect becomes the eyes for ‘Nike+ Kinect Training’.”
Next? Xbox Music is arriving later this year across cloud connected devices, including Windows 8 of course.
Next? Xbox SmartGlass – a new, free app for Windows Phone, Windows 8, and other portable devices. SmartGlass sounds like a splendid companion. As I’ve said before on this blog, context is king in the new world of computing, and SmartGlass is about to make that very real. When you’re watching a movie on Xbox, your device will present related content automatically. Watching a sports game will mean your device gets latest stats, scores, player highlights and more.
Oh and Internet Explorer is coming to Xbox – and you’ll be able to drive your web browsing experience from your tablet or phone. Three screens and a cloud anyone?
Next? Xbox on Windows 8. When Windows 8 launches, Xbox will be the premium entertainment experience, with four apps: Video, Music, Games and Xbox SmartGlass.
Quite a morning. I’ll have more observations over the week on what this all means…for my living room and yours. That’s all for now – head to Microsoft’s News Center for photos, videos and much more detail.
