Xbox Sky Player

Microsoft will be introducing the Sky Player, Facebook and Twitter to the Xbox 360 for Gold Live subscribers in their update that will be released at the end of October. For current Live and Sky subscribers they will be able to watch Sky TV on their Xbox via the Sky Player for no extra cost. For others who can't have Sky due to restrictions on erecting dishes, they now have the option of signing up for the fantastic Sky service giving them all the sports and movies enjoyed by millions up and down the country. According to the Sky website, the update will take place on October 27th.

Using the Sky Player on your Xbox you will be able to watch all the Sky channels that you are subscribed to as well as PPV events, such as Boxing and Movies. You can also watch TV with all your friends who hold a subscription. So if a football game is on for example, there will be a funky feature where your avatar and all your friends avatars will be in a room watching a screen, the screen will be showing the football match which you can watch yourself, but you can talk to your friends via the headset and even make your avatar gesture as if he was cheering. It brings a whole new way of watching TV so you can still watch it with friends even if you nee dto stay at home.

The Xbox has established itself as the must have games console, but with this new feature it can almost replace your Sky+ box, it plays DVD's so no real need for a DVD player and it can also play some digital content. With a few extra tweaks and improvements there's no reason why the Xbox couldn't be a fantastic all in one media hub for the living room. I see this as the begining, the Xbox 360 is a good few years old now and Microsfot must be looking at creating it's successor. The 360 showcases a lot of cool features that with some refinement and support from other content providers could see a fantastic fully fledged all in one media center as the replacement for the Xbox 360, a single unit that plays the best games, allows you to view, pause and record High Def TV, watch DVD/Blu-Ray movies and play digital Music and Video content in all the major formats. With all that in place it would be the ultimate machine.