Microsoft Bringing Xbox Companion App for Windows Phone 7
It’s all about synergy. Hot on the heels of the Xbox Live TV partnership announcement, the Windows Phone Team has put up a blog post about an upcoming app for Windows Phone 7, the Xbox Companion App, that allows a user to control the Xbox 360 from the phone. We have seen many of these “phone as a remote control” apps for different systems and devices, but this will be a first for the Xbox 360. With converging user interfaces and Microsoft’s oft-stated “3 Screens and a Cloud” vision of the future of computing and content consumption, this sort of interaction is probably going to become more commonplace for Microsoft systems. A quick snippet of the app in action can be seen in a video that Microsoft posted concurrent to their Xbox press release.
Watch that video closely and you’ll notice that around the 1 minute mark, the girl in the striped shirt pulls out a Windows Phone and starts to search for content that magically appears on her Xbox. What she’s using is the insanely awesome (but still not quite available) Xbox Companion App. The app, which will be completely free for Windows Phone users, is an amazing little tool that will let you Find, Learn more about and Controlcontent from Xbox LIVE Marketplace on your Xbox 360.
I really like the direction
I really like the direction that MS is taking towards the consumer lately… Hopefully they get their “synergy” going with their PC platform as well (Windows, Media Center, etc.)