Microsoft Reveals Xbox Companion App for Windows Phone

If you were waiting for the killer app for Xbox 360 console owners, look no further. Microsoft has revealed their upcoming companion app for the gaming console. The app will allow current Windows Phone users to “Find, Learn more about and Control content from Xbox LIVE Marketplace on your Xbox 360. ” The announcement of the app comes on the heels of the huge revelation by Microsoft that they have struck a number of deals to bring live and OnDemand TV to the living room via the Xbox 360 console.
Ben Rudolph posted about the upcoming app on the Windows Phone Blog:

I was lucky enough to get my hands on a beta copy of the app to try out with my Xbox and I have to say that it’s really impressive. Here’s an actual scenario I ran through with the app and my Xbox the other day:

• Finding Content: Just like on your Xbox, theXbox Companion gives you instant access to the Xbox LIVE Marketplace catalog of games, movies, music and TV shows. I used it to search “Featured Content” and pulled up the X-Men: First Class.
• Learn more about what you’re watching, listening to, or playing: Once I found the movie and touched the movie tile, the Xbox companion app took me to an info page that has all the related details about. And the content is really rich, too – for example, when I swiped to the “cast” page and touched an actor’s name, like star James McAvoy, I was taken to other movies starring him. From there, I could easily learn more about the other movies, their cast, etc. It’s an infiniteroad of interactive content.
• Control & Play: Once I selected the content and hit play, the Xbox Companion flips into “controller mode” in which I could navigate my Xbox, or control video playback of your video. The best part here is that controls are virtually instantaneous – easily as fast as using my controller or a TV remote.

Microsoft isn’t saying just yet as to when the app will be available, but it is soon and when you couple that with the awesome TV additions that were also announced for the Xbox 360 today, it seems that someone has awoken the sleeping giant and that giant is Microsoft.