E3: Microsoft confirms Xbox Live and media playing updates

Although Microsoft's pre-E3 conference focused almost entirely on showcasing forthcoming software, with little in the way of new announcements, the company did slip in details of some new Xbox functionality.

As we mentioned in our earlier story on the conference, Xbox Live will now integrate more tightly with the MSN internet services; what this means in real terms is that the Xbox Live messaging systems will be able to integrate with the Internet in general, so you'll be able to send alerts to people using MSN Messenger from Xbox Live, or check Xbox Live details through Internet Explorer.

In addition, the company plans a wide range of tournaments for Xbox Live, which will be arranged through the web browser; one of the key components of this is the new XSN Sports range of titles, although tournaments, online high score tables and so on will also be available across a wide range of games.

Perhaps the most interesting change, however, is to the media playback capabilities of the Xbox, with the release of a new dashboard application called Music Mixer. This will appear as a retail product sometime before Christmas, and will extend the media functionality of the Xbox significantly, allowing for everything from proper playlists to stripping out lyrics for karaoke.

The key feature here, however, is PC connectivity, as Music Mixer will allow users to connect to their home PC across a LAN and play music directly off network shares. We wouldn't be too quick to assume that this will let you stream your MP3 collection to the Xbox, however; Microsoft is a very big proponent of Digital Rights Management for content, so it's entirely possible that Music Mixer won't support open, unsecured standards like MP3.