Arguably Microsoft Xbox's biggest announcement at E3 was the fall launch of Live TV, a new experience that adds live television streaming, built-in DVR functionality, voice-powered Bing searches, and a content deal with YouTube.
"Quite simply we believe TV is more amazing with you as the controller," said Marc Whitten, vice president for Xbox Live, in his introduction.
Motion-sensor feature Kinect will power Live TV with gesture- and voice-controlled commands, allowing users to discover and control content stored in their consoles without the need for a physical remote control.
Whitten also announced Bing on Xbox, which conducts voice searches across Microsoft's Bing search engine and Xbox content, like Hulu Plus, Netflix, video, and Xbox Live marketplaces.
For instance, if you want to watch X-Men, you can simply say, "Xbox Bing X-Men" and Bing will pull up all X-Men related games and movies stored in your console. You can then say "Xbox Play X-Men" to start playing the movie.
Whitten announced a new partnership with YouTube that brings top original Web content to the console. Microsoft also plans to multiply the number of its Xbox partnerships by a factor of ten this year.
Finally, as rumored on Sunday, Live TV will bring local channels live-streamed through Xbox to your TV set. Initial partnerships include Sky TV in the U.K. and Australia. There was no mention of a U.S. partner yet, but Live TV launches this fall, Whitten said.
"This is our vision for the future of TV—effortless, approachable, because TV is more amazing when you are the controller," he said.
Microsoft on Friday released some Xbox 360 stats, which suggested that buyers are still snapping up the popular gaming console. Since November 2005, Microsoft has sold 55 million Xbox 360s, and "sales are accelerating," the company said.