Microsoft Increasing Focus On 'Entertainment' Branding For Xbox 360

Noting that 40 percent of all activity on the Xbox 360 is now "non-game," the company said it will increasingly be marketing the system more as an "entertainment brand" in the coming year, with more details arriving at next week's E3. The average Xbox user now watches 30 hours of video on the system every month, Microsoft corporate communications VP Frank Shaw said in a blog post, and that number is "growing fast." While gaming still remains the primary use for the Xbox 360, Shaw said the set-top box is quickly becoming "central to entertainment" for a large portion of Xbox 360's 53 million owners worldwide. "The vision for Xbox is straightforward: All of the entertainment you want," Shaw said, adding that the company would continue to focus on natural user interfaces such as speech, touch and gestures to "make the entertainment experience that much easier—and more fun." Microsoft's Kinect can facilitate such interfaces. A Knowledge Networks report from last October estimated one in five Americans use a game console to watch video content at least once a month, including 6 percent of Americans who use consoles to stream video. Streaming video content from console Netflix users now represents nearly 20 percent of peak internet bandwidth use in the U.S., according to a recent Sandvine Incorporated report.