Happy Birthday Xbox 360

Happy Birthday Xbox 360, Presents for everyone.

Marking the first anniversary of the Xbox 360, Xbox Live Video will make its debut on the Microsoft online service. This download service for Standard and High Definition movies and television shows is the first HD downloadable service for HD movie content in the U.S. This update allows users to pay for downloaded movies and television shows with their Microsoft points.

The debut offering will include more than 800 hours of SD and 200 hours of HDTV programming from CBS, MTV, Comedy Central, VH1, Turner, and UFC, as well as movies from Warner Bros., Paramount, and a number of others. For an initial launch, there is a good assortment of movies and television shows. The HD movie content is a little on the light side but over coming weeks and months there should be a decent selection.

In an effort to compete with iTunes, Tivo and Netflix services, Microsoft is using a rental model for movies while TV shows are for purchase. While the pricing seems reasonable, costing between 170-400 credits per download, the 600 MB-5 GB range of downloads highlights the space constraints of the 20 GB hard drive of the 360. If successful this video campaign will put more pressure on the 360 team to release a high capacity hard drive or allow downloads to be transferred to external drives.