Xbox Live TV Available This Holiday Season

At a financial meeting on Wednesday, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer revealed that the previously announced Xbox Live TV is expected to be released this holiday season. With the service, Microsoft hopes to bring video-on-demand and live TV to the Xbox 360 console.

Though the company has not released specifics in terms of what content may potentially be available or how much users will expect to pay, it was suggested that the service would stream a set number of channels to the console. The feature would also utilize the Kinect peripheral and Bing to search for episodes or shows.

Ballmer demoed the voice command functionality, saying aloud to the Xbox console “Xbox: Bing: The Office” to search for episodes of The Office. The reporter with CNN notes that the following attempt to call out for a specific episode failed.

“It’s a good thing that’s shipping for Christmas,” Ballmer joked.

Microsoft suggested they also hope to create a social experience around watching movies and television with friends and family. With existing concepts like ESPN streaming and the Netflix Party Watch experience, this may mean simply integrating social networking and voice chat while viewing media. But, it may also mean that Microsoft has a new angle to entice people to watch TV from their Xbox and not from, well, their TV.