Media Monster

BREAKING: ESPN Officially Partners With XBox 360

The long-rumored potential deal between ESPN and Microsoft’s XBox 360 to stream sporting events on the console is official. Gaming/tech reporters live-blogging Microsoft’s press conference at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (like Wired’s Chris Kohler and Gizmodo’s Jason Chen) just reported that the two sides have a deal – and it looks like a big one.

The deal will bring 3500 sporting events to the XBox (with most in HD), accessible lie or on demand. The feature offers extras like instant fan polling and trivia questions during games if desired. Plus, if you’re an XBox Live gold subscriber (about $50/year), you’ll get this feature at no additional cost. Plus, from a photo Kohler posted on his live blog, it looks like Trey Wingo was at the press conference to demonstrate the feature, which is cool.

It’s long been just a matter of time until some big player in the television world struck a blockbuster deal with the XBox – Conan O’Brien supposedly considered it, and our friends at Geekosystem wished he’d done it – but now ESPN’s blazing the XBox trail. With the vast amount of potential viewing material combined with HD potential and an audience that one would think fits right into ESPN’s target demographic, they were a natural fit to make the move. It will be fascinating to see how it works.