Xbox Companion Application Demoed At Nokia World

At Nokia World 2011, Ben Rudolph from Microsoft demoed the Xbox Companion Application for Windows Phone 7.  Read on for details.

Ben Rudolph AKA The PC Guy (@BenThePCGuy on Twitter) demonstrated the WP7 Xbox Companion application on the floor of Nokia World 2011 the other day.  First off, let’s see how Ben described the application earlier this month:

The app, which will be completely free for Windows Phone users, is an amazing little tool that will let you Find, Learn more about and Control content from Xbox LIVE Marketplace on your Xbox 360.

I was lucky enough to get my hands on a beta copy of the app to try out with my Xbox and I have to say that it’s really impressive. Here’s an actual scenario I ran through with the app and my Xbox the other day:

• Finding Content: Just like on your Xbox, the Xbox Companion gives you instant access to the Xbox LIVE Marketplace catalog of games, movies, music and TV shows. I used it to search “Featured Content” and pulled up the X-Men: First Class.
• Learn more about what you’re watching, listening to, or playing: Once I found the movie and touched the movie tile, the Xbox companion app took me to an info page that has all the related details about. And the content is really rich, too – for example, when I swiped to the “cast” page and touched an actor’s name, like star James McAvoy, I was taken to other movies starring him. From there, I could easily learn more about the other movies, their cast, etc. It’s an infinite road of interactive content.
• Control & Play: Once I selected the content and hit play, the Xbox Companion flips into “controller mode” in which I could navigate my Xbox, or control video playback of your video. The best part here is that controls are virtually instantaneous – easily as fast as using my controller or a TV remote.

Now for Ben demoing the application at Nokia World, click on this link:

Xbox and Windows Phone Companion App

Very cool video.  This application is expected to be out soon, so if you have a Windows Phone 7 and an Xbox, download it and check it out!  And thanks for the demo, Ben!