Microsoft’s untapped app platform: XBOX 360

by Aanarav Sareen on July 15, 2010

For the past few years, Microsoft has largely stayed under the radar with the Zune and other media initiatives. However, these initiatives, including Windows Media Center, the Zune Store and a host of similar services– desktop and console — are extremely powerful. They’re a little challenging to navigate for the end user, but they still deliver a great media experience.

Microsoft’s big winner in the past 18 months has been the XBOX 360 and XBOX Live. The company continues to add features for free and has partnered with various media providers, such as Netflix and now Hulu to make IPTV and connected media a real possibility. While the company has tried to entice users to develop applications for the Zune and the upcoming Windows 7 Phone, they’re still untapped and unproven territories. Just like any other industry, software development is a profession. And no one knows this better than Microsoft. However, if a certain marketplace is more succesful and far more mature, like the iTunes App Store, developers are more likely to create applications for that given platform.

Microsoft’s proven platform is XBOX 360. The company has millions of paid subscribers that are using the portal to access a host of content — streaming TV shows, movies, games, social networking, etc. Why not allow developers to build on top of that? There are a lot of developers that create content for Windows. By leveraging Microsoft owned development tools, the company could easily open up the XBOX 360 platform and create a whole new marketplace.

A similar example of this would be Roku. For those who aren’t aware, Roku is a small box that streams content to a TV set. It’s inexpensive and it’s very effective. The Roku platform allows the end-user to select their own “applications.” Pandora fan? Add Pandora to the box with a single click. Simple, easy and customized.

The same concept could apply to the XBOX 360. Microsoft should create an app store for the device and entice developers to build on top of that. Not only will that open up the flood gates for media companies, but it’ll be a real boom for casual game developers.