Xbox Live will integrate with Windows

Bill Gates has suggested that Microsoft intends to integrate Xbox Live with the Windows platform as a whole, opening up huge new areas of functionality.

Speaking to the Associated Press (and reported on Spong), Gates suggests that Windows Messenger will enable all kinds of cross-platform communication and collaboration.

There is a suggestion that Xbox Live Marketplace, the lauded new feature of the Xbox 360 online service, will also see a transition to Windows in some form.

With Microsoft pitching Xbox 360 as the centre of the living room, it doesn't take much to work out that there's going to be some music, TV and movie-buying in there somewhere.

We might also suppose that PC games might be able to utilise some of the matchmaking features available to Live for better multiplayer experiences.

Microsoft wants your living room, make no bones about it. The ability to tie together your Windows PC, your Windows Media Center machine and your Xbox 360 will enable Microsoft to do some pretty powerful stuff. Considering it will all run compatible software, codecs, DRM etc it may be a much better solution than any proposed living room kit from Apple, which we reported might be in the pipeline yesterday. Whilst Apple has the iPod to leverage market share with, Microsoft has most of the computers in the known world.

How do you feel about hooking together your PC with Xbox Live, and would you use a similar Marketplace on the PC? Let us know your thoughts in the forums.