Christmas may still be over a week away, but Microsoft seem to have taken it upon themselves to spread a little festive spirit, with the announcement of a huge number of apps that'll be making their way to the Xbox dashboard. In total, a whopping 48 new apps will be making their way onto the dashboard before spring next year, and while many of these are restricted to the USA or are various on demand TV services for various countries, even taking those out of the equation, the UK still has a fairly impressive twelve applications set to hit the box between now and next Spring. It's worth bearing in mind that, much like every app on the 360, you'll need an Xbox Live Gold subscription if you're going to use any of the apps - on top of any subscription fees that are associated with individual apps. The full list is as follows:
- All3M
- CrunchyRoll
- Deezer
- Fightbox
- GameTrailers
- IndieFlix
- Karaoke
- Livesport.tv
- Machinima
- Napster
- Sainsbury
- SkyDrive
While they may not be the biggest name brands in the world (if you're anything like us, going down that list will like have gone "who?", "ok", "what?", "what?", "ok", "what?", "oooh karaoke", "what?", "ok", "I thought they were dead", "Sainsbury's?!?", and "what?") there are a few hidden gems amongst them. CrunchyRoll will deliver a number of anime episodes and series (although only for those with a premium membership of the site), Napster lets you stream from a library of 15 million tracks (although again, only with a membership), although by far the biggest addition is the new Karaoke app.
Sure to get the pulses of fans of now long-departed karaoke game Lips racing, the imaginatively named Karaoke app does exactly what it says on the tin. A free download, you'll be able to play a selection of five random songs every day, with the option to dip into a huge library of more than 8000 songs if you so choose - and none of them will take up any precious hard-drive space either, as each song streams straight to the console through the magic of the internet. Letting you use either a compatible Xbox 360 USB microphone (we're not sure what counts as a compatible one), a wireless Lips mic, or even an Xbox 360 headset, those of you that have compatible smart phones and tablets (sadly not us) will also be able to make use of the exclusive SmartGlass integration, which lets you play, stop and pause songs, browse the huge song database and add songs to your playlist - although if you're like us, you'll be able to do the same with a controller. Rather than buying songs individually, you'll instead be paying for access by the hour, with prices starting from 240 MSP (~£2.04) for 2 hours, all the way up to 800 points (~£6.80) for a whole day of karaoke. Not that you'd have much voice left after a few hours.
And of course, you're playing as your bobble-headed avatar.
But by far the oddest app on the list would have to be that of supermarket giant Sainsbury's. While Microsoft have told us they don't have anything else to share at the moment, the app could include anything from recipes, to shopping from the comfort of your chair, probably with SmartGlass integration for your fancy-pants phones and tablets, through to the magic of Kinect without having to lift a finger. Maybe you'll be able to order a snack when you get peckish with a simple "Xbox - Wotsits", "Xbox - Garlic Bread", or "Xbox - Sainsbury's British Extra Lean Beef Roasting Joint, Mini, Be Good To Yourself" Perhaps they could even throw in a bonus Kinect mini-game akin to Supermarket Sweep to play while you wait for your oven chips to turn up? Xbox 360 - making life taste better.
While the likes of the iPlayer, YouTube and 4OD are certainly useful - especially considering the lack of Nintendo TVii application at the Wii U's launch, and the fact our good old Wii (and it's BBC iPlayer channel) has been donated to our parents, it seems Microsoft may be beginning to run out of apps to cram onto its console, leaving us wondering what other brands could be making their way to the console in future - and there undoubtedly will be more. An on-demand ITV player is the obvious choice, but beyond that? More supermarkets? Takeaways? Dating sites? It's certainly going to be interesting to see what comes next.
