Besides announcing full retail games on demand, meaning you'll be able to download full retail games from the comfort of your own smelly dungeon instead of trekking to Gamestop's smelly dungeon, Microsoft filled out details on some of the other new Xbox Live hotness.
I asked about bringing Hulu into the fold—Xbox Live's Marc Whitten didn't answer very directly: "I think you'll see continue to see growth." He talked a bit about how, "Sky Experience is how I think about this...now I get to live TV directly inside of this experience...and when I start thinking about beyond that. How do we start to share experiences?" He seemed really interested in sharing and coop.
For instant 1080p video streaming you need an 8Mbps downstream connection—that's a pretty fat pipe in most of the country, so it seems kinda limited to competitive cable markets, where competition has pushed up the speed of available internet access. Which I'm sure Big Cable loves. The video format uses Microsoft's own codecs and a lot of the cloud work they've been doing, says Marc.
They're not getting really specific with dates on the Facebook and Twitter thing, just that it'll ramp over time.
Also new stuff for avatars coming up, so Microsoft can make money off of 'em: You'll be able to earn items in games, or buy whole costumes and props like an RC Warthog from Halo. I saw a few things on sale for 80 Xbox Live points in the Halo Storefront. [Giz@E3]