Xbox Gaming in South Africa

Along with a brand new dashboard, Microsoft has released official Xbox LIVE applications for two major mobile operating systems.

Firstly and by far the more obvious one of the two is ‘Xbox Companion’ for Windows Phones which allows users to check their Gamerscore, send messages to friends and set Beacons. Probably the most impressive feature of this app is the fact that you can navigate the unified Xbox catalogue of movies, TV shows, music, games and apps, and it can even connect to your personal Xbox allowing you to launch movies, TV shows, games and apps on the console itself, as well as control playback of audio and video.

The second app on the other end of the spectrum is ‘My Xbox Live’, an iOS application for your iPod Touch, iPhone or iPad, which functions as a stripped down version of the Xbox Companion. Thus no connecting your iPhone to your Xbox yet, but you can play around with your Avatar, message friends, and compare Achievements.

If you’ve managed to create US accounts for the Windows Marketplace and the iTunes store then you’ll be able to download the Xbox Companion and My Xbox Live for free. Unfortunately release dates on the local stores have not been announced yet, and there's no word on official applications for other devices such as BlackBerry.