Comcast, HBO GO, MLB.TV Hit Xbox Live

Xbox Live Gold members have been enjoying apps such as Crackle, CinemaNow, Dailymotion, iHeartRadio, Last.fm, MSN, Today, UFC, Epix, ESPN, Hulu Plus, Netflix, SyFy, TMZ, Zune, YouTube, Vevo and Verizon FiOS.

Now, Microsoft is dominating your living room, bedroom and man cave with three new apps released Tuesday: Xfinity by Comcast, HBO GO and MLB.TV.

With the addition of Xfinity and with the already-existing Verizon FiOS apps, the Xbox 360 has now become a cable box of sorts.

In order to use these apps, one must be subscribed to Xbox Live Gold.

Xfinity

Under the new Xfinity TV app, subscribers can watch Xfinity On Demand TV shows and movies through the Xbox 360. Users can also search favorites by title, actor or keyword.

Kinect can be used for the app through voice and gesture recognition to play, pause, fast forward and rewind.

HBO GO

Subscribers to HBO and Xbox Live Gold can access the HBO GO app to stream shows to your TV.

The HBO GO app offers more than 1,400 shows. Again, Kinect can be used as a controller.

MLB.TV

MLB.TV also requires a subscription. Customers can watch live regular season out-of-market games or archive it for later, for both the 2011 and 2012 seasons. The app also allows to select your favorite teams and get access to games, archives and recaps quickly.

You can also split screen within the app to watch two live games or one live game and one recap. Both screens are also controlled independently.

According to geektyrant.com, the progression of apps through Xbox Live is part of Microsoft’s plan to continue the features into the next Xbox, coming in 2013. The idea is to make the console a media hub for the family, especially those who are non-gamers.

For more details on Xbox Live, click this link.