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Rob breaks down the details of the announced ESPN service for the Xbox 360, and gives us his opinion and outlook on the announcement.

E3 has begun and Microsoft has announced its new partnership with ESPN. ESPN will now have their own channel on the Xbox 360. SportsCenter's Josh Elliott and Trey Wingo hit the stage to announce the ESPN video service for Xbox Live.

This feature will allow users to watch over 3,500 live and on-demand sporting events to Xbox Live, and the ESPN application will utilize Xbox Kinect for navigation. Much like Netflix, you will be able to watch either live or on-demand games with a friend.

Additionally, friends and singular viewers will be able to vote for their favorite teams and answer trivia questions during the game. A fun ancillary feature, that makes the experience a bit more interactive.

It is said that the ESPN service will be free for all Xbox Live Gold Members, though it wasn't clear if everything and anything about the service will be free. The Live and on demand service is another reason for sports fans to not waste their money on cable or satellite TV if they are a Gold Member for Xbox Live, especially since all will be streamed in HD. The sports announced which will be available through ESPN are the NBA, MLB, College Football, Soccer, and College Basketball. There will most likely be announcements of other live and on demand streaming sports as time goes on. The ESPN feature will be available through Xbox Live later this year.

Overall, this is great for everyone interested in sports. As an avid sports fan and viewer, this new feature will allow me to watch my favorite sports team wherever I am or they are, as long as I have internet connection.

Being in college and living in the dorms, this feature will work great for what I need. I do not have many channels on the cable provided, and this new service allows me to be able to watch any sports game I'd like to watch. I have been looking for many ways to be able to follow many games, whether it's through Gameday or ESPN's texting service, and it just has not worked out. I finally have a perfect way to watch my teams through the new Xbox 360 ESPN service.

I do have a few concerns though. If your internet connection is not great, or the service is overloaded, this will make watching the sports very frustrating. Also, if the service turns out to be limited in what's free, that could also put a damper on the service as a whole.

The announcement was great in its own right, and I'm excited to see how the service turns out.