App turns Windows Phone into Xbox 360 controller

Not too long ago, we were treated to this nifty tech demo showing gamers using a Windows Phone to control and interact with an Xbox 360 Kinect game. While that demo hasn't yet turned into a reality, perhaps we're one step closer.

On Wednesday, the Windows Phone team revealed via its blog that they are working on what's called the Xbox Companion app, a free app that will let people use their Windows Phones to find and control Xbox Live content on their Xbox 360s.

Ben Rudolph, who writes for the blog, tried out a beta copy of the app on his Xbox. This is the experience he described:

• Finding Content: Just like on your Xbox, the Xbox Companion gives you instant access to the Xbox LIVE Marketplace catalog of games, movies, music and TV shows. I used it to search “Featured Content” and pulled up the X-Men: First Class.
• Learn more about what you’re watching, listening to, or playing: Once I found the movie and touched the movie tile, the Xbox companion app took me to an info page that has all the related details about. And the content is really rich, too – for example, when I swiped to the “cast” page and touched an actor’s name, like star James McAvoy, I was taken to other movies starring him. From there, I could easily learn more about the other movies, their cast, etc. It’s an infinite road of interactive content.
• Control & Play: Once I selected the content and hit play, the Xbox Companion flips into “controller mode” in which I could navigate my Xbox, or control video playback of your video. The best part here is that controls are virtually instantaneous – easily as fast as using my controller or a TV remote.

You can also catch the app in action in this Microsoft promo video at about the one minute mark.

Maybe it's wishful thinking, but perhaps when the Xbox Companion app launches it will come with some of the game-playing powers we were given a glimpse of all those months ago. Rudolph says the app is "coming soon" so I guess we'll have to wait and see.