Deadline has learned the meetings were an intimate preview of next week’s E3 confab where secretive Microsoft will unveil details of the device’s new technology. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was escorted by his entertainment studios president Nancy Tellem on the Hollywood visit late last week to lobby her former boss CBS chief Les Moonves, WME co-CEOS Ari Emanuel and Patrick Whitesell, and other bigwigs in the TV business about the new Xbox One. It’s all part of their effort to drum up exclusive content for it after Microsoft intends to launch 40+ new voice-controlled customized TV and entertainment apps on Xbox. Deadline has learned that Ballmer touted “what we could do with” the Xbox One in sports, music, reality and scripted programming, promising execs that they’d see more sophisticated technology and that his company “doesn’t want to be a cable channel”. Ballmer’s trip to Hollywood will only anger more hard-core gamers who already were miffed by Microsoft’s focus on entertainment when it unveiled the product on May 21. (Xbox One will be on store shelves later this year). The hard-core gamers fear Microsoft sees its new Xbox One more as a souped-up Internet-connected, voice- and motion-controlled cable box than a next-gen gaming console. Tellem has said Microsoft has studios in Los Angeles, London, Seattle and Vancouver producing content that merges “the story-telling magic of TV with the interactive power of the Xbox One.” More recently, Microsoft said Steven Spielberg will create a new live-action TV show based on the Halo game franchise. Microsoft also announced a new partnership with the NFL that promises side-by-side integration of a viewer’s fantasy football stats with live game broadcasts. And the company also set a partnership with ESPN for broadcasts of other sports.

This isn’t the first time Microsoft has tried to entice Hollywood with the Xbox. Peter Chernin for one discussed producing Conan O’Brien’s talk show on the platform when the host was booted from NBC’s The Tonight Show. Hollywood’s big problem with Microsoft: it moves slowly. The Xbox One was designed to establish its primacy in the industry-wide effort to develop a single box that can handle all of a home’s entertainment needs. But company watchers have had mixed reactions to the Xbox One. Turnoffs include the expected high price (rumored at as much as $499), the possibility that it won’t play certain used games without an additional payment, and a suspicion that it take liberties with users’ privacy for example by reporting whether a TV viewer watched certain commercials.

http://www.deadline.com/2013/06/microsoft-chiefs-urge-tv-execs-produce-xbox-one/

"The hard-core gamers fear Microsoft sees its new Xbox One more as a souped-up Internet-connected, voice- and motion-controlled cable box than a next-gen gaming console."

With a new Call of Duty Debut....If Hard Core Gamers are not the one's buying Call Of Duty and paying for XBL..Then who the fuck is?

Sounds logical to me. If they really wanna give you a reason to watch TV through your Xbox, then they will need some big time exclusive offerings on that front besides "it's easier"

I know there were rumours a while back about MS acquiring the Heroes license and rebooting it as exclusive content for the X1. They want to have original programming on the X1 as I understand it. Sounds good to me anyway

sony already has hollywood ties. microsoft does not.

getting into the TV business won't be cheap or easy. the establishment is very resistant to change as i understand it.

I think he is saying that Sony dropped the ball for not using its Hollywood ties to give its console the advantage when it comes to exclusive content and multimedia.

hmm, well I suppose the Xbox One will try to convince people to watch TV live and this is a huge problem for TV networks right now in the states, since more and more people are watching their favorite TV shows online, or through their DVR and thus advertisers are paying less for ad spots during TV shows. Also advertisers would pay a HUGE amount of money to get to the male 18-34 audience since that is the demographic that watches the least TV (excluding sports).

Its either WiiU or 360 :)

lol yeah that would help. 

i was saying sony already understands how to entertain people.  microsoft need a better lesson

Reading about MS doing this, tells me that MS is committed to their vision and not just throwing features out there and not supporting them. Some companies just say, "ohh yeah, our console can do that, but it's up to other people to make use of it."  This can also be said about DRM. "It's there, if other people want to use it." Really? Get the fuck out of here! It's either your with the program or go home. Options give people a way out and if everyone isn't on board, you have fragmentation. Which is where Xbox 360 failed, when they didn't include a hard drive in all consoles from the get-go. The less fragmentation in an ecosystem, the better it is as a whole.

MS has really been showing lots of commitment lately. Such as releasing Surface tablets to set a standard for how their vision of how a tablet should be. Also with Windows Phone, they have their own surface phone under wraps just in case Nokia fails to make a name for WP. This tells me they are committed and will not take failure for an answer. Getting rid of Zune was the only mistake that I've seen them make over the past years. Now they have shitty Xbox Music. Over all, they have been stepping in the right direction.