With the Spring Xbox 360 update Microsoft is enabling gamers to add six hundred of their Windows Live Messenger contacts to their Xbox 360 and chat with up to six people at a time while playing games, listening to music, and watching videos on their Xbox 360 gaming console. This is in addition to the voice and video chat services Xbox Live currently supports. The Live update will connect 6 million Xbox Live users with 260 million Windows Messenger accounts.

While long rumored, Microsoft officially announced that they will be releasing a new gamepad with integrated keypad available this summer to assist with text entry (see mock-up on the right). Currently the Xbox 360 supports a virtual keyboard as well as USB keyboards for text entry.

Other notable Xbox Live feature enchancements include:

• Achievement notification has been updated; pop-ups will now include which achievement was obtained and the gamerscore value.
• Background downloading functionality has been extended to include fanless operation and auto-turnoff of the console after the completion of a download.
• New progressive download controls allow users to view, rewind, fast-forward, pause, and resume video that is in the process of being downloaded.
• The Xbox Live Marketplace is getting its own blade.
• Enchanced family settings allow finer grained control over access settings for voice and video chat.

A complete list of updated features and enhancements, including H.264 video support and switchable aspect ratios, can be found on the Xbox website. For a visual walkthrough of the update, check GameVideos' visual tour

And as widely reported last month Microsoft hasn't neglected the PC. Beginning May 8th Microsoft will be releasing the PC version of Live which coincides with the PC release of Halo 2. Like the Xbox 360 version of Live, the PC version will have two subscription levels. The free Silver membership includes services like game trailers, demo downloads, messaging, and so forth and the premium Gold membership, which costs about $50 per year, allows cross-platform play (for titles supporting the feature) and other multiplayer features. The first title to support cross-platform play will be the FASA studio developer shooter Shadowrun due to appear in June which will allow Xbox 360 and PC gamers with Gold memberships to play competitively online. Live memberships can be used on the PC or Xbox 360 or both.