E3 is now underway, so expect lots of Xbox-related news over the next few days. Though I don’t know how it could get much better than what was announced tonight! For starters, Disney is now offering movie rentals via Xbox Live effective immediately. Their catalogue of content will add to the already impressive 2350 hours of entertainment available at the Xbox Live Marketplace.

The best stuff though, was announced by VP of Marketing Jeff Bell, as Twittered live by majornelson:

Jeff just announced that by the end of this year, Video Marketplace is coming to Canada and Europe. (link)

125 Million dollars from Video Marketplace. (link)

Jeff just announced that Xbox LIVE is now at 7-million members..that is one new Live member every 8 seconds. (link)

It sounds like the Xbox Live Video Marketplace is doing very well. As a Canadian I am particularly happy to hear that the service will finally be available in my country.

Check out Xbox.com for complete coverage of E3.

The New York Times ran an article on Monday about the Xbox Live Marketplace (XBLM), the “virtual market” that launched in November of last year (and which received it’s very own blade in the Spring 2007 update). Though still not available in Canada, I am quite interested in the service. The article includes a general overview and some interesting statistics:

Microsoft declined to give revenue figures for the service, but claims it has grown by double-digit figures each month since it was introduced.

The service currently offers more than 2,000 hours of programming. To prevent piracy, consumers have 24 hours to watch rented material before it is automatically expunged from the console’s hard drive.

I think Microsoft was smart to launch the service when they did. There’s a lot of room for improvement, but gaming consoles are definitely morphing into something more - call them entertainment consoles. Thanks to XBLM, Microsoft has a good lead over competitors.

Speaking of improvements, why not make it possible to synchronize content with the Zune? Currently it’s a one-way relationship: nothing leaves the Xbox 360.

Really though, I’d be happy if they launched XBLM here in Canada!