One of the big reveals at E3 was Microsoft's announcement of Xbox Live Anywhere, which basically means what it says. Xbox Live…Anywhere! While chatting with the MSN Casual Games people, the idea was explained in great detail to me as were several other elements regarding their branch in Microsoft.

A few statistics were thrown around to begin the sit down, namely that there are currently 16 million Messenger Game players a month and around 25 – 35 million casual game players during that same time span. Also, women over 35 make up 66% of the players each month who play MSN games. To me, that is an amazing number, which showcases exactly how many women are really gaming and what types of games they prefer.

The idea of Xbox Live Anywhere is that games will start to have components on more than the actual game discs, as mobile phones and PCs will also start incorporating game elements; spread out across all the various components will be one singular gamertag, so killerkatie will be killerkatie no matter if she is playing a game on her Xbox 360 or fiddling with something on her mobile phone. And that isn't only Windows phones either, as Java enabled phones will be able to work back and forth with the system as well.

Forza Motorsports was the game that the Casual Games people used to illustrate the principal of Xbox Live Anywhere, but whether the Forza information was only an example or what they actually hope to accomplish remains to be seen. To start off, say someone buys the upcoming Forza Motorsports for the Xbox 360, and with that purchase they'll be able to compete in both the game's single player and multiplayer aspects. If that person is away from their computer, but they are sitting down in front of their Windows Vista computer, the player could be able to upload car specs to a Paint program and design their car at their desk, and then that work can be ported over to the 360 so that car the player worked on will be changed right away once they boot up their system. If the player is on commute to work on, say, the bus, the player could whip out their cell and use it to tweak their car's tuning aspects, which they would they would then be able to upload to their console when they got home and all their tweaking would be reflected in their car almost instantaneously.

As for the mobile phone aspect, the ultimate goal is to make finding games easier and displaying as much info on that title as they can. The whole process starts with demos, which allows you to try before you buy, and if the buyer likes the game they are playing on their cell, they can almost use their phone like a remote to beam the purchase request to their 360 so that the game can be waiting for players once they get home. Also, any games purchased over the phone go straight to your phone bill rather than an alternate source.

Messages left over one source – such as the PC – will also be spread universally across all Xbox Live Anywhere devices, so if one person wants to challenge a friend to a game of GRAW once they get home from work, that message will go to the PC, 360, and cell phone so that the friend will have to really try to miss the message.

Other instances of the Xbox Live Anywhere in work includes working a puzzle game, being unable to solve it, and sending it over to your friend so they can help; once they help solve the puzzle, they can send the game straight back and you can continue right from where your friend got you. Players will also be able to watch friends play games, so when, say, that friend gets an Achievement, that video footage can be sent so that you can watch them actually accomplish what they did.

Overall, the demonstration was very informative, and though I thought it was quite gimmicky when I first heard about it from a friend, the actual implications are quite phenomenal and can open up the gaming community in many, many unique ways.