Paramount Pictures and Xbox have announced the launch of the Xbox Movie Showcase that features free, high-definition, downloadable content from Paramount's movies on the console's Xbox live service.

The two companies announced they have partnered to bring a wide variety of content to the online Xbox community platform, including movie trailers, graphics that can be used to customize Xbox games and contests whose winners will get to play games against stars from the studio's films.

The first two movies to be on the Xbox Movie Showcase are Mission: Impossible III and Nacho Libre to be releasing this summer. Paramount’s relationship with Xbox began in December with the unveiling of the HD teaser trailer for Mission: Impossible III.

Xbox claims that more than 2 million users of its game console are currently members of the Xbox Live community, and its marketplace where users can buy and sell add-ons for their games has seen more than 10 million downloads with 600,000 text messages sent every day.

In an interview with Germany's Der Speigel, Microsoft's Head of European console business, Chris Lewis apparently confirmed that the Xbox 360 will be able to play HD DVD movies.

An external HD DVD player for the Xbox 360 was announced at last January's Consumer Electronics Show and Lewis said another announcement will be made next month at the E3 show.

When asked about the console's lack of an HDMI port – which may yet be necessary to play some HD DVDs at full resolution because of restrictions the format's copy protection system allows content vendors to impose – Lewis responded: "All I can say to you is: there are interesting developments in the pipeline. We will make sure that the HD DVD peripheral device will meet all the requirements for consumers to enjoy high-definition DVD playback."

Lewis also used the interview to dismiss the Blu-ray Disc as another Betamax. "Blu-ray right now reminds us of another technology from Sony: Betamax," he said. "A bit like VHS - we think that HD DVD is the format that consumers, film studios and publishers will embrace."

Story filed 24.04.06