Sky and Microsoft have announced that the Sky Player online television service is coming to the Xbox 360 platform this autumn.



The service will feature Sky Player's full complement of films, music and sports coverage, as well as entertainment, documentary and children's shows.



Content will be available via live stream and on-demand, with a range of different service packages and pay-per-view tariffs. 



Speaking to Digital Spy, Sky commercial director Stephen Nuttall promised a "fantastic line-up of content" from the service that he believes is "going to appeal to millions of consumers in the UK and Ireland".



Nuttall explained that the service is coming to Microsoft's console rather than Sony's PS3 or Nintendo's Wii due to Sky's strong relationship with the firm.



"We've had a very fruitful relationship with them over the years. The Xbox opportunity came up and it looked like a really good thing to go for; so we went and did it," he said.



Neil Thompson, head of Xbox UK and Ireland, pointed out that the service will make use of the interactive features on Xbox Live.



He said that groups of friends will be able to come together online to watch Sky Sports football matches and then use their Avatars to interact via voice and other connections. 



"If you think about FanZone today on Sky, the Xbox service enables you to create a unique, personalised FanZone just for you and your friends; which we think is going to be incredibly compelling," he explained. 



Nuttall pointed out that the Xbox Sky Player is all about maximising choices for how users consume television content.



Alongside PC/Mac, mobile phones and the set-top-box, this addition will give a greater choice of platforms, each offering "different things".



To maximise service quality, especially for live content, Nuttall advised that Xbox 360 owners should aim for a broadband connection of 2Mbps.



"The platform has some clever technology within it that checks the effective speed of your connection and adjusts the video rate so that it works within those constraints," he explained. 



"Obviously it's an over-the-top delivery, so we are not guaranteeing service quality end-to-end, but we are doing the maximum possible to deliver a high quality service."