The Xbox360 is a pretty powerful gaming system, but what most people know is that it is also a powerful multimedia system too. Did you know you can play anime, movies, or TV shows that you have on your computer, on the Xbox360? You can take your favorite anime or show that you download every week on the computer, and watch it on your nice big screen tv in your living room. Today I will show you one way to make this happen.

The method I will show you will require you to have an XboxLive Silver or Gold account, and we will be using an external hard-drive to view your anime from. I will be using my Western Digital 500gig External HD. Also note, the HD must be formatted as FAT32 and not NTFS in order for the Xbox360 to see it. I use this HD pretty much as my media storage and have my media all sorted out to make it easy for me to find stuff. So grab your external hd and throw some anime or shows on there, and simply hook up the HD to either the front or back USB port on your Xbox360.

Turn on your Xbox360 and log into your gamer profile. Scroll over to the media blade on your dashboard, and go into the Video section. Press “X” to select the source of where you want to select your videos from. Select Portable Device, and you should be able to see all the folders you have on your HD. Select the video that you want to watch, and attempt to play it.

You should get an error saying the content is unplayable and that you require a media update in order to play the file. If you are already logged into a Silver or Gold account, you should be given an option at the bottom to download update. If not, log into one, and try again. You would be taken to a download screen to get the Optional Media Update. After a quick download, try playing the video again. You should now be able to watch it.

Congratulations! You can now watch your favorite anime and TV show in the comfort of your living room. As you can see by the pictures, the quality is as clear as you were watching it on your computer monitor, it is just now bigger you dont have to be all close to your monitor while watching. Also a plus if you have a few friends over who want to watch it too. No more crowding around the computer desk to watch the latest Naruto Shippuden episode!

Now a few things I’ve noticed. You should be able to play all windows media player video formats except for .mkv, .mov, and probably .rm files. Also, I have noticed that even after you download the media update, you will still get the unplayable error if you are not logged into a Silver or Gold account. Wierd. Hopefully Microsoft will address this problem in the next update. Also note, that the pictures you have seen in this post were taken from my cell phone, so excuse the poor quality of the photos, or buy me a new digital camera, your choice.

Well I hope this worked for you, if not, feel free to leave a question and I will try my best to help. Cya next time!

Now for a few more pictures of anime on the Xbox360.