• by Shankar Gupta , April 13, 2007

MSN Messenger, Microsoft's instant messaging app, despite being the most popular client worldwide, has always played second fiddle to AOL Instant Messenger. AOL's lead was in part because AIM had a huge head start -- and it was attached to the ISP of choice for many Americans in the early days of the Web.

But thanks to Microsoft's presence in the gaming world, this hierarchy might be about to change. MSN Messenger -- now doing business as Windows Live Messenger as part of Microsoft's arcane rebranding of all its online properties except MSN -- is being integrated into Xbox Live, allowing gamers to communicate with other Live players and their Windows Live Messenger buddy list.

Microsoft's inclusion of instant messaging services in its Xbox 360 platform is just its latest sally in the console wars, countering Sony's recent announcement about a Playstation 3-based virtual world and social network.

It's a similar situation to the one my colleague Josh Lovison wrote about last week, noting the use of the 360 as a distribution platform for HDTV content. As Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo develop their latest-gen video game consoles, the ramifications spread far across existing media.

Microsoft and Sony are each struggling to offer a gaming system that allows users to engage in social gaming. But, as a side benefit to Microsoft, the Xbox's integration of its messaging tool could easily be the wedge that finally shifts AOL's advantage in instant messaging marketshare.