Election 2012 Brings the Presidential Contest to Xbox Live

Video game publisher and hardware maker Microsoft announced that it would be launching a new Xbox Live section called Election 2012 on August 27, which is created in partnership with Rock the Vote, YouGov, Face the Facts USA and NBC.

The new section of the service is designed to give gamers all the information they need regarding the Presidential Elections in the United States, which pit incumbent Democrat Barrack Obama against Republican Mitt Romney.

Election 2012 on Xbox Live allows gamers to see the most recent polls, devour news and other information and they can even use it to register to vote in November via a simple online form.

Chrissy Faesen, who is the vice president of marketing and communications at Rock the Vote, has stated, “There’s a growing audience of individuals getting their election information solely from online platforms.”

Douglas Rivers, a representative from YouGov added, “A large, engaged but uncommitted audience, Xbox Swing Voters are a technically savvy and passionate voting bloc.”

Microsoft has pushed the point further by showing that out of a number of 1,678 households who use Xbox Live, 40 percent are swing voters, which means that both the Republican and the Democrat parties should try and secure their choice.

The Microsoft survey also shows that 39% of those it has surveyed are seeing unemployment and jobs as the core issue of the Presidential election with 29 percent focused on healthcare and a lower 22% interested in the tax plans of the candidates.

Those who log into Xbox Live also follow political news weekly, with some of them actually checking in every day.

During the last year, Microsoft tried to expand the appeal of Xbox Live, as it pushes the entire Xbox 360 line out of the video games space and into the wider entertainment area.