Election 2012 Hub coming to Xbox Live

Two sides competing for points with a range of tactics to take down their opposition will come to Xbox Live next week. But they're vying for the White House instead of the leaderboards. The U.S. Election 2012 Hub will receive its first wave of content on August 27, showcasing a range of prerecorded content as well as interactive polls and video streams from the upcoming Republican and Democratic National Conventions and elsewhere.

Microsoft will again collaborate with Rock the Vote (after working together in the 2008 election) to offer voter registration through the service as well as local information. The hub will also feature regular Obama and Romney campaign coverage from NBCnews.com, daily polls from online market research agency YouGov, and contributions from public policy fact-finding group Face the Facts USA.

"Technology has been a transformative force in politics during recent years," said Fred Humphries, vice president of government affairs at Microsoft. "By bringing the elections directly into the home through this Xbox platform, we hope to encourage greater participation in the democratic process this fall."

Some of the hub's features require an Xbox Live Gold membership to function, including NBC news updates and live event streams.