The US has been making gamers in the UK and Ireland seethe with jealousy over the whole Netflix on Xbox thing. But not for much longer as the land of the funny accents and copious amounts of tea is about to get a similar service from satellite TV provider, Sky. But it'll be going that extra mile and straming live TV, yes LIVE TV!

Sky are famous over this side of the pond for their sports channels among other things and are planning to stream live football matches with their Xbox service as well as TV shows and films which means that the UK and Ireland will be getting the world's first Xbox Live streaming TV service.

Scheduled to start in autumn, British and Irish Xbox Live subscribers will gain access to Sky's Sky Player service which is just like the Hulu service in the US which is also rumoured to be coming to US Xboxes and is also rumoured to be announced at E3 this week.

The Sky service is to include subscription-based live shows, on-demand movies and shows from the past, as well as pay-per-view sports events like boxing, Premiership football and WWE werstling events, and all without using a set top box or satellite dish.

Specifics like prices and channel line-ups have not been announced yet but it's reasonable to assume that the content will be similar to what I listed as that's pretty much the Sky Player content available on PC and Mac.

One interesting application with this is that Xbox Live users will be able to watch sporting content together which in the case of football will allow viewers to abuse...sorry I mean discuss in an adult manner the differences between their favourite teams via avatars. Just like a real match but without the risk of arrest and more importantly without leaving the house and your beloved Xbox home alone.