A Microsoft executive has confirmed Microsoft's plans to develop original series and offer them through the Xbox 360 and Xbox One videogame consoles early next year. Speaking at Variety's Dealmakers Breakfast at the Four Seasons Hotel in Los Angeles earlier this week, Nancy Tellem, president of entertainment and digital for Microsoft, said that Microsoft plans to "put something up in the first quarter, at minimum second quarter" of 2014. The shows will be available through Xbox Live.

She added that the programs will include "a high-profile project based around "Halo," with Steven Spielberg producing.

Tellem's words come as Microsoft - and also Sony - is trying to put the video game consoles in gamers' living rooms.

Tellem says that her team at Microsoft is still at work figuring out what sort of content Xbox owners will want to see, as well as the business models most conducive to producing content on the Xbox platform. Still in the works are the number of episodes that will be on order for any particular series.

"Depending on the piece of content, the deals change," Tellem said. "We're talking about exclusives, exclusive first windows, exclusive second windows. We play a lot with windows and co-production arrangements" and "whether we feel these are ideas are franchise building or we can own completely."

With 48 million Xbox Live subscribers on more than 72 million Xbox consoles around the world, Tellem has a large base of viewers to put her first shows in front of.