This year’s E3 Business and Media Summit in L.A. brought about several important announcements from Microsoft with regard to its Xbox 360 gaming console.

Most notably, the company talked about its new collaboration with Netflix that will allow its console to stream shows and movies directly on TVs.

According to Kotaku, this new service is intended to complement the already-made available Xbox Live Video Marketplace, rather than to replace it. Those lucky Xbox owners who had already subscribed to Netflix and currently have an Xbox LIVE Gold account will get the service for free.

For the time being, the list of movies and shows has about 10,000 entries; gamers will be able to access the service later on this year and will gain control of the media by using the Xbox 360 controller or Media Remote.

Netflix, Inc. of Los Gatos, CA, currently has more than eight million subscribers. The company has been doing quite well and is now making a lot more money than it used to, with earnings of $49 million in 2006 compared with a $6.5 million profit in 2003 for instance.

Furthermore, the Xbox 360 will be given the ability to load games from the hard drive. The original game disc still has to be inside the drive, but this new feature is expected to significantly speed up the game starting process.

Microsoft also announced a $50 price cut for the gaming console, thus bringing the cost down from $349 to $299 for the 20GB Xbox 360.