High Road Montreal recently had the pleasure of working with Xbox to put together an event to promote the latest features of Xbox LIVE, the online entertainment experience that lets you play Kinect and controller games with friends, as well as instantly watch HD movies, TV shows and sports.

While High Road has teamed up with Xbox before to unveil some of those awesome new features in to Canadian media, this was the first chance we had to present Xbox LIVE’s latest features to the Quebec market.

To make the event more relevant to local media, we partnered up with Radio-Canada to showcase their TOU.TV app. Launched online in 2010, TOU.TV is a go-to portal for all Radio Canada content.

Available for the first time on a gaming console—the Xbox 360— TOU.TV is also the first-ever app to deliver French Canadian content to Xbox users, showing the gaming giant’s commitment to the Quebec market.

Xbox was also unveiling the much anticipated app, Karaoke, which was developed in partnership with Stingray Digital, a Montreal-based company. While the app’s name alone sells itself, Karaoke gives users access to over 8,000 songs in its music library, almost guaranteeing a good time.

In the end, Montreal’s top entertainment, lifestyle and gaming media attended the event.  The attendees loved singing along with the Karaoke app and couldn’t get enough of Xbox Live and the new TOU.TV app.

Working with the Xbox Live team was nothing short of exciting.

The only question the HRC team were left wondering was this: Can this really be considered work when everything’s just fun and games?

Hundreds of people lined up to check out the grand opening of the first international Microsoft Retail Store at Toronto’s Yorkdale Shopping Centre on November 16^th, the first retail hub outside of the United States.

Consumers, customers and Microsoft partners were excited to watch as the curtain dropped and the store doors officially opened in Canada – and High Road was thrilled to work with Microsoft to make it happen.

In advance of the grand opening, over twenty Canadian media were invited to the store for a sneak peek and had the opportunity to play with the latest products including, the coveted Surface tablet and the new Windows Phone 8.  The Microsoft Store manager, Alison Evans, and Microsoft’s Eastern U.S. marketing manager, Pete Harrington, were on hand to talk to media about Microsoft’s store strategy and what consumers can expect from the store.

On November 16^th, Toronto’s top broadcast stations were onsite to capture the excitement of the day.

The result? Tons of buzz both online and offline with attention from top tier outlets including Global News, CTV.ca and the Globe and Mail.  Not to mention, media and consumers were thrilled for the chance to chat with Microsoft Canada’s president, Max Long about the new store opening.

To kick things up another notch, Microsoft celebrated the grand opening with Wayne Gretzky and the band Train who were onsite during opening weekend to celebrate with consumers.  Gretzky was at the store playing Kinect with a few lucky consumers, and Train held a private concert on November 17^th outside of the Yorkdale mall.

Overall, the store opening was a huge success and Torontonians are delighted to have a Microsoft Store close to home.  Check out what people had to say:

The future of television is now.

Xbox LIVE recently unveiled the next generation of TV entertainment with its redesigned dashboard and new custom apps from world-leading TV and entertainment content providers. High Road helped kick-off the launch with a breakfast media event at Xbox 360 Central in Toronto.

Despite the wet weather, the space was buzzing with anticipation. Glenn Purkis, Xbox LIVE Product Manager, unveiled the new dash and left the crowd awe-struck after demonstrating the new voice-powered navigation features. That’s right: users can now navigate by simply speaking to their Xbox. With the power of Kinect, you say it, Xbox finds it.

Check it out:

Following the presentation, media chatted one-on-one with Purkis and representatives from content partners including Rogers On Demand, Disney XD, Real Sports, UFC, Crackle, YouTube, Vevo, Zune, and MSN.ca.

The highly-anticipated event drew more than 30 media from tech, gaming, sports and lifestyle outlets.