The first of a new wave of features on Xbox Live will greet subscribers when they log into the world’s largest online gaming service after an update this Wednesday. Starting on Wednesday, April 21st at 6 a.m., Xbox Live servers will be offline for as long as 24 hours while new features are added. Once back online, gamers will be able to send Voice Messages with their friend and game invites to other gamers, further personalizing their online gaming experience. Voice Messages are just one of several new upcoming features on gamers’ wish lists worldwide and further validates Xbox Live as the innovation leader in the online gaming category.

Additionally, game developers are currently being provided with new Live features that, when incorporated into their games, will afford gamers the following benefits:

• Teams: Gamers will be able to easily form teams and notify them of matches, strategies and even upcoming competitions.
• Competitions: Empowers gamers to easily create their own tournaments while in-game; as easy as creating, inviting and playing for all their favorite games across any game genre.
• Online Content Swapping: Title managed online storage allows gamers to create and share mottos, emblems, and custom content and create and update maps, rosters, and other environment data.
• Level Playing Field Technology: New arbitration and reliability technologies reduce players’ ability to cheat online, while increasing reliability ratings for all players and penalizing actions like disconnects during games.

Many of these new features are expected to debut later this year with new Xbox Live titles. By this time next month, there will be more than 100 Xbox Live-enabled titles available to consumers, the most available online titles on any video games platform.