Silverlight is hardly over, Microsoft is bringing it to the Xbox 360

There has been so much talk about the future of Silverlight in the last few weeks that nearly no one has a clear idea as to if the platform has a future or not. Heck, even we’re not exactly sure what Microsoft has in mind, and we’ve read everything on the topic.

Mixed messages however do swing both ways, and while we have seen some negative signs for the platform, a new job posting from Microsoft today should put a smile on the face of every Silverlight fan.

Microsoft, it seems, is bringing Silverlight to one of its most successful product lines: the Xbox 360. Yes, “looking to hire motivated developers with a passion for creating ground breaking multiscreen platform experiences,” Microsoft is going to bring the power of Silverlight to its living-room behemoth.

What does that mean? This revelation combined with the prominence of Silverlight in the development process for WP7 gives the impression that Microsoft has not given up on the product at all.

There is a less enthusiastic interpretation of the hiring however. Microsoft could be merely looking to improve cross-platform compatibility between WP7 and Xbox 360 in the short-term, giving the hires no real long-term strategic importance if the Redmond giant plans on replacing Silverlight on Windows Phone 7 in the future. Time will tell, but tonight the legions of Silverlight developers can sleep a little easier.

This is the job posting:

Job Category: Software Engineering: Development

Location: United States, WA, Redmond

Job ID: 740317 29869

Product: Microsoft Silverlight

Division: Server & Tools Business

Silverlight is looking to hire motivated developers with a passion for creating ground breaking multiscreen platform experiences now targeting the XBOX.

Silverlight is a fast paced, fun and winning team that ships yearly and is making serious inroads in the marketplace. It is a cross-browser, cross-platform, developer platform that is based on XAML and already running on Windows, Mac, set-top-boxes and Windows Phones. Numerous industry partners are already using Silverlight to deliver high end and cutting edge internet and mobile experiences to millions of users, including Netflix, NBC Olympics, Seesmic, Facebook, Foursquare and Twitter. Microsoft teams such as Sql reporting services, Office Communicator are already using Silverlight and many more will be in the future.

One of the unique things about our team is how closely we partner with customers to make them successful with our technology – whether it’s one of the thousands of applications developed for Windows Phone 7, social network applications such as Seesmic, or powering the largest premium internet movie service through Netflix. With our next wave of releases we are looking to increase by an order of magnitude our usage, customer base and reach.

As a developer you will be responsible for delivering features for Silverlight on the XBOX as part of the next wave.

Candidates must have 5+ years of professional development experience in C++ and a willingness to work on new operating systems and languages.