People who might have attempted to access Xbox.com extremely early this morning would have been greeted with a downtime message. The web page had been taken offline for a short time at 5am EST for its facelift—the Xbox Live service remained unaffected and gamers continued gaming through the wee hours. Now that it’s back, we can take a look at the enhancements we can expect from the service.

Some highlights from Major Nelson’s blog,

• Browser based Avatar editor: Edit your avatar and preview avatar items before purchase;
• Combined views for messages, friend and game requests;
• Improved notification of your account subscription;
• Leverage Family Reports to understand what your family is doing and how they are using LIVE;
• Play web games with your Xbox LIVE friends on the web or on Windows Phone 7;
• Marketplace: More powerful search and more intuitive ways to browse and filter.

Microsoft Corp’s Xbox Live service and web page continues to be a totem of social engagement for its extensive gaming community. Especially now that players can log in through their Windows Phone 7, update their avatars, and (if they’re stuck in a commute or at work) weep at how far ahead of them their friends are getting in their favorite games. Of course, unless one of those games also happens to be enabled on the Windows Phone 7.

That particular portion of the highlights really caught me by surprise and it’s something that I’d like to see more information about: what in Xbox Live can be played on the Windows Phone 7 as well as the Xbox? Certainly we’re probably not going to see Windows Phone 7 Borderlands, but it would be curious to actually play web games through Xbox with distant friends tethered to their phone by circumstance.

Plus, these sorts of developments will allow a certain amount of extra interactivity between players, scheduling, and the like—they will be able to check in through their phones before appearing at home, or see that their friends are all huddled together in the same game from the interface.

Even before the advent of social gaming, video games have already proven to be an immersive social gathering experience; the addition of networking and greater external immersion we’ve seen video games become a totemic watercooler for many circles of friends. When a living room can become anything from the beach at Normandy or a distant alien shore; when your friends can live a thousand miles away yet still play the same game as if they’re sitting on the couch next to you; that’s where video game technology bridges gaps of time and distance between gamers of all stripes.

Looking at the new Xbox website, it’s certainly flashy and beautiful (surprise! you’ll need Silverlight), I’ll have to indulge myself in some virtual clothing shopping to commemorate.