"My phone and tablet are keeping up with all of the action on the TV," he said.

In addition to games, television shows and movies, SmartGlass worked with Web browsing. Game consoles like Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3 have long featured Web browsers, but they've typically been difficult to navigate with a game controller. Whitten showed how consumers could use a smartphone to control what's happening in Internet Explorer on Xbox. He scrolled through a Web page and was able to pinch to zoom in. All actions on the smartphone were also completed on the Xbox-connected television.

SmartGlass will work on Windows 8 PCs and tablets, Windows phones and other devices like Apple's iPad.