Microsoft has announced ambitious plans to tie together personal computers, televisions and its Xbox games consoles in a push into the rapidly converging consumer electronics market.

In his keynote speech opening the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas yesterday, Microsoft's chairman, Bill Gates, announced a series of innovations designed to blur the dividing lines between PCs, internet entertainment and TV.

Mr Gates showed off new devices intended to work alongside Windows Media Center PCs - computers running a version of the Windows XP operating system which have enhanced home entertainment facilities as well as traditional computing features.

New gadgets from several manufacturers will take digital content from PCs - such as music, video and photographs stored on the computer or downloaded via broadband internet connections - and distribute them to TV screens and handheld devices around the home through a wireless network.

Mr Gates said the vision of the "digital home" was only now becoming a reality after years of hype. In promising much for the integration of digital devices during the 1990s, he said, the computer industry had "got ahead of itself" and failed to deliver in functionality or ease of use.

"Now things are really being delivered," he told a 1,500-strong audience, "and the big winners are consumers."

Microsoft itself has struggled to expand beyond its traditional stronghold of the computer desktop.

It hoped to make inroads into interactive TV as far back as 1997, when it spent $425m (£233m) to acquire WebTV. But that service's growth stalled during the dotcom boom amid disagreements over strategy, and WebTV was eventually folded into Microsoft's MSN internet services division.

The company's latest attempts to move into the living room are being supported by a number of partners. Later this year PC manufacturers in cluding Dell, HP and Samsung will produce the Windows Media Center Extender. This will connect to a TV and provide a bridge to media stored on household PCs and the internet.

Wireless technology built into the PC and Extender will remove the need for a cable between computer and TV, while the computer will still be free for other applications.

Computer manufacturers Gateway and HP are also to produce all-in-one Media Center flatscreen TV sets to display digital content.