Xbox 360 Fall Preview - Quick Review
Oct. 23rd, 2009 09:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
slycatSo I was given access to the new version of the Xbox 360 dashboard this morning following signing up for the preview program. For UK people, this update currently adds Twitter, Facebook, Last.FM and a rebranded video marketplace called Zune. Now I was really excited about the introduction of Last.FM to the 360 because I had expected to be able to listen to my recommended station or whatever while playing my favourite games. However unless I've just not found the option, this is not possible. You can only access Last.FM through the Last.FM app, and this seems to be a theme with all the new features of this update. When you're playing music in Last.FM, all you can do is watch a slideshow of photos of the artist you're listening to or select other tracks/stations.
One thing I like about the way the Xbox dashboard works is that it's all in the background of everything you do, however these new features aren't really part of the dashboard, they're applications running on the Xbox just like games. So as you can imagine, it kinda weakens the advantage of having Twitter or Facebook on the Xbox. I suppose the latter gives you a very good interface for browsing what your friends are doing and photos, etc, however with the Twitter integration I had expect this to be running all the time so say when you're playing a game and someone sends you a message you get a little notification of the message appear like you do when an Xbox friend sends you a message. Again, I may have just not found the option to do this but it doesn't seem to be there.
I've not really played with the Zune video marketplace but being in the UK, all it offers is films that were available before, but now in 1080p. It claims to be able to start playing immediately by streaming rather than have to download which I've not tried out yet as I'd have to pay for a film, however I see the use of this being somewhat limited as not everyone has a connection good enough to stream 1080p video... in fact very few do, so unless the video is heavily compressed, this isn't going to work well. The Zune video also lets you watch the videos with friends over the internet which is an OK idea if you like talking about a film while watching it but you would still both need to pay for the film.
Other features which are coming which haven't made it into this preview release are Halo Waypoint (coming late next week apparently) which I'm not that fussed about as I don't play Halo that much. However the other new feature is the Sky Player which is the UK's answer to Netflix which the Americans get. To be honest, I would prefer Lovefilm (our version of Netflix) to offer streaming movie via your monthly flat rate subscription like what Netflix does, however depending on price I may be happy with the Sky Player. I can't get Sky due to renting and not having access to a dish so this would be my only way to watch Sky. It will allegedly give access to live TV channels as well as a library of on demand video which are covered in your respective subscription. You can also watch stuff with friends like in the Zune video thing but I'm not too bothered by this. Hopefully this will be good and not cost too much.
In summary, the new dashboard while giving the features it advertised, is a bit of a disappointment. There's so much they could have done better. Who knows, maybe the integration will be better with future dashboard releases, but at the moment I can't see myself using any of the new features that much considering they demand full control of your Xbox and you can't do anything else while using them. To those who didn't sign up for the preview, I think everyone gets access to this by November 17th as that was the proposed release date for the Sky Player, but it could be sooner than that.
One thing I like about the way the Xbox dashboard works is that it's all in the background of everything you do, however these new features aren't really part of the dashboard, they're applications running on the Xbox just like games. So as you can imagine, it kinda weakens the advantage of having Twitter or Facebook on the Xbox. I suppose the latter gives you a very good interface for browsing what your friends are doing and photos, etc, however with the Twitter integration I had expect this to be running all the time so say when you're playing a game and someone sends you a message you get a little notification of the message appear like you do when an Xbox friend sends you a message. Again, I may have just not found the option to do this but it doesn't seem to be there.
I've not really played with the Zune video marketplace but being in the UK, all it offers is films that were available before, but now in 1080p. It claims to be able to start playing immediately by streaming rather than have to download which I've not tried out yet as I'd have to pay for a film, however I see the use of this being somewhat limited as not everyone has a connection good enough to stream 1080p video... in fact very few do, so unless the video is heavily compressed, this isn't going to work well. The Zune video also lets you watch the videos with friends over the internet which is an OK idea if you like talking about a film while watching it but you would still both need to pay for the film.
Other features which are coming which haven't made it into this preview release are Halo Waypoint (coming late next week apparently) which I'm not that fussed about as I don't play Halo that much. However the other new feature is the Sky Player which is the UK's answer to Netflix which the Americans get. To be honest, I would prefer Lovefilm (our version of Netflix) to offer streaming movie via your monthly flat rate subscription like what Netflix does, however depending on price I may be happy with the Sky Player. I can't get Sky due to renting and not having access to a dish so this would be my only way to watch Sky. It will allegedly give access to live TV channels as well as a library of on demand video which are covered in your respective subscription. You can also watch stuff with friends like in the Zune video thing but I'm not too bothered by this. Hopefully this will be good and not cost too much.
In summary, the new dashboard while giving the features it advertised, is a bit of a disappointment. There's so much they could have done better. Who knows, maybe the integration will be better with future dashboard releases, but at the moment I can't see myself using any of the new features that much considering they demand full control of your Xbox and you can't do anything else while using them. To those who didn't sign up for the preview, I think everyone gets access to this by November 17th as that was the proposed release date for the Sky Player, but it could be sooner than that.
