GiantBomb Blogs and News

None of the stuff Microsoft is adding to the 360 is a particularly bad idea, but the implementation of most of it is kind of awful. For starters, the current 360 dashboard (the good ol' NXE) is getting more and more cluttered and it's getting harder to simply get to stuff on it. It's also a bad way to present features that should be more integrated. Like Netflix before it, all of the new stuff feels really tacked on and crammed in. 
 
Facebook: The Facebook stuff is good for looking at photos of your friends on your TV, and that's about it. The slideshow stuff is pretty good and it shows the captions. But the rest of it, which tries to use the NXE-style panes to show you different information, is a pretty poor way to convey things like your friend-based news feed. This thing should be custom-built for TV screens, not thrown together using existing Microsoft UI ideas. 
 
Twitter: Twitter is, at least, not just another NXE design with new data splashed onto it. It has a custom look that better supports what Twitter is supposed to look like. But the main screen is limited to the last 50 things your followed users have said, getting around to see your replies/mentions isn't plainly obvious, and the lack of a web browser prevents you from seeing what URLs your followed users are linking to. It's kind of a mess and I can't really envision an actual use for this. Anyone currently using Twitter is using a better interface for it (though I recommend TweetDeck if you aren't already using it), and anyone not using Twitter already probably won't have a very good experience if they're only using it on the 360. I really don't see the point beyond the obvious bullet point of "EVERYONE IS TALKING ABOUT TWITTER AND YOU CAN USE IT ON OUR GAME MACHINE." The whole thing stinks of suits.
 
Zune Video/Music Marketplace: The streaming tech for video downloads is a welcome change. I don't watch many movies, but since I've had the same two discs from Netflix sitting on my desk for close to a year now, I'm thinking about scaling that back to the lowest possible Blu-Ray-friendly plan, primarily using the 360's Netflix streaming for movies, and occasionally renting a movie via this new Zune-branded stuff. $6 or so for an HD movie isn't a great price when you consider the different Netflix packages, but if you rarely watch movies, it's probably cheaper to pay this on demand price than it is to pay a monthly fee for a service you barely use. It all makes me wish that Netflix had a streaming-only plan. 
 
Oh, and it's weird that these new stores launch you off into a separate application instead of letting you sift through content directly from the dashboard, and it's even weirder that the Music Marketplace is actually just a Video Marketplace for music videos. Paying $2 for an SD download of a music video feels like just about the dumbest thing in the world. Aren't music videos supposed to be promotional tools to get people to buy albums? Considering MTV has free streams of most music videos and YouTube has bootleg copies of plenty of stuff, I don't see the appeal. 
 
Lastly, the Zune branding doesn't make any sense. It comes from the same store, but it's not like you sync your Zune to a 360 or something now. It makes all of it feel like "Video Marketplace, brought to you by Zune." Maybe someday you'll be able to use a Zune Pass to actually listen to music.
 
last.fm: I mainly like last.fm from a data perspective. It's neat to see what I've been listening to broken down into charts and graphs. The streaming side of last.fm still feels like a poor man's Pandora, and the NXE-style content displays probably aren't the best way to convey last.fm's data. There also doesn't seem to be any sort of support for the social side of last.fm, like seeing other users, groups, and so on. Considering that most of this stuff also doesn't exist in last.fm's iPhone app, I can only assume that most people don't care about any of that stuff and only want to hear music. I've mainly used the site for the data and recommendations, but I'd rather sift through a lot of text and user profiles to get those recommendations and then make a decision to listen to specific tracks instead of just hitting some kind of "recommended for you" station. Oh, but the nice thing they've done is the video ads (which are mainly just Brutal Legend and a house ad for last.fm at this point) are the same volume as your music. So the ads don't blare at you to get your attention. 
 
So yeah, none of these ideas are awful, but I also feel like the 360 has already outgrown the "new" dashboard. They're trying to do too many different things and cramming all of it into the NXE's panes leads to a lot of confusing interactions. Also, I'm not really sure who the audience is for some of this stuff. Twitter especially sticks out as some kind of executive mandate to add to the Xbox 360 "story."

There will be people who love the new features coming out.  While I'm not really into the whole social networking thing at the moment, they are neat little features.  I just wish they are a little better.  There really isn't much to the Twitter app.  You just post your status and well, that's pretty much it.  With Facebook, I wish you could chat with your friends online (the IM thing) from your Xbox.  The Last.fm addition will be used by a lot of people I think.  Just search for something you like an away you go.  I just wish you could use last.fm outside the application it self.  All and all, they are nice but, Facebook and Twitter could have used a little more work but, they still get the job done.

I should start with the disclaimer that I'm not much of a social networking kind of guy. I like Twitter because I don't need to offer up much in the way of personal information, and I can follow the comments of friends and interesting people easily. Facebook doesn't serve much of a purpose for me; in fact, the only reason I have a Facebook account is because I accidentally completed the account creation process while trying to figure out if an automated "check your address book" system was the reason my dad had been getting spammed with Facebook invites. I've since glanced at Facebook occasionally, but I have all of five friends on there. Five. I don't see a reason to network with hundreds of people I don't know or care about, since that seems a tad insincere.

That said, I like the new social networking additions to Xbox Live, but I really wish more effort was put into better integrating Facebook, Twitter, and last.fm into the service as a whole. Simply having them as stand-alone applications smattered across the NXE interface cheapens their existence somewhat, and really makes me think Microsoft rushed these ideas out, or wasn't all that interested in them to begin with.

Let's start with Twitter. The interface you launch into is fine for an external interface, but how about giving the option to tweet in the middle of a game by opening up the guide? I'd even be interested in the option of having a Twitter-colored notification pop up, much like for achievements or friends signing on, any time I receive an @ reply through Twitter (though that would be an incredible nuisance for anyone with a mass following).

I understand there are future plans for Facebook integration with Facebook connect, but I'd like to see a lot more integration for Facebook than Twitter. Wouldn't those notorious Uncharted 2-style Twitter updates work better posted as automatic summaries on Facebook? I'd be all right with my Xbox reporting to Facebook that I broke a certain gamerscore barrier or beat a game, along with other significant accomplishments. Furthermore, with the emphasis on Facebook's photo albums, I'd love to have the option to post any pictures I took in Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, Forza 3, or any other game directly to albums on my account.

As for last.fm, I think everyone wants to be able to use that feature outside of the application. Plain and simple.

Certainly a lot of these ideas would require game developers to jump on board and force Microsoft to retool the NXE interface. I think the lack of any of that shows just how poorly Microsoft planned out these features. Is that a shame? Absolutely. I still think there's a lot of potential in proper integration on consoles that would increase the value of both these internet social networks and Xbox Live at the same time.

(I have no comments on the Zune marketplace. I still avoid watching movies ever since my eyes gazed upon the Rollerball remake.)

From the Quick Look, the facebook integration looks pretty crappy. Last.fm looks cool however, as long as I can listen to some Queens Of The Stone Age! Can't say anything about Twitter because I don't use it anymore.

None of the features that Microsoft is integrating on their UI feel risky or revolutionary but I'm happy that they are there. I use Twitter and Facebook, but I can only image using these features every once and a while. Last.FM sounds extremely inciting because I use Last.FM (though I'm not a paying subscriber) and am looking forward to using it on my Xbox 360. As for the Zune Marketplace I happen to be an owner of a Zune so this was a more than welcomed addition to the Xbox. Sure I already have synched my Zune to my Xbox 360, but I want the option to buy virtual media whenever I please.

I'm just going by what I saw in the Quick Look but yeah, it looked pretty dumb. Twitter on my Xbox, no thanks. There is easier ways to use twitter already. Last.FM was the only thing I was actually interested in but if you can't use it while playing a game then what's the point? Who uses their TV as a music player?

Very little overall.  The movie functions are probably the most interesting to me, followed by the music.  But I am disappointed to learn that you can't use last.fm while in-game which makes that feature pretty much pointless for almost every user out there, and I really could give two-shits about the social networking features; I feel they are there for two kinds of people, the casual, and the insecure.  I really just cannot see the reasoning behind why the social features were included, personally.

It's cool that they're adding those features to the Xbox 360, and I might even use it every once in a while, but I'm not filled with an abundance of excitement.

As a person who would like to pretend that he has real friends and a real life, I really don't give a shit about "social networking", which is pretty much all that this update does. Therefore, Facebook (bleh), Twitter (super bleh), HD streaming (that's why I have Netflix), and Last.FM (meh) all epitomize stuff that I will never, ever, ever, use, and even if I did the general consensus is that these things aren't implemented well anyways.

I don't have a facebook account, I think facebook is for dumb people.
 
I don't use twitter, it's only good for stalking celebrities.
 
last.fm?  Well I haven't ever bothered with the site, I mostly listen to MP3s, and I've put a lot of my favorite songs on my 360's HDD.  You can't listen to last.fm on the 360 in games, so it's almost completely useless.
 
All things considered, it's the most worthless 360 update yet.

is the only thing ive tried so far kinda sucks you cant have it always on while your playing a game because that would have been kinda awesome.

Will it work with that new Civilizations thing?

I'm going to hold my tongue to see how much of this works in Canada. My guess is that any of the ones that I might be interested in (Zune Market place) won't be available or be severely crippled when it comes up here.
Twitter integration reminds me of the linux fad back in the day where anything with a circuit board was being modded to boot the 2.x kernel. As soon as I can send & receive tweets from my toaster I know the fad is well passed. Ditto for Facebook.
If these features were reactive with what I was doing (e.g Facebook status for what game I'm playing or Achievement I made) then I might be interested but I can check any one of these services via my cell phone, laptop, microwave WITHOUT having to stop playing whatever game I have in at the time.
Gold star for trying but sad face for implementation.

My PC is runs through my sound system and HDTV so I have all these features in a more accessible package. That would be a big 'meh' from my end. I run my xbox exclusively for games. I don't spin the drive for DVDs or listen to music on it nor do I see myself ever doing so.

After replying to jeff's blog directly, I started thinking about the issue in a light that I'd previously neglegted. 
 
As a silver member, do these features make paying for a gold account more tempting?
In short, no.
When I consider it this way, I think the importance of the intergration of these add ons becomes all the more important. This is simply because the feature set of a gold account (from a purely fiscal point of view) seems so inconsistent and trivial. Particularly when I consider what Im already enjoying on my PC, laptop, mobile pohone and of course, PS3.
 
To put it simply - 
Playing games is free, easy and reliable on my PC and PS3. 
Social Networking is already portable and perfectly realised between my Laptop, PC and even if i need to, my PS3. Streaming movie services are simply faster on my PC, and frankly since the xbox doesnt even come with a wireless modem, watching that stuff on my TV isnt an option since the modem is in another room to the TV. Its just as easy to throw a HDMI cable from the laptop to the TV. And perhaps more importantly, Netflix + Sony's own streaming service + ABC iView (BBC iView in england) is already out/on the way for my PS3 anyway, making that 'feature' utterly redundant.
 
So what the hell am I paying for? why would I possibly consider getting a gold acocunt. At least thats how it seems right now, maybe microsoft is gonna blow me away in the coming months and I'll cave in, who knows. 
 
Just my 2 cents :)

I agree with Jeff's senitments that these ideas aren't bad. In fact, a little more exposure to mainstream audiances can only help the platform. The execution is horrid. The dashboard has made less and less sense as time has gone by and there needs to be a serious sit down look at the organization of the dashboard. 
 
Also, does anyone find it ironic that they are implementing all these features which are web-based ideas, and yet the platform is still missing a web browser?

A games console being about games? i have a computer for Twitter and facebook. the only thing that interests me is Last FM.

...it's all good. 
 
But seriously, my guess is that when the "project natal" stuff happens, that's when you'll see a new dashboard, new web-browsing funcitons, and then all of this stuff will come together.  As for now it all seems like it's happening so they can put that stuff on the front of the box as a bullet point. 
 
Also, my understanding of Zune, is that MS is moving the brand to a more "software" state.  The software will be coming to other devices like Windows 7 Mobile, and probably even the iPhone.  Imagine Zune Pass on iPhone.  iTunes would become obsolete.  So, seeing it come to Xbox is probably just the beginning of "Zune App" technology. 

I just feel that some of the features, if not all of them, could have been incorporated into Xbox Live in more of a slick fashion that makes them more readily and easily available. I'd like twitter to run in the background as well as the Zune marketplace. I'm relatively sure that Microsoft is saving this for another update, however, it's hard not to feel as if the pieces which connect these new features to the service (as a whole) are strangely missing.

Honestly, no thanks, I'd prefer to do all my networking on my mobile or computer, having it on my console is just overkill. Not to mention its much easier to customize your 'networking experience' outside of your console. I mean, who the hell wants to use the onscreen keyboard or pay sixty dollars for a crappy peripheral to edit your facebook/twitter? 
 
The movie streaming is a great feature, since Netflix doesn't work up here in Canada so this is a great alternative. Personally, I never go to rental stores anymore cause its inconvenient to drive all the way to the store, spend thirty minutes deciding what to rent, then heading back home only to lose interest in watching a movie. Now I can be lazy and stay home to do the exact same thing without the long trip. 
 
The music is w/e. I use my iPhone for that.