As I was noodling around our new WordPress 2.5-flavored site, I decided to leaf through a couple of our very first posts, and I came across one of my very first posts back when the 360 had just been out to market for a couple of months. I thought it might be interesting to repost some of my suggestions, and see how they fared through dashboard updates:
Dashboard Interface
Blade Cleanup (Importance: Low)
Generally speaking, I think the Blades have become quite concise. I had some suggestions about how to organize the Marketplace, and thankfully Microsoft has since added an entire Marketplace blade for us, as well as implemented some structural changes to make things easier to find.
Sorting Options & Miscellanea (Importance: Medium)
The two main things I suggested here were sorting by filename and immediate playback. The first of these two things is most notably absent when managing music, and this has yet to be fixed. The immediate playback was added in the latest dashboard update (simply hit “Start” on an item to begin playback).
Dashboard Features
Background Downloading (Importance: High)
Case closed, this was added soon after my original post. My one still-existing request is to have a top-level button on the Guide blade for near immediate access to the status of the download, as opposed to having it buried under “Personal Settings” (huh?).
Video Support (Importance: High)
The most recent dashboard update has in fact added MPEG-4 Advanced Simple Profile support (read: Xvid/Divx), as well as H.264 support (read: Quicktime support) making much of my complaint now fully addressed. I also asked for user-installable codecs so that we don’t have to wait for Microsoft to bless us with new codecs, but they’ve essentially addressed my most-requested filetypes, so I can consider this one mostly complete. The last piece (I’ll bring this up again I’m sure) is having complete support for Windows Media Connect (now Windows Media Player 11) streaming of all filetypes, not just “playable” ones.
Satellite Radio & Web radio support (Importance: Medium)
This one hasn’t materialized at all, and it is still a major frustration for me. Khidr has pined time and time again (and is actually in the process of writing a strongly worded letter to this effect) about having a way to experience new music, and this is an area that Microsoft doesn’t really offer a viable solution. Having a Pandora/Slacker/Last.fm-style service that works (not only with Zune but) with Windows Media Player (or the Zune Software since it also has the capability to serve out some media to the 360) would be a wonderful benefit, and I’d use such a service heavily. I’d prefer ad-supported and subscription-based services, as well as support for streaming normal web radio stations that the PC sees.
Expanded Audio/Video Control (Importance: High)
Three pieces to this:
First, better “shuttle” controls of video and audio playback. While the audio playback functions have remained relatively stagnant, the arguably more important video playback controls have been developed significantly, with multiple FF/REW speeds and 10 auto-chapter-breaks for section skipping. I’ll take it.
Second, playlists for network content. I think my friends my smack me if I whine about this one any more. Still nothing, still offensive. While we’re at it, we should be getting video playlist support as well. Come on, guys, this one’s a biggie.
Third, custom visualizations. Completely absent. I would love a choice of more than 1 major viz here, but alas, nothing since launch except for the Vision Camera trails. I don’t really need a choice of dozens of visualizations, but even a couple (the PS3 currently has two, and both of them are pretty great) would be nice. I’ll not hold my breath for custom ones…
“Customer SDK” (Importance: Medium)
Sony must’ve read this memo…
The PS3 has already beat Microsoft to the punch on this one, and I don’t see Microsoft cutting off its revenue stream (however sad) of premium content themes (ones you have to pay for). It’s a damned shame, but something I think you have to sell your soul to Sony for if it’s important to you.
Windows Media Connect
Video Sharing/iPod Sharing & Miscellanea (Importance: Medium)
Also three components, two of which (video sharing from a Windows PC and the ability to select multiple Windows PC without bindings) are here and working fantastically. The third point is relatively minor, but I would still love to see it: iPod sharing through the network.
Game Features
Xbox (emulation)
Custom soundtracks (Importance: Medium)
This might actually require more trickery than a 360 title, being that it isn’t as tightly integrated into original Xbox title development, but this would be a great little perk. We’ve recently been blessed with the Xbox Originals program, so this would be a great time to dust those downloadable titles off with this groovy feature, and would certainly make them more attractive in this era of HD gaming.
Achievements (Importance: Medium)
Similar argument to the above, why not at least fold these into the Xbox Original titles?
Xbox 360
Integration of above audio features (Importance: High)
Obviously, the features (web radio, remote iPod, etc.) would have to be implemented before they could be folded into the Guide blade, but I have high hopes that would be the case if ever see them.
Game Control Options (Importance: High)
Keyboard/mouse support. Again, the PS3 has allowed this per game, so it stands to reason that the 360 (which understands keyboards already) could do this. I also requested a place to manage bindings per game somewhere in the dashboard (and prefereably hidden in the Guide as well), but I am skeptical about a universal option for this. I’ve spent quite a bit of time getting used to a gamepad for FPS titles, but I still would love to have this option.
I also requested custom bindings at the OS level, per title, removing the burden of coding this from the developers. To be honest, it might be a bit too late to fold this into the batter, but I’d still love for this to be considered.
* * *
Surprisingly, there is one other major function that I am now pulling for that wasn’t mentioned: multi-party chat. I always thought of it as a “nice to have” when I lived up North, but since moving to Texas, gaming with Tygerfyr and Khidr is a way for the three of us to catch up, and it’s quite irritating to have to jump into a game just for the three of us to chat. And when the game changes, we all lose communication until we launch the next game! This has risen to the top of my request list, and I hope to see it in the next dashboard update. There was some silly nonsense about not including this and why two years ago on the Xbox Dev Team blog, but it isn’t very well articulated or convincing. My hope is that they will see the light and bring this feature to this generation’s most social console.
So…did I miss anything?
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