I have played with the updated Xbox 360 dashboard for a few weeks, and really am enjoying several of the new features. The new additions that I like are better support for using an Xbox Live account on multiple Xboxes and improved support for new video content sources.
Multi-Xbox support
We have two Xboxes in our house. The second Xbox is upstairs, and has been used mainly as a Windows Media Extender and as a way to watch Netflix and Hulu content. We haven’t used it to play games because it was too much of a pain to either recover our Gamertags or copy the profile and saved games to a USB thumb stick.
With the new Dashboard update, Microsoft added two features that help with users with multiple Xboxes.
Roaming Profile
Microsoft renamed “recovering” profiles to “downloading” profiles. With this you can “download” a profile on multiple consoles, with specifying the live.com password. This allows you to use the same Xbox Live account on multiple consoles (though not at the same time.) With this functionality, I am able to play a game on the upstairs Xbox while my wife or kids are watching something else on the downstairs TV.
Microsoft announced several things at the opening keynote for the 2011 E3 conference and in a release. Personally, I am interested in some of the announcements:
Xbox Live Cloud Storage
Integrated search
Live TV features
Xbox Live Cloud Storage
With Xbox Live Cloud Storage, you should be able to keep your profile, and some game saves on the Xbox Live servers. This should allow you to go to any network connected Xbox, and log into your profile. This is better than the Gamertag recovery that you have to go through now. For users that choose to keep their profile online, I wonder what happens if the user tries to use the account when they aren’t online.
Integrated Search
I have mentioned before that it is hard to find a particular piece of content that you are interested in, especially with the various content provider. For example, if my kids wants to watch a movie, I currently look on Netflix, then Hulu, then in the Zune Marketplace. The new integrated search should make this easier.
Live TV
Microsoft is supposed to be providing access to live TV content. I don’t know which content partner they will be working with, but I am more interested in how open they allow this to be. For example, I want to be able to plug in the following sources into my Xbox
UPnP ATSC tuners
Windows Media Centers
Microsoft was promoting Kinect control of the Live TV experience. I hope that they also improve the experience when using an Xbox media remote control. This would reduce the barrier for switching to the Xbox in our house.
I just finished the main story in L.A. Noire this week. This is a great game. I have liked other Rockstar games like GTA4 and Red Dead Redemption, and L.A. Noire has some of the same qualities. The main thing that I like about these games is the story in the games. With each of these games, I want to continue playing to find out what happens in the store. Also, each of these games have worlds that are great to explore.
L.A. Noire is not as much of an open world game as GTA4 or Red Dead Redemption. While playing the game, you can either work on the main case, or respond to various street crimes. You can also find various things hidden around the map. The fact that L.A. Noire isn’t as much of an open world game isn’t a negative for the game. In fact, it works well, as it keep the player more focused on the main story.
I think that this could be a pretty good product that I would like. I think that this could be something that would help simplify my setup.
Announcement hopes:
Here is what I hope the announcement will be:
The box will be about the size of a Roku or Apple TV
It would run a version of Windows that has been stripped to only allow Windows Media Center to run.
Windows Media Center already supports Netflix streaming
Windows Media Center plugins would still be allowed to run
This would help prevent software conflicts
The box would automatically update itself from Microsoft’s servers
These devices would also be Media Center Extenders
This would allow you to buy a few of them for a house, and be able to watch the same content in all rooms.
There would be two SKUs. One with a hard drive for content, and one that would only stream content from other sources.
The SKU with the hard drive would allow the user to store content, and playback from the local hard drive.
These would also support Zune Marketplace to get access to video and audio content (as the Xbox 360 does).
These devices would also be UPnP AV client.
These would support USB or UPnP TV tuners, to allow viewing or recording (for the SKU that has the hard drive) of TV content.
Since Microsoft already has the Xbox, this device would need to be cheaper than the existing versions of the Xbox. I would think that the version without the hard drive would be $100, and the version with the hard drive would be $200.
We got a Kinect a few weeks ago, and have really been enjoying it. There are some interesting features/behavior of the implementation:
You can sign into your Xbox Live account with facial recognition, but if you have a PIN on your profile, you will only be logged into your local profile, but not logged in online.
While some games let use your avatar while playing, and some will use facial recognition to log into your account, I haven’t seen any game that will correctly choose a show more than one avatar, when two people are playing.
You are not able to use voice or hand controls to do everything in the dashboard. For example:
You can’t use voice or use your body to control Netflix playback
You can’t open the DVD tray with your voice.
You should definitely plan on redoing the KinectID calibration multiple times, to make the facial recognition work well.
A while ago, I mentioned that my wife bought me the new slim Xbox 360. I was trying to decide where I wanted to set up the old Xbox. We have been using Linksys Media Center Extenders on each of the other TVs around the house, to give them access to the content on the Media Center. But the Linksys extenders do not support other content like Netflix streaming.
I decided to set up the Xbox in our bedroom. (And got the OK from my wife too.) I have configured it to automatically start up in Media Center Extender mode when the Xbox starts up. Since I want to access our Netflix streaming account from the Xbox, I created a Xbox Live Gold account for the Xbox, and associated my Netflix account to this Xbox account.
Today I bought a new microSD card for my phone. My son also wanted a SD card for his Nintendo DSi. He wanted to use it to put music on for playback. So I figured that I would give him the 2GB card that was I was using in my phone.
When I copied some mp3 files to an SD card, and they were not playable. It looks like the Nintendo DSi only plays AAC files. On their web page they link to the Nero software where they sell it for $6. You can do the same thing for free with iTunes.
This post talks about the Video Games downloads that Microsoft announced at this past E3. With what they are planning, any one who has an Xbox 360 connected to the network, can download full games directly to the console’s hard drive.
I think that this is great, especially if you can save money over buying a game on disc.
I think that the Project Natal demonstrations show some pretty cool technology. I think that, if this actually ships, this will easily give the Xbox 360 an easy way into the casual gaming market, and could be a serious competitor to the Nintendo Wii.
Project Natal, use a camera/microphone device to allow you to interact with the Xbox interface. Facial and voice recognition allows a deeper interaction than the Nintendo Wii implements.
Below, I have embedded several videos of Project Natal. I hope that when it actually ships it does just half as much as is shown in these videos.
