mikemariano

Xbox Live: Threat or Menace?

  

29 members have voted

  1. 1. Is Xbox Live a threat or a menace?

    • Threat.
      2
    • Menace.
      11
    • Donk.
      16


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Yikes. I can't say I'm a fan of the App Store. I certainly wouldn't consider it a high watermark for usability(!). Steam is pretty good, though.

Browsing the store in Steam is not great. The scrolly list thing (where you hit "Next 10" and it rolls to the next ten items) which doesn't save your place if you go back to it after looking at an item is basically useless. The whole thing could be a lot more responsive, and could be far better at formatting itself for different window sizes. The more I think about it, the more I realize it's quite bad.

Of course, we're speaking comparatively about a bunch of services which are all at different levels of oafishness. I don't think Apple's App Stores, Xbox's Dashboard, Sony's Xross Media Bar or any other such thing that I've used lately is particularly well designed.

I guess this stuff is pretty hard, or someone would have gotten it right.

They should all be more like this:

segachanneldemo000.png

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

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I explained in the gamertag thread that I caved in and bought a used Xbox S version for cheap price.

I wasn't interested in the gold account as I didn't really know what differences are between normal and gold account. MS was offering 1 month for 1 euro, but I thought I don't need it. Then next page came a pop up saying that they offer one month for free if I take it. Wtf was that force feeding?

Well, I'm weak against free offers so I took it. Annoyingly it still asked me for my credit card details.

About the UI I can't say much. I dislike the ads quite a lot, but I have no idea how the UI was before.

Also I think Steam is kind of ok service, but the client is really heavy and slow. It's quite unbelievable when you think how much money they get and still they don't hire someone to fix and design the client to work better and faster.

GOG has always worked fine for me. There I have really no big complaints. Except their discounts are always -50%, they could work on that aspect a bit.

PSN I have only used with PSP and the design is quite horrible. Hard to find stuff fast.

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Well, I'm weak against free offers so I took it. Annoyingly it still asked me for my credit card details.

That's because Microsoft is going to automatically renew your subscription at the end of the free month. Make sure you go to Xbox.com and disable Auto-renew "feature".

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Yeah I noticed it showing information that they will automatically take money from me in september.

After today morning's session with the UI I can pretty much say it works fast without any slowdowns, is a horrible mess to find anything, but still tries to be pretty for the masses.

Isn't that basically the same as the Metro UI?

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This: "horrible mess to find anything", where "anything" = Video games I own and want to play, or would otherwise like to purchase. This is not a ideal for a Video game console.

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Okay I just need to take a minute to rant about this, because I think most of you are being insane.

I like the new dashboard in comparison to the old one. I have also NEVER accidentally clicked an ad. In fact, I hardly ever notice them. Half the ads seem to be for games, the other half for movies or shows. Right now the main square tile to the right of the home tab is cycling ads for only games and movies. Some about new game/DLC releases, which, seems pretty relevant since its a gaming console after all. In fact, if its a game I already own, its basically a notification telling me that there is more content for it to enjoy. Steam does those annoying ass popups when a game you own has new DLC. To me thats way worse then a passive picture.

As soon as you move off the home tab, the ads become stupider. Right now I see one for the Lorax on Blu Ray, and some shit about Adele. I guess thats like, 1% annoying, but I also almost move off the home tab maybe 1/50 times I use my Xbox. The only time I use any function on the dashboard, besides the two buttons immediately under the home tab, is when I want to download an XBLA game. Since all XBLA games cost like $15 now, and are usually buggy and shite, I rarely do that anymore. When I do, its a quick flick over to the games tab, then a few more button presses to get to "New Releases". Even Splunky, which isnt really a new release anymore, is still listed on there and I could find it with 15 seconds.

Sure its not streamlined for usability. Its like 10 clicks/thmbstick movements to get from the start page to clicking on the newest XBLA release. But the menu is so fluid and quick, and the content loads way faster and is easier to spot compared to the old dashboard.They show you huge pictures of the box art and you can scroll through them without any loading. The old dashboard was always slow as fuck for me, and you only got a list of text and a small icon. There is also the option of using the Bing search, which even with just the controller, is super easy to use and removes all the navigating.

The only spots that are explicitly labeled "advertising" are mostly videos smaller then the size of a playing card that dont even make any noise or anything unless I hover over them, and since they are in the corner Im not sure how you would ever accidentally get there. You would have to purposefully move your thumbstick past everything else to get there for it to make any noise, and then even if you click it you can instantly back out, its not like you are forced to watch it.

I will admit that this is the first time Ive ever been to the Music page on my Xbox dashboard, and I was about to say that it was awesome that I could click one of the ads and instantly see the music video for a new song. But then it actually turned out that it wanted me to pay $2 for a 480p version of the music video. So that was lame, and flabbergasting. Especially since not only is every music video available for free in 1080p on Youtube, but you can watch Youtube on your Xbox.

But besides that... I see no problem with how they do advertising on the Xbox dashboard, from the standpoint of a user.

This shows a short clip of the old dashboard. Half the fucking UI is taken up with borders and embossing, and comparatively ads take up just as much, or even more space per page (even though there are less ads overall).

(skip to 0:45, i guess embedding dosent support autojumping to a time)

Scrolling through tiny text listings with little icons seems like a much bigger bitch, especially since for me, scrolling through the list quickly always meant waiting about 5 seconds for them to load. Now I get to see more preview content, and it quicker. I think people are forgetting how the old dashboard wasent that good either.

I am even pretty active when it comes to looking at advertising. If im on the Subway I look at every ad. If im on Facebook I look at the ads at least every other day, and even click them occasionally. But I have NEVER ever accidentally clicked an ad on the 360 dashboard or found them distracting. Not once.

Now, I agree its a rook to charge the user so much if they are also supported by advertising. And if I was a company I would be blown away by the price of these ads (really, a 15-30% fee to target your advertising, thats just about a standard thing everywhere else). 300k to control an ad spot for the day is a lot, but not a bad deal. If MS is telling you that there a few million people going to that page, and that the only ad in rotation in that spot is yours, you are getting pretty decent exposure.

Id also like to say that in comparison, PSN is SHIT for finding anything. I have had times when I knew what I was looking for and I couldnt even find it, and they barely even have ads in the way.

Browsing the store in Steam is not great. The scrolly list thing (where you hit "Next 10" and it rolls to the next ten items) which doesn't save your place if you go back to it after looking at an item is basically useless. The whole thing could be a lot more responsive, and could be far better at formatting itself for different window sizes. The more I think about it, the more I realize it's quite bad.

This to me is so much more annoying. I much rather see ads that I can gloss over, then have to navigate an entire fucking UI EVERYTIME I click a game and then go back to the listing. That is shit.

Also shit:

-Steam asking you for your birthdate when you click certain game pages - you have my account info, you know my god damn age.

-When the Steam store just dosent work for no reason until you restart or click about for a minute.

-How shit the Steam Store gets EVERY year during the big sales.

-Getting spam invites to game groups called "HardC0re COD Playerz" on a weekly basis. (and no option to disable that afaik)

So dont forget that other competitors have problems as well.

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I unsubscribed last year after hardly turning on my 360 in a year. I played massive amounts of Halo 2 and CoD4 when they were big, but the people I played with dwindled and I was able to afford a decent PC from 2008. The incentive to buy 360 games for the XBL features/friends is non existent for me now. XBLA games eventually come out on PC, I doubt there'll be many more XBLA only ones like Radiant Silvergun or Bangai-O.

I've started buying multiplatform stuff on PS3 if PC isn't an option. I can play Dark Souls online without even thinking about whether I have a subscription or not. When I turn it on I'm not offended by the disgusting interface, it's actually pretty classy. There's the sense of wonder that you should always get when you turn on a console. Turning on the 360 is like wallpapering my living room with happy meal packaging.

Jet Set Radio HD will be on PC whereas a couple of years ago it would probably have been XBLA only. We truly live in a golden age.

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