New interface + avatars = Totally reinvented Xbox 360?
- July 23rd, 2008
- 3 Comments
Would do you call Nintendo-inspired avatars and a Cover Flow rip-off anything less than a “transformation”? Not if you’re Microsoft, apparently.
Speaking at Gamefest yesterday, the CTO of Microsoft’s games division said the following about the upcoming Dashboard re-design:
What this does is reinvent the Xbox. I don’t think any one has ever done this before – transformed a console during its lifecycle.
You could argue that the Blades interface had grown too big and cluttered for its own good—so much scrolling—but to claim that that and a bunch of silly avatars are So Damn Amazing is a bit much.
My friends and I will never create an avatar and be all, “Wow, that’s me!” Leave that casual gaming fluff to the casual gamers and their Wii.
Transform, indeed, Optimus.
via Kotaku
tgrass21 (Who am I?)
2 months ago
The avatars were hardly invented by Nintendo and even though it is kinda of lame for the 360’s hardcore fan base, the avatars really widen the appeal to casual gamers. The more people that buy 360’s the better, then MS has tons of capital to put into more exlusives and evolving Xbox Live even more.
The game show channel is actually very inovative as well as the Netflix deal. Renting and streaming movies over Xbox Live with your friends online is a pretty nice stride for social networking. Playing game shows with thousands of real people for real money and prizes is huge.
Paying 70% of profits to closet game designers that used XNA to create an Xbox Live arcade game…that’s pretty sweet too !
AlexNC (Who am I?)
2 months ago
They are not ripping anyone off. They are just evolving the 2 year old Zune user interface. I think it will be a great, needed change for the Xbox 360. It’s nice to see Microsoft unifing this GUI throughout all their products. I think they call it the “Twist”. It works very well for the Zune, so I expect it to transition well over to the 360 too.
Though, the true revolutionary new feature is 8-player party system throughout all games (even old ones). This is going to revolutionize the way friends play games together. No more jumping around from server to server, sending invites each time, hoping to get on the same team, and hoping you don’t have some want-to-be hip hop star singing in their mics.
Tim (Who am I?)
3 weeks ago
It’s not a cover flow ripoff. It’s a passive feature in Windows Vista made active on the XBox 360. The author sounds like another “M$” hater that is just spouting the same stuff he’s heard before. You go, bro! Fight the man!