Be Excellent To Each Other

There's a new Xbox dashboard update coming today. I've been using the beta for a few weeks and while there's nothing major (apart from Internet Explorer) there is a few nice touches.

The main ones being that the games tab is now the third one along after social.
There's a 'pins' box under quick play. Basically a favourites box.
There's a few recommendations boxes to show you new games based on what you've already played. I'm not sure how these work as it seemed to pick a random selection of my games and base other games on those.
The voice search is meant to be better but I don't use it.. Like everyone else I imagine.
There's also more space for adverts but, I can't see as anyone would be surprised about this.

And erm.. That's about it I think. Internet Explorer does the job exactly as you'd expect it to. It's very similar to IE on my phone so I was already used to it but, I like it. It's a welcome addition.

More here.. http://majornelson.com/

Does it not have Xbox Music that was apparently in the beta? Or was that a separate thing? I don't remember exactly, one of my friends was talking about it (he's a sucker for the betas too).

Edit: Scratch that, reading fail.

So it's finally getting a browser? Why the frig have they left it until now?

They don't want their consoles being pwnd en masse so waited until they had a decent mobile browser to port. They've also waited long enough that people won't be outraged by the lack of Flash, but I'm sure that's a coincidence.

Oh yeah, Xbox music. That's on there but since it's bloomin' expensive, I haven't tried it.

Apparently it's great if all you use to play music is Microsoft products.

I have to admit that the Wii's Opera Browser and Wiimote combi worked really well.

Always surprised by how MS left the 360 high and dry browser wise.

...360's support mouse and keyboards don't they?

Did I just hear AE faint?

Apparently Smartglass will be the alternative to a mouse and keyboard but that's not out until the 26th.

I'm quite looking forward to that.

Smartglass? If you have an iPad or whatever then why would you even bother to use the browser on a console.

Bigger norks.

For showing people stuff, or for watching streaming video on big screen with decent speakers.

Yeah I can see how that might be really useful, at least once or twice every decade.

Does smartglass mean I can control the XBox from my phone? have I understood this right?

you can do that now to an extent.

Basically, yes. Although what exactly you'll be able to do from your phone will be application/game specific so it's not like your phone will be able to universally take the place of an actual Xbox controller or anything.

As far as I understand it, you'll be able to use it a remote control for media playing apps (so think pause/ffwd/etc) and some games will present further info on the phone and maybe allow you to use the phone for sub-functions e.g. display a map for the game you're playing on the phone or maybe allow you to select items from an inventory or something.

Only if you've got a Windows Phone as I understand it? The new stuff will be available on iOS and Android as well.

This would suit my needs perfectly. Anything else would be a bonus, thank you for the information.

You can already use your phone to control the dashboard and media stuff with the xbox app.

I can use my iphione now as a remote on my xbox..

What's the xbox app called?

Fair enough, I stand corrected. In my defence I use the PS3 rather than Xbox for media duties so it's not something I investigated in a lot of detail.

Actually it seems that the Android version of the current official Xbox app doesn't allow it to be used as remote control.

I tried this with my iPad. I thought it was alright except that it takes far too long if you need to pause something for some reason. So now I just use the pad or the cheap Xbox remote that I bought for a fiver somewhere.

A ha! That's why I was confused. Can I put it on my ipod?

This seems like the only place I'll ever get to say this, but what the hell...

Get a Windows Phone!

I can't think of a reason why not. I can't check the page myself due to fucking Websense* but the details of the app are here.

*Which makes no fucking sense at all. It's filtered under the category "Freeware and MP3 Download" even though you can't physically download anything from the fucking website. Idiots.

Thanks. I'll check it out at home.

This has now landed...nowt much to report on first inspection, bit of a cosmetic make over as far as I can see with the exception of Facebook and Twitter being removed (which I never used anyway), the merging of Videos, TV and Films being moved into one place and the addition of IE. IE is implemented as well as anyone could expect.

There are more adverts than before, all taking up more room than before. Fuck off!

Someone pointed out that there are now 33% more adverts on the front page , and if your a gold member your paying Microsoft to show them to you.

Still - in about a years time the 720 will be out and if Sony / Nintendo dont f**k things up enough they might have to either give gold for free or at least give some of the gold features away

(I know Sony has a platinum medal in shooting itself in the foot but if they have the PS4 launch at around the same time and give the standard network stuff for free with PS+ as the 'extras' and Microsoft do not then MS will lose a lot of their current subscribers to Sony)

I'm not convinced of this; if the only thing that differentiated the two platforms to people was 'price of online gaming access' then Sony would have ruined MS years ago. As that didn't happen there are obviously other factors at work so MS could carry on charging for Gold access on the next platform and not suddenly lose all their customers.

Of course, you did pay Sony for their online access as part of the higher console price. See also wireless connections and Blu-ray-i-ness.

Will the 720 be able to have a BR player, or is there a license issue?

I don't mind the adverts that much, but I wish they were more targeted. I've never played a Fifa game and have no intention of ever playing one but I still keep seeing adverts for it.

Microsoft launched first and 'brought along' your friends list from the original Xbox , and as mentioned Sony are experts at taking a great idea and so f*cking it up that its useless (the patch and firmware jumps for the PS3 are beyond a joke and then they didnt even implement the security stuff correctly so all of their keys were useless - compare that with Xbox and a yearly 'dashboard' change which is smooth and painless)

Sonys online offerings this generation have previously been totally useless but are getting to be better , but if your a new player right now looking to buy your going to get whichever system has more of your friends on it (for example there are more people in the place I work playing on PS3's and anyone asking which system to get in the last few years has been pointed to the PS3 as that's where 'everyone' is).

For the 'new' generation if your going back to scratch it will depend what each console offers - if they launch at a similar time with a similar spec then range of games and online options are going to play into it more and the fact your going to have to pay out £X a year just to play online with Microsoft *should* be something that Sony exploits and wins customers with.

I dont rule out the fact that Sony could of course totally f**k it all up again by doing stupid things but I dont think the next generation is going to be 'automatically' Microsofts



If Microsoft put a BR player in then they would need to pay a fee to Sony for each console made , however as an example the disks for the Wii U are 'similar' to Bluray (30 - 40 gigs a disk?) but are not actually Bluray disks so they do not need to pay that fee.

No chance. "Subsidised hardware pivitol to success"

Licensing fees aren't paid to Sony, they are paid to the Blu-Ray forum; Sony is a founding member of that but only one amongst many. This is exactly the same as for DVD playback licensing.

But I can't watch a BluRay movie on it, right? That's a reason lots of my friends went for the PS3.

The key thing here though is that most people aren't going back to scratch. Earlier in your post you mentioned that a selling point of the Xbox at the beginning of the last generation was the migration of your friends lists so I'm not sure why you don't think that will matter this time round? Indeed the lock-in could be even more compelling depending on the backwards compatibility. If either platform can promise some amount of backwards compatibility then, in this age of XBLA/PSN, it's surely even less likely than last generation that people will move from one side to the other?

Unrelatedly: I don't think for a second MS will make the mistake of not having Bluray playback capabilities in their next console as it would be to throw a massive selling point under a bus.

Yes but a cut of the total fee they would pay would go back to Sony (apologies i'm not suggesting they pay Sony directly but pay the consortium of which Microsoft is not a part but Sony is)



The Wii-U will not play bluray disks , in the same way the Wii (without hacking it) will not play DVD disks (because Nintendo did not pay the licensing fee to allow DVD playback)



It will be a factor



Yes *if* that happens , however given the way that Sony have monetized their back catalog on the PS3 (after binning the initial backward compatibility) and that Microsoft 'sell' original Xbox games on their service I think its less likely that you'll get it in the next consoles by simply putting a disk in instead they will sell it to you in some way.



I dont think they will and they will just go for streaming I'm not convinced that allowing users to play their bluray disks in the machine is that much of an advantage for Microsoft at this point (if they were that serious would they not have tried to do something similar to their HD-DVD system for bluray a few years ago when it would have potentially shut down one of the selling points of the PS3?)

I'm slowly getting rid of all the blurays / dvd's I have and i'm not buying new ones - in the same way that i no longer buy music cd's - everythings going to be digital so if the next consoles have a high density drive then its not a selling point for me that one plays blurays and the other does not (although I understand it will be a selling point for others)

Will the new Playstation still have that fucking awful controller? That is the deal breaker for which console I get...

I hope they bring back the banana/boomerang designed controller.

This is my biggest concern. Even my 'much nicer than the standard ps3 controller' ps3 controller isn't as good as the xbox one, sadly. Other than that, I'm rather leaning towards the next playstation.

Are we doing the "there's no way the 720 will be backwards compatible" thing again? There's no fucking way it won't be! Even Microsoft would get shitty-arsed about telling the millions of people who've spent a fortune on XBLA games to keep their 360s if they want to play them in future.

It's hardly unprecedented. Sadly for those who care, the vast majority don't.

I agree that history doesn't paint a great picture, but they'd completely undermine their entire digital games marketplace if they didn't work on the 720.

In fact, I'd argue that this situation is entirely unprecedented. This is the first generation where digital downloads have taken the forefront.

/looks at the device he's writing this post with
/and his phone

IDGI! Isn't your phone backwards compatible?

Mine is when I call your Mum.

New dashboard. Dislike.

a download just doesn't come close to a decent bluray unfortunately.

I tried to sign up for my free Netflix trial on the ps3 tonight. 'enter your Facebook or Netflix account details to continue' it said.

the digital future is not rushing the dollars out of my wallet yet.