Adam Creighton, Computer and Video Gaming: New Xbox 360 features, accessory (or, "How the InterWeb Won")

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Adam Creighton, Computer and Video Gaming (Subscribe)

Monday, April 09, 2007

New Xbox 360 features, accessory (or, "How the InterWeb Won")

Last night, Microsoft confirmed new Xbox 360 feature enhancements coming in May, and announced a new text input device ("Look for this new accessory this summer").

Details are below, but more interesting to me, it looks like Microsoft got pushed to announce this stuff earlier than intended.

The Xbox 360 dashboard update won't happen until "the week of May 7", but details were allegedly leaked via video from GameSpot.com this weekend. Then, details of a QWERTY input device were leaked (allegedly also from a GameSpot.com site, albeit in another region).

So, last night (during the Easter holiday) Microsoft issued a press release, and Major Nelson announced it on his site, after he said he wasn't going to do his weekly show due to the holiday. The holiday timing and change of heart tell me this was a rush job to get the information out to folks. That was probably a fun phone call to Larry as he was enjoying dinner with the fam (I've gotten those kinds of calls before).

To me, as a development, product, and marketing guy, this PR shuffle is interesting.

Anyway, back to the announcement itself.

The big things are a new text input accessory (fulfilling the tease from an August 2005 image leaked in a Microsoft presentation) and integration with Windows Live Messenger, something I've been harping on for a looong time (October 2005; November 2005; May 2006; July 2006). Lost in the shuffle is chat support for USB keyboards (though I'me really hoping for support of wireless keyboards).

Oh, Engadget.com says the keyboard accessory won't work with existing headsets, and comes with its own; hopefully, this means existing wired headsets.

Here's an abbrebiated version of the new features, with full details available on Xbox.com (and like the last major dashboard update, it repeats feature items more than once):

"provide Xbox 360 owners worldwide with access to Windows Live Messenger features"
"use Windows Live Messenger to text chat with up to six people on their contact list at one time, while playing games, listening to music, or watching movies"
chat support for USB keyboards
"richer Achievement notification pop-up"
"Enhanced family settings features for Xbox Live communications"
"new Xbox Live Marketplace blade"
updates to Xbox Live Arcade (XLA) so you can see which Xbox Live Arcade games friends are playing and more easily join
"Tell a Friend" capabilities
Auto Downloads provides faster access to free, trial-version XLA games
play, fast-forward, rewind, pause, and resume partially videos before they're fully downloaded
set the Xbox 360 console to turn off automatically after downloads complete
name of game in tray is now displayed in the dashboard (Xbox1 games show the name and image of the game)
when tray icon highlighted, displays list of achievements, game icon and gamerscore for that game
playback progress bar indicates download completion
improved skip forward, skip back functionality during video playback (fully or partially downloaded)
switchable aspect ratio during video playback (Auto to Letterbox, Zoom, Stretch, Native)
player and friends lists now quickly show session presence information
support for streaming WM-DRM protected content from a PC
folder view for video content on connected devices
H.264 video support
MPEG-4 Part 2 video support
folder hierarchy for video content played from all devices
bookmarks stored for each video, remembering the user's last location in the file and aspect ratio user choose for that file
skip forward and backward functionality has been improved to skip to the next or previous chapter (videos divided into 10 “chapters”)
information bar turned on via the On Screen Display (OSD) now shows exactly where you are in the playback of the video file and download progress
system will determine if there is sufficient disk space for the item and, if not, will ask the user to delete content on the HDD (includes improved prioritization for deletion process
console will block the user who attempts to download content onto a storage device that will never have the capacity to store the item without deducting any Microsoft points associated with the content item
screensaver is disabled when playing photos from any source

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SOURCES: Gamespot.com, joystiq.com, kotaku.com, Xbox.com, IGN, GameInformer, Official XBox Magazine, CNN, gamesindustry.biz, and others.

Adam Creighton, Computer and Video Gaming (Subscribe)

Monday, April 09, 2007

New Xbox 360 features, accessory (or, "How the InterWeb Won")

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